DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 7/10/2025 is partially considered.
The non-patent literature on the information disclosure statement filed 7/10/2025 fails to comply with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97, 1.98 and MPEP § 609 because the non-patent literature is in not in English and an English translation or a concise explanation of the relevance in English is required. It has been placed in the application file, but the information referred to therein has not been considered as to the merits. Applicant is advised that the date of any re-submission of any item of information contained in this information disclosure statement or the submission of any missing element(s) will be the date of submission for purposes of determining compliance with the requirements based on the time of filing the statement, including all certification requirements for statements under 37 CFR 1.97(e). See MPEP § 609.05(a).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1, 5-8, 11, and 28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over McIntosh (US 20240008458) in view of Humal (WO 2013143552), Kueneman et al. (US 5509846), hereinafter Kueneman, and Davidi et al. (US 11612145), hereinafter Davidi.
Regarding claim 1, McIntosh teaches of a pollination system (for use with a beehive, which houses pollinators) comprising:
(A) an enclosure configured to house an insect nest (fig. 11, beehive 1101); and
(B) a gate system (apparatus 1102) operatively connected to the enclosure (¶0096, figs. 3 and 11, apparatus 304, which is analogous to apparatus 1102, blocks the hive entrance and requires all bees entering the beehive through one of the six ports 30, which is analogous to entrance ports 1303 shown in fig. 13), the gate system comprising:
(i) an exit gate assembly (fig. 18, ¶0145, the six ports can be used as an entrance or an exit from the beehive; any one or more of the ports that the bees exit from an exit gate assembly);
(ii) an entrance gate assembly (fig. 18, ¶0145, the six ports can be used as an entrance or an exit from the beehive; any one or more of the ports that the bees enter from is an entrance gate assembly);
(iii) a vision system (fig. 13, visual classification sensor 1307) configured to capture images of insects within the exit gate assembly and the entrance gate assembly (¶0030-0032 and ¶0134, visual classification sensor 1307 is mounted on the apparatus centerline and provides high resolution video and static images of the bees entering and exiting the beehive to the classification software); and
(C) a controller (¶0145, control computer) configured to operate the exit gate assembly and the entrance gate assembly (¶0145, To close the door, the control computer turns on a stepper motor (not shown) to drive the door forward into the entrance bar approximately 8 mm, which completely misaligns the door ports 1804 and entrance ports 1802. To reopen the door, the stepper motor reverses and pulls the door approximately 8 mm, again aligning the ports) based on insect count data associated with the number of insects in the enclosure based on the images captured by the vision system (¶0035-0036 and claim 7, automated closure mechanism of the doors can be controlled by the visual and audio classifications and control computer, allowing for regulation of entry to the beehive based on the classifications of insects attempting to enter. Insects classified as “a bee” are counted and logged as either entering or exiting the beehive.; ¶0148, the beekeeper can command the door to close for any activities that require bees to remain in the hive or to be outside the beehive, in which the beekeeper can base this decision based on the insect count from images captured by the vision system).
McIntosh does not appear to teach of (i) an exit gate assembly that operates to selectively allow insects to exit the nest;
(ii) an entrance gate assembly that operates independently of the exit gate assembly to allow insects to enter the nest but not exit the nest;
the enclosure being disposed within an enclosed farm environment that contains plants being grown in the farm environment;
a controller configured to allow only a predetermined number of insects out of the nest at one time depending on pollination requirements of the plants within the enclosed farm environment.
Humal teaches of (fig. 1) (i) an exit gate assembly that operates to selectively allow insects to exit (p. 11 lines 14-28, when a bee enters the observation chamber, a mite detection procedure is performed. Once the procedure is finished, one of the exit gates is opened, depending on the result: 315 if the bee is infected or 316 if the bee is not infected. The bee is selectively allowed to exit the chamber depending on the procedure’s result);
(ii) an entrance gate assembly (gate 314) that operates independently of the exit gate assembly to allow insects to enter the nest but not exit the nest (p. 11 lines 14-28, gate 314 is open to allow a bee to enter the observation chamber and independently closes from the exit gates 315, 316 to keep the bee inside the observation chamber).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified McIntosh to incorporate the teachings of Humal of (i) an exit gate assembly that operates to selectively allow insects to exit the nest; (ii) an entrance gate assembly that operates independently of the exit gate assembly to allow insects to enter the nest but not exit the nest in order to control the flow of bees entering and exiting the nest such that procedures to keep the nest safe can be performed, such as mite detection, and the system can act accordingly to keep the nest safe.
Kueneman teaches of the enclosure being disposed within an enclosed farm environment that contains plants being grown in the farm environment (col. 1 lines 11-23, beehives can be transported to areas in need of pollination services, such as greenhouses).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified McIntosh to incorporate the teachings of Kueneman of the enclosure being disposed within an enclosed farm environment that contains plants being grown in the farm environment in order to help pollinate plants in the enclosed farm environment, such as a greenhouse.
Davidi teaches of a controller configured to based on insect count data associated with the number of insects in the enclosure (fig. 4, col. 3 lines 7-14 and col. 16 lines 55-63, controller detects the colony size inside and outside of the beehive) to allow only a predetermined number of insects out of the nest depending on pollination requirements of the plants within the enclosed farm environment (col. 3 lines 63-col. 4 line 6, the pollination effectiveness comprises a predicted number of honeybees for delivery to the at least one crop for pollination thereof, and further comprising computing a current number of honeybees, and automatically generating instructions for ordering an additional number of honeybees for obtaining the current number when the current number is below the predicted number).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified McIntosh to incorporate the teachings of Davidi of a controller configured to allow only a predetermined number of insects out of the nest at one time depending on pollination requirements of the plants within the enclosed farm environment in order to optimize the pollination effectiveness as motivated by Davidi in col. 3 lines 63-col. 4 line 6 and prevent under-pollination and over-pollination of the plants.
Regarding claim 5, McIntosh as modified teaches of claim 1, and wherein the vision system comprises a camera (claim 2, the visual classification sensors are selected from the group consisting of visible light cameras, infrared cameras, LIDAR, laser scanners, and combinations thereof.)
Regarding claim 6, McIntosh teaches of claim 5, and wherein (fig. 13) the camera (1307) is disposed above at least one of the exit gate assembly or the entrance gate assembly (visual classification sensor 1307 is mounted above entrance and exit ports 1303).
Regarding claim 7, McIntosh as modified teaches of claim 5, but does not appear to teach of wherein the camera is disposed below at least one of the exit gate assembly or the entrance gate assembly.
Humal teaches of wherein the camera is disposed below at least one of the exit gate assembly or the entrance gate assembly (p. 3 lines 29-30, The cameras are positioned above the landing board and/or below the transparent landing board; p. 21 lines 5-22, The device's third embodiment comprises all the components from second embodiment, however the landing board is made from a transparent material and below it is located an extra, underside camera assembly, similar to previously described camera assembly, except that it is directed upwards from underneath of the landing board, giving a view of the bees' undersides. The bees enter and move along the landing board towards the hive entrance pass).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified McIntosh to incorporate the teachings of Humal of wherein the camera is disposed below at least one of the exit gate assembly or the entrance gate assembly in order to see the bees’ undersides as motivated by Humal in p. 3 lines 29-30.
Regarding claim 8, McIntosh teaches of claim 5, and (fig. 19) wherein the exit gate assembly (any one of the entrance bar ports 1902, which is analogous to the entrance ports of the other figures) and the entrance gate assembly (any other of the entrance ports 1902, which is analogous to the entrance ports of the other figures) share a first common wall (walls between each ports 1902; For example the leftmost port, which can be an entrance port, share a common wall with the port adjacent to it, which can be used as an exit port).
Regarding claim 11, McIntosh teaches of claim 8, and wherein the exit gate assembly and the entrance gate assembly share a second common wall (fig. 19, bottom floor is shared across the port entrance bar).
Regarding claim 28, McIntosh as modified teaches of claim 1, and wherein the insect nest is a bee hive (fig. 11, beehive 1101, abstract, invention is used for a beehive) and the insects are bees (bees live in beehives and the insects entering the beehives are bees).
Claims 2, 15, and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over McIntosh as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Byl (US 6213058).
Regarding claim 2, McIntosh as modified teaches of claim 1, and wherein (fig. 22) the exit gate assembly comprises:
a proximal portion (portion of the beehive leading into the entrance bar 2203);
a distal portion (lane structures 2202);
a middle portion disposed between the proximal and distal portions (inside of entrance bar 2203);
a first gate between the proximal and middle portions (fig. 18, entrance bar 1801, which is analogous to the entrance bar 2203 in fig. 22, has a door mechanism 1803); and
a second gate between the middle and distal portions (ports from the entrance bar 2203 to the lane structure 2202),
wherein the controller is configured to operate the first gate (door mechanism 1803) in sequence so that:
in a first step of the sequence, the first gate is opened to allow one or more insects to enter the middle portion from the proximal portion (¶0145, In the open position, the door ports 1804 align with the entrance bar ports 1802 and allow entry and exit from the beehive to the middle portion);
in a second step of the sequence, the first gate is closed (¶0145, To close the door, the control computer turns on a stepper motor (not shown) to drive the door forward into the entrance bar approximately 8 mm, which completely misaligns the door ports 1804 and entrance ports 1802); and
in a third step of the sequence, the second gate is opened (entrance bar ports 1802 are open, which is analogous to the entrance bar ports of entrance bar 2203 in fig. 22) to allow the one or more insects to enter the enclosed space from the middle portion through the distal portion (fig. 22, bees are allowed to pass through the entrance bar ports to the lane structure 2202 to enter the enclosed space surrounding the pollination system).
McIntosh does not appear to teach of wherein the controller is configured to operate the first and second gates in sequence.
Byl is in the field of sorting animals and teaches of (figs. 11-12) wherein the controller is configured to operate the first and second gates in sequence (col. 1 lines 34-67, the gates can be operated via any mechanism such as a programmable logic controller) so that:
in a first step of the sequence, the first gate is opened to allow one or more animals to enter the middle portion (data collection area at the middle of animal chute 10) from the proximal portion (portion where the animal enters from) (col. 3 lines 41-59, The gates 16, 18 open to the detected presence (e.g., breaking an infrared beam 28 or pressure of an animal against a gate) of the animal trying to enter the chute 10. The first gate 16 or second gate 18 opens to allow the animal to enter.);
in a second step of the sequence, the first gate is closed (claim 1, wherein an animal actuates the first gate to gain entrance to the data collection area and the first gate automatically locks once the animal passes the first gate upon entrance to the data collection area); and
in a third step of the sequence, the second gate is opened to allow the one or more animals to enter the enclosed space (fig. 13, pens that house the animals) from the middle portion through the distal portion (portion where the animal exits the data collection area and is lead to the enclosed space) (claim 1, an animal-actuated second gate moveable between an open position for egress out of the data collection area and a closed position barring the egress opening, wherein the second gate automatically locks once the first gate is passed, and wherein the second gate automatically unlocks after data collection to allow the animal to egress from the data collection area).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified McIntosh to incorporate the teachings of Byl of wherein the controller is configured to operate the first and second gates in sequence so that:
in a first step of the sequence, the first gate is opened to allow one or more insects to enter the middle portion from the proximal portion;
in a second step of the sequence, the first gate is closed; and
in a third step of the sequence, the second gate is opened to allow the one or more insects to enter the enclosed space from the middle portion through the distal portion in order to lock the animals/insects in the middle portion to collect data or sort the animals as desired by the user as motivated by the abstract in Byl.
Regarding claim 15, McIntosh as modified teaches of claim 2, and wherein the controller comprises a computing unit (¶0145, control computer would have a computing unit).
Regarding claim 16, McIntosh as modified teaches of claim 15, and wherein the computing unit comprises an insect detection module configured to detect locations of insects within the exit gate assembly and the entrance gate assembly at a point in time based on image data generated by the vision system (¶0115, The detect movement process 607 compares frame to frame changes to detect movement of insects within the visual classification sensor field of view. Examiner notes that detecting movement means detecting location of the insect within each frame).
Claims 3, and 12-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over McIntosh as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Put et al. (MA 33301), hereinafter Put.
Regarding claim 3, McIntosh as modified teaches of claim 1, but does not appear to teach of wherein the entrance gate assembly comprises a trap door configured to allow the insects to enter the nest while preventing the insects from exiting the nest.
Put teaches of (fig. 1) wherein the entrance gate assembly comprises a trap door configured to allow the insects to enter the nest while preventing the insects from exiting the nest (p. 10, In an alternative embodiment, the entrance to the hive could be with a one-way door, such as a trap door, a swing door.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified McIntosh to incorporate the teachings of Put of wherein the entrance gate assembly comprises a trap door configured to allow the insects to enter the nest while preventing the insects from exiting the nest in order to control the movement direction of the bees as motivated on p. 10 of Put.
Regarding claim 12, McIntosh teaches of claim 11, but does not appear to teach of wherein the second common wall is made of a translucent material.
Put teaches of wherein the wall is made of a translucent material (p. 4, the door should be made of a light and transparent material, preferably translucent).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified McIntosh to incorporate the teachings of Put of wherein the second common wall is made of a translucent material in order to see through the second common wall while reducing some amount of light passing though because light can influence the bee’s behavior during the foraging of the bees as motivated by Put on p. 8.
Regarding claim 13, McIntosh as modified teaches of claim 12, and (fig. 15) further comprising a lighting system (lighting board PCB slot 1505) positioned to direct light though the second common wall (¶0136, The lighting board PCB (not shown) extends through slot 1505 to provide uniform intensity and color distribution of the input port and lane structure 1503 for consistent insect classification, avoiding outside ambient light changes that may impair consistent classification. The lighting directs the light to the bottom common wall and as modified by Put, would have the light go through the translucent bottom common wall).
Regarding claim 14, McIntosh as modified teaches of claim 12, and wherein the first common wall is positioned opposite the second common wall (as best understood by the 112b rejection above, fig. 19, the first common wall is above the second common wall such that they are opposite from one another).
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over McIntosh as applied to claim 2 above, and further in view of Jeong (KR 20190127028).
Regarding claim 4, McIntosh as modified teaches of claim 2, but does not appear to teach of further comprising one or more servo motors that open and close the first and second gates.
Jeong teaches of (fig. 15) further comprising one or more servo motors (p. 9, moving drive motor 421 may be a servo motor) that open and close the first (first screen member 411) and second gates (second screen member 415) (p. 9, “In addition, both the first screen member 411 and the second screen member 415 may be moved. In this case, the first screen member 411 and the second screen member 415 may be moved in opposite directions as desirable; p. 17, In the present exemplary embodiment, a structure in which the second screen member 415 is moved through the movable driver 420 by connecting the movable driver 420 and the second screen member 415 is different from the movable driver 420. Of course, the first screen member 411 may be connected to move the first screen member 411 through the moving driver 420. In addition, two moving driving units are provided, the moving driving units 420 are connected to the first screen member 411 and the second screen member 415, respectively, and the respective moving driving units 420 are operated to be opposite to each other. Of course, the screen member 411 and the second screen member 415 may be moved in directions facing each other.”)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified McInotsh to incorporate the teachings of Jeong of further comprising one or more servo motors that open and close the first and second gates in order to use a highly efficient, compact, and potent motor that has more power than a stepper motor.
Claims 9-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over McIntosh as applied to claim 8 above, and further in view of Liu et al. (US 10375947), hereinafter Liu.
Regarding claim 9, McIntosh as modified teaches of claim 8, but does not appear to teach of wherein the first common wall is made of a transparent material.
Liu teaches of wherein the wall is made of a transparent material (fig. 8, col. 7 lines 5-16, transparent cover 810).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified McIntosh to incorporate the teachings of Liu of wherein the first common wall, or any of the walls, is made of a transparent material in order to allow the camera to better image the insects through the walls and see the insects as motivated by Liu in fig. 8 and col. 7 lines 5-16.
Regarding claim 10, McIntosh as modified teaches of claim 9, but does not appear to teach of wherein the camera is positioned to capture images of the insects within the exit gate assembly and the entrance gate assembly through the first common wall.
Liu further teaches of (fig. 8) wherein the camera (820) is positioned to capture images of the insects within the exit gate assembly (release tube 120) through the first common wall (transparent cover 810).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified McIntosh to incorporate the teachings of Liu of wherein the camera is positioned to capture images of the insects within the exit gate assembly and the entrance gate assembly through the first common wall in order to allow the camera to image through the walls and to better see the bees as motivated by Liu in fig. 8 and col. 7 lines 5-16.
Claim 17 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over McInotsh and as applied to claim 16 above, and further in view of Zha et al. (US 20180121764), hereinafter Zha.
Regarding claim 17, McIntosh as modified teaches of claim 16, but does not appear to teach of wherein the insect detection module is configured to output global insect location data within a horizontal and vertical reference frame at the point in time.
Zha teaches of (fig. 4) wherein the insect detection module is configured to output global insect location data within a horizontal and vertical reference frame at the point in time (¶0057, results view 402 of the insect detection module include localization information for one or more of the insects 314. The localization information may correspond to a set of coordinates of the image patch 302 (e.g. 3, 7) with respect to a fixed point).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified McIntosh to incorporate the teachings of Zha of wherein the insect detection module is configured to output global insect location data within a horizontal and vertical reference frame at the point in time in order to keep track of the locations of the insects being detected.
Claims 18 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over McInotsh as applied to claim 17 above, and further in view of Kodaira et al. (US 20180263223), hereinafter Kodaira.
Regarding claim 18, McIntosh as modified teaches of claim 17, but does not appear to teach of wherein the computing unit further comprises a middle portion insect count estimator module configured to estimate a current number of insects within the middle portion of the exit gate assembly based on the insect location data.
Kodaira teaches of (fig. 11, ¶0165) wherein the computing unit further comprises a middle portion count estimator module (fig. 11, fish count display 46, fig. 12, count fish A8) configured to estimate a current number of animals within the middle portion (region to be measured 44) of based on the animal location data (location of fish 47a, 47b).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified McIntosh to incorporate the teachings of Kodaira of wherein the computing unit further comprises a middle portion insect count estimator module configured to estimate a current number of insects within the middle portion of the exit gate assembly based on the insect location data in order to specify the count measurement to a specific region that the user is interested in.
Regarding claim 20, McIntosh as modified teaches of claim 18, and wherein the computing unit further comprises an insect tracker module configured to generate insect count adjustment data associated with a number of insects leaving and entering the entrance gate assembly (claim 4, wherein the classification and control computer classifies every insect as either “a bee” corresponding to the declared beehive species or “a pest” and logs the counts of insects entering or exiting the beehive based on their classification.).
Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over McInotsh as applied to claim 18 above, and further in view of Bierens et al. (EP 4033409), hereinafter Bierens.
Regarding claim 19, McIntosh as modified teaches of claim 18, but does not appear to teach of wherein the current numbers of insects within the middle portion is estimated with an exponential filter.
Bierens teaches of wherein the numbers of insects is estimated with an exponential filter (¶0037-0038, The function Pclut is an exponential function because some small amount of clutter may be allowed. Pclut is the clutter probability to evaluate how many detections of the insect occurred around the detection).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified McIntosh to incorporate the teachings of Bierens of wherein the current numbers of insects within the middle portion is estimated with an exponential filter in order to use a function that allows a small amount of clutter in the count number as motivated by Beirens in paragraph 0038 and to use a well-known model for population modeling, such as the bee population moving through the middle portion.
Claims 21-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over McInotsh, as applied to claim 20 above, and further in view of Preston (US 7188760).
Regarding claim 21, McIntosh as modified teaches of claim 20, and wherein the insect tracker module tracks the number of insects leaving and entering the entrance gate assembly by tracking insect trajectories within the entrance gate assembly within a predetermined period of time (claim 4, wherein the classification and control computer classifies every insect as either “a bee” corresponding to the declared beehive species or “a pest” and logs the counts of insects entering or exiting the beehive based on their classification; Examiner notes that this tracking is during a predetermined period of time).
McIntosh does not appear to teach of determine an increase or decrease in a number of insects within the enclosed space.
Preston is in the field of counting and teaches of determine an increase or decrease in a number of people within the enclosed space (col. 3 lines 33-45, The processing assembly 16 calculates the number of times the intake switch member 18 has been actuated and subtracts the number of times the outtake switch member 22 has been actuated and displays that total on the count display member 17 to represent the number of people in the establishment.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified McIntosh to incorporate the teachings of Preston of determine an increase or decrease in a number of insects within the enclosed space in order to track the number of insects within the beehive.
Regarding claim 22, McIntosh as modified teaches of claim 21, and wherein the insect tracker module generates the insect count adjustment data using a filtering technique (claim 4, filters the data based on if the insect is classified as a bee or “a pest” and if the insect is entering or leaving the beehive).
Regarding claim 23, McIntosh as modified teaches of claim 22, but does not appear to teach of wherein the filtering technique comprises Kalman filtering, nearest neighbor, extended Kalman filtering or unscented Kalman filtering.
Davidi teaches of wherein the filtering technique comprises nearest neighbor, (col. 14 lines 8-17, machine learning model(s) 120A may be implemented, for example, as one or combination of: a classifier, a statistical classifier, one or more neural networks of various architectures, support vector machines (SVM), logistic regression, k-nearest neighbor, decision trees, boosting, random forest, a regressor and the like).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified McIntosh to incorporate the teachings of Davidi of wherein the filtering technique comprises nearest neighbor in order to use a filtering technique algorithm that has ease of implementation, interpretability, and no assumptions about data distribution.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 24-27 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-28 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
The cited references made of record in the contemporaneously filed PTO-892 form and not relied upon in the instant office action are considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure, and may have one or more of the elements in Applicant’s disclosure and at least claim 1.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ZOE TRAN whose telephone number is (571)272-8530. The examiner can normally be reached M-Th 7:30am-6pm EST.
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/ZOE TAM TRAN/ Examiner, Art Unit 3647
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