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<p>My sympathies. Yes, it seems to me that you have no choice but
to somehow get the Examiner's initials and signature on either an
892 or a 1449 for this odd document. Otherwise, TYFNIL it would
blow up. The adversary would surely find some real or imagined
reason why this reference somehow puts into question the validity
of the patent.</p>
<p>What's particularly said about this is that if you fix it by
filing an IDS, you will be stuck paying the fee for handing in the
IDS after the first Office Action. I suppose you could try to
duck it by saying that nobody who has ever touched the file was
aware of this reference more than three months ago, but to do
that, you would have to spend hundreds of dollars' worth of time
quizzing everybody who has ever touched the file. Cheaper just to
pay the money.</p>
<p>You could of course phone up the Examiner and try to sweet-talk
the Examiner into listing it on an 892. But you may well not feel
this is something you ought to need to do. There may be other
things about the dynamic in the case where you may want to try to
get the Examiner to cooperate in some other way.</p>
<p>My sympathies.<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 5/13/2024 1:21 PM, Richard Schafer
via Patentcenter wrote:<br>
</div>
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cite="mid:SA1PR05MB798369660152418E15E98B5D8EE22@SA1PR05MB7983.namprd05.prod.outlook.com">
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<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Goudy Old Style",serif">A
client received an Office Action this morning. In addition
to copies of the 1449s previously submitted by the client in
this application and an 892 with references cited by the
examiner in the Office Action, the IFW includes a copy of a
patent application publication that is not mentioned in the
Office Action, not contained in the 892, and not disclosed
in any 1449. There are no foreign related applications to
this U.S. application, so there’s no ISR or search report
from any non-USPTO office. The Doc code is “REF.OTHER,”
which is described in the PTO’s Document Description List as
“Submission of US Patent, US Application documentation or
International or Foreign Search Reports.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Goudy Old Style",serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<ol style="margin-top:0in" type="1" start="1">
<li class="MsoListParagraph"
style="margin-left:0in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Goudy Old Style",serif">Since
the reference isn’t listed in either an 892, a 1449, or
even mentioned in the Office Action, was it considered by
the examiner? Filing an IDS just to be sure it’s correctly
on the record seems absurd, but I’m uncomfortable not
doing one.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
<li class="MsoListParagraph"
style="margin-left:0in;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Goudy Old Style",serif">Any
idea why the examiner would list a reference like that?
There is a Search Notes page in the IFW, but there is no
search data in any field, so there’s not even an
indication of what was searched or how.<o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ol>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Goudy Old Style",serif"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Goudy Old Style",serif;mso-ligatures:none;mso-fareast-language:ZH-CN">Best
regards,<br>
<b>Richard A. Schafer | Schafer IP Law</b></span><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Garamond",serif;mso-ligatures:none;mso-fareast-language:ZH-CN"><br>
</span><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Goudy Old Style",serif;mso-ligatures:none;mso-fareast-language:ZH-CN">P.O.
Box 230081 | Houston, TX 77223<br>
M: 832.283.6564 | </span><a
href="mailto:richard@schafer-ip.com" moz-do-not-send="true"><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Goudy Old Style",serif;color:#0563C1;mso-ligatures:none">richard@schafer-ip.com</span></a><span
style="font-size:12.0pt;font-family:"Goudy Old Style",serif;mso-ligatures:none"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>
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