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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal>Dear Group:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>I ask your advice, both consensus and obscure, regarding action based on the below. I am tending toward a Notice of Appeal, preappeal conference request, and usurious extension of time. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The subject case had a Final office action issued 7/26/2024. On 9/26/2024, I filed both an after final response and a petition to withdraw finality. An advisory action was issued 10/1/2024, and a Petition Decision was mail 10/23/2024. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The petition was filed because a dependent claim was amended after non-final rejection, and the Examiner in the final rejection did not actually consider the effect of the amendment. This became critical when that same dependent claim was sought to be added to the independent claim.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>A Request for Reconsideration of the dismissal of the Petition was filed 10/24/2024. In this request for rehearing, a key sentence was “While the issues of the claim admittedly changed, and the Examiner withdrew the prior rejections of claims 1-20, the final rejection did not, other than parroting the claim language, actually consider and analyze the differences in claim 4 before and after the amendment.” The conclusion states:<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal style='margin-left:.5in;text-indent:.5in'>Given that the language of the rejection explicitly fails to support the rejection, it is disingenuous for the Director to state “As detailed above, the limitation of claim 4 reciting ‘wherein at least two of the plurality of wearable or implantable sensors sense the same physiological condition’ was <b><i>discussed</i></b> by the examiner as being taught in Khachaturian in the Final Office action dated 26 July 2024 in the second paragraph on page 5.” While the issue may have been nominally “discussed”, that is not the threshold required to sustain a final rejection according to 35 U.S.C. 132(a) (“…”) and 37 C.F.R. 1.104 (“…”).<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>The request for rehearing was routed to the Office of Petitions, and based on a discussion, has not even been docketed to a petitions examiner, with the statutory deadline looming this week. There is thus no possibility that the petition will be decided before expiration of the statutory period. <o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Meanwhile, since filing of the request for reconsideration, the Examiner tells me that she is prohibited from acting on my outstanding second submission after final rejection with a timely filed AFCP 2.0 request, due to a policy that stays all other USPTO action until the petition is decided.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Suggestions for action?<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D;mso-ligatures:standardcontextual'>Very truly yours,</span><span style='font-size:11.0pt;color:#1F497D;mso-ligatures:standardcontextual'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D;mso-ligatures:standardcontextual'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D;mso-ligatures:standardcontextual'>Steven M. Hoffberg<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D;mso-ligatures:standardcontextual'>Hoffberg & Associates<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D;mso-ligatures:standardcontextual'>29 Buckout Road<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D;mso-ligatures:standardcontextual'>West Harrison, NY 10604<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D;mso-ligatures:standardcontextual'>(914) 949-2300 tel<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D;mso-ligatures:standardcontextual'>(845) 625-2547 fax<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='mso-ligatures:standardcontextual'><a href="mailto:steve@hoffberglaw.com"><span style='color:#0563C1'>steve@hoffberglaw.com</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='mso-ligatures:standardcontextual'><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/hoffberg/"><span style='color:#0563C1'>https://www.linkedin.com/in/hoffberg/</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:#1F497D;mso-ligatures:standardcontextual'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='color:black;background:white;mso-ligatures:standardcontextual'>Emails and attachments received from us may be confidential and/or protected by the attorney-client privilege, as attorney work-product or based on other privileges or provisions of law. 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