What follows is an opinion from the Supreme Court of the United States. Your task is to identify the federal agency involved in the administrative action that occurred prior to the onset of litigation. If the administrative action occurred in a state agency, respond "State Agency". Do not code the name of the state. The administrative activity may involve an administrative official as well as that of an agency. If two federal agencies are mentioned, consider the one whose action more directly bears on the dispute;otherwise the agency that acted more recently. If a state and federal agency are mentioned, consider the federal agency. Pay particular attention to the material which appears in the summary of the case preceding the Court's opinion and, if necessary, those portions of the prevailing opinion headed by a I or II. Action by an agency official is considered to be administrative action except when such an official acts to enforce criminal law. If an agency or agency official "denies" a "request" that action be taken, such denials are considered agency action. Exclude: a "challenge" to an unapplied agency rule, regulation, etc.; a request for an injunction or a declaratory judgment against agency action which, though anticipated, has not yet occurred; a mere request for an agency to take action when there is no evidence that the agency did so; agency or official action to enforce criminal law; the hiring and firing of political appointees or the procedures whereby public officials are appointed to office; attorney general preclearance actions pertaining to voting; filing fees or nominating petitions required for access to the ballot; actions of courts martial; land condemnation suits and quiet title actions instituted in a court; and federally funded private nonprofit organizations.

Opinion:
HAZELTINE RESEARCH, INC., et al. v. BRENNER, COMMISSIONER OF PATENTS.
No. 57.
Argued November 17, 1965.
Decided December 8, 1965.
Laurence B. Dodds argued the cause for petitioners. With him on the briefs was George R. Jones.
J. William Doolittle argued the cause for respondent. On the brief were Solicitor General Marshall, Assistant Attorney General Douglas and Lawrence R. Schneider.
Irwin M. Aisenberg filed a brief, as amicus curiae, urging reversal.
Mr. Justice Black
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The sole question presented here is whether an application for patent pending in the Patent Office at the time a second application is filed constitutes part of the “prior art” as that term is used in 35 U. S. C. § 103 (1964 ed.), which reads in part:
“A patent may not be obtained ... if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art . . . .”
The question arose in this way. On December 23, 1957, petitioner Robert Regis filed an application for a patent on a new and useful improvement on a microwave switch. On June 24, 1959, the Patent Examiner denied Regis’ application on the ground that the invention was not one which was new or unobvious in light of the prior art and thus did not meet the standards set forth in § 103. The Examiner said that the invention was unpatentable because of the joint effect of the disclosures made by patents previously issued, one to Carlson (No. 2,491,644) and one to Wallace (No. 2,822,526). The Carlson patent had been issued on December 20, 1949, over eight years prior to Regis’ application, and that patent is admittedly a part of the prior art insofar as Regis’ invention is concerned. The Wallace patent, however, was pending in the Patent Office when the Regis application was filed. The Wallace application had been pending since March 24, 1954, nearly three years and nine months before Regis filed his application and the Wallace patent was issued on February 4, 1958, 43 days after Regis filed his application.
After the Patent Examiner refused to issue the patent, Regis appealed to the Patent Office Board of Appeals on the ground that the Wallace patent could not be properly considered a part of the prior art because it had been a “co-pending patent” and its disclosures were secret and not known to the public. The Board of Appeals rejected this argument and affirmed the decision of the Patent Examiner. Regis and Hazeltine, which had an interest as assignee, then instituted the present action in the District Court pursuant to 35 U. S. C. § 145 (1964 ed.) to compel the Commissioner to issue the patent. The District Court agreed with the Patent Office that the co-pending Wallace application was a part of the prior art and directed that the complaint be dismissed. 226 F. Supp. 459. On appeal the Court of Appeals affirmed per curiam. 119 U. S. App. D. C. 261, 340 F. 2d 786. We granted certiorari to decide the question of whether a co-pending application is included in the prior art, as that term is used in 35 U. S. C. § 103. 380 U. S. 960.
Petitioners’ primary contention is that the term “prior art,” as used in § 103, really means only art previously publicly known. In support of this position they refer to a statement in the legislative history which indicates that prior art means “what was known before as described in section 102.” They contend that the use of the word “known” indicates that Congress intended prior art to include only inventions or. discoveries which were already publicly known at the time an invention was made.
If petitioners are correct in their interpretation of “prior art,” then the Wallace invention, which was not publicly known at the time the Regis application was filed, would not be prior art with regard to Regis’ invention. This is true because at the time Regis filed his application the Wallace invention, although pending in the Patent Office, had never been made public and the Patent Office was forbidden by statute from disclosing to the public, except in special circumstances, anything contained in the application.
The Commissioner, relying chiefly on Alexander Milburn Co. v. Davis-Bournonville Co., 270 U. S. 390, contends that when a patent is issued, the disclosures contained in the patent become a part of the prior art as of the time the application was filed, not, as petitioners contend, at the time the patent is issued. In that case a patent was held invalid because, at the time it was applied for, there was already pending an application which completely and adequately described the invention. In holding that the issuance of a patent based on the first application barred the valid issuance of a patent based on the second application, Mr. Justice Holmes, speaking for the Court, said, “The delays of the patent office ought not to cut down the effect of what has been done. . . . [The first applicant] had taken steps that would make it public as soon as the Patent Office did its work, although, of course, amendments might be required of him before the end could be reached. We see no reason in the words or policy of the law for allowing [the second applicant] to profit by the delay . . . .” At p. 401.
In its revision of the patent laws in 1952, Congress showed its approval of the holding in Milburn by adopting 35 U. S. C. § 102 (e) (1964 ed.) which provides that a person shall be entitled to a patent unless “(e) the invention was described in a patent granted on an application for patent by another filed in the United States before the invention thereof by the applicant for patent.” Petitioners suggest, however, that the question in this case is not answered by mere reference to § 102 (e), because in Milburn, which gave rise to that section, the co-pending applications described the same identical invention. But here the Regis invention is not precisely the same as that contained in the Wallace patent, but is only made obvious by the Wallace patent in light of the Carlson patent. We agree with the Commissioner that this distinction is without significance here. While we think petitioners’ argument with regard to § 102 (e) is interesting, it provides no reason to depart from the plain holding and reasoning in the Milburn case. The basic reasoning upon which the Court decided the Milburn case applies equally well here. When Wallace filed his application, he had done what he could to add his disclosures to the prior art. The rest was up to the Patent Office. Had the Patent Office acted faster, had it issued Wallace’s patent two months earlier, there would have been no question here. As Justice Holmes said in Mil-burn, “The delays of the patent office ought not to cut down the effect of what has been done.” P. 401.
To adopt the result contended for by petitioners would create an area where patents are awarded for unpatentable advances in the art. We see no reason to read into § 103 a restricted definition of “prior art” which would lower standards of patentability to such an extent that there might exist two patents where the Congress has plainly directed that there should be only one.
Affirmed.
It is not disputed that Regis’ alleged invention, as well as his application, was made after Wallace’s application was filed. There is, therefore, no question of priority of invention before us.
H. R. Rep. No. 1923, 82d Cong., 2d Sess., p. 7 (1952).
35 U. S. C. § 122 (1964 ed.) states: “Applications for patents shall be kept in confidence by the Patent Office and no information concerning the same given without authority of the applicant or owner unless necessary to carry out the provisions of any Act of Congress or in such special circumstances as may be determined by the Commissioner.”

Question: What is the agency involved in the administrative action?

Choices:
Army and Air Force Exchange Service
Atomic Energy Commission
Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Air Force
Department or Secretary of Agriculture
Alien Property Custodian
Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Army
Board of Immigration Appeals
Bureau of Indian Affairs
Bureau of Prisons
Bonneville Power Administration
Benefits Review Board
Civil Aeronautics Board
Bureau of the Census
Central Intelligence Agency
Commodity Futures Trading Commission
Department or Secretary of Commerce
Comptroller of Currency
Consumer Product Safety Commission
Civil Rights Commission
Civil Service Commission, U.S.
Customs Service or Commissioner or Collector of Customs
Defense Base Closure and REalignment Commission
Drug Enforcement Agency
Department or Secretary of Defense (and Department or Secretary of War)
Department or Secretary of Energy
Department or Secretary of the Interior
Department of Justice or Attorney General
Department or Secretary of State
Department or Secretary of Transportation
Department or Secretary of Education
U.S. Employees' Compensation Commission, or Commissioner
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Environmental Protection Agency or Administrator
Federal Aviation Agency or Administration
Federal Bureau of Investigation or Director
Federal Bureau of Prisons
Farm Credit Administration
Federal Communications Commission (including a predecessor, Federal Radio Commission)
Federal Credit Union Administration
Food and Drug Administration
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation
Federal Energy Administration
Federal Election Commission
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
Federal Housing Administration
Federal Home Loan Bank Board
Federal Labor Relations Authority
Federal Maritime Board
Federal Maritime Commission
Farmers Home Administration
Federal Parole Board
Federal Power Commission
Federal Railroad Administration
Federal Reserve Board of Governors
Federal Reserve System
Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation
Federal Trade Commission
Federal Works Administration, or Administrator
General Accounting Office
Comptroller General
General Services Administration
Department or Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare
Department or Secretary of Health and Human Services
Department or Secretary of Housing and Urban Development
Administrative agency established under an interstate compact (except for the MTC)
Interstate Commerce Commission
Indian Claims Commission
Immigration and Naturalization Service, or Director of, or District Director of, or Immigration and Naturalization Enforcement
Internal Revenue Service, Collector, Commissioner, or District Director of
Information Security Oversight Office
Department or Secretary of Labor
Loyalty Review Board
Legal Services Corporation
Merit Systems Protection Board
Multistate Tax Commission
National Aeronautics and Space Administration
Secretary or administrative unit or personnel of the U.S. Navy
National Credit Union Administration
National Endowment for the Arts
National Enforcement Commission
National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
National Labor Relations Board, or regional office or officer
National Mediation Board
National Railroad Adjustment Board
Nuclear Regulatory Commission
National Security Agency
Office of Economic Opportunity
Office of Management and Budget
Office of Price Administration, or Price Administrator
Office of Personnel Management
Occupational Safety and Health Administration
Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission
Office of Workers' Compensation Programs
Patent Office, or Commissioner of, or Board of Appeals of
Pay Board (established under the Economic Stabilization Act of 1970)
Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation
U.S. Public Health Service
Postal Rate Commission
Provider Reimbursement Review Board
Renegotiation Board
Railroad Adjustment Board
Railroad Retirement Board
Subversive Activities Control Board
Small Business Administration
Securities and Exchange Commission
Social Security Administration or Commissioner
Selective Service System
Department or Secretary of the Treasury
Tennessee Valley Authority
United States Forest Service
United States Parole Commission
Postal Service and Post Office, or Postmaster General, or Postmaster
United States Sentencing Commission
Veterans' Administration or Board of Veterans' Appeals
War Production Board
Wage Stabilization Board
State Agency
Unidentifiable
Office of Thrift Supervision
Department of Homeland Security
Board of General Appraisers
Board of Tax Appeals
General Land Office or Commissioners
NO Admin Action
Processing Tax Board of Review

Answer: 93