Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 10/02/2025 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
35 U.S.C 103
Applicant’s arguments filed with respect to the rejection(s) of claims 1-5, 7-15, 17-22 under U.S.C 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However upon further consideration and in light of Applicant’s amendments, new grounds of rejection are made in view of Keen (U.S Pub # 20200106876).
35 U.S.C 101
Regarding claims 1-5, 7-15, 17-22, applicant argues that the claims do not recite concepts that constitute a mental process that can be performed in the human mind, or by a human using a pen and paper.
Examiner has carefully considered Applicant’s argument and respectfully disagrees. Additional limitations “determining, by a computing system and based at least in part on communications exchanged via one or more software as a service (SaaS) applications, at least a first keyword…; determining, by the computing system, that at least a first file includes content… storing, by the computing system… the one or more potential recipients as metadata for the first file.. and a user interface, t the first client device, to present at least a first user interface element indicative of the first file and displaying the matching value and the one more potential recipient, the first user interface being selectable to enable retrieval of the first file from the storage medium” are simply instructions that are recited as being performed by a generic computer. This recited computer is recited at a high level of generality, i.e., as a generic computer performing generic computer functions such as transmitting, storing and displaying information which do not require anything more than generic computer components. The claims do not provide any details about how a computing system, SaaS applications or a user interface performs their functions and provides nothing more than mere instructions to implement an abstract idea on a generic computer. Even when viewed in combination, these additional elements do not integrate the recited judicial exception into a practical application (Step 2A, Prong Two: NO), and the claim is directed to the judicial exception. (Step 2A: YES).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-5, 7-15, 17-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more. The claims does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional computer elements, which are recited at a high level of generality, provide conventional computer functions that do not add meaningful limits to practicing the abstract idea.
Claim 1 recites the following limitations directed to an abstract idea “determining, at least a first keyword indicative of a first subject matter and associ; determining, that at least a first file includes content corresponding to the first keyword; determining a matching value based on the similarity of the first file to the first keyword; confirming the matching value exceeds a threshold”. These steps describe a mental process that may be performed in the human mind including observing data files that correspond to a keyword and evaluating their similarities.
Furthermore the claim does not recite limitations that integrate the judicial exceptions into a practical application or are “significantly more” than the abstract idea because the claims do not recite an improvement to another technology or technical field, an improvement to the functioning of the computer itself, or meaningful limitations beyond generally linking the user of an abstract idea to a particular technological environment. Claim 1 recites in addition to the abstract idea, determining, by a computing system and based at least in part on communications exchanged via one or more software as a service (SaaS) applications; the first file being stored in a storage medium and accessible by a client device; storing, based at least in part on the matching value exceeding the threshold, the one or more potential recipients as metadata for the first file; causing by the computing system and based at least in part on the first file including content corresponding to the first keyword, a user interface, at the client device, to present at least a first user interface element indicative of the first file and displaying the matching value, the first user interface element being selectable to enable retrieval of the first file from the storage medium (Step 2B: No). It should be noted the limitations of the current claims are performed by the generically recited computer/processor. The limitations are merely instructions to implement the abstract idea on a computer and require no more than a generic computer to perform generic computer functions that are well-understood, routine and conventional activities previously known to the industry. With respect to the limitations above identified as insignificant extra-solution activity above, when re-evaluated these elements are well-understood, routine, and conventional as evidenced by the court cases in MPEP 2106.05(d)(II), "i. Receiving or transmitting data over a network, as per OIP Techs., Inc., v. Amazon.com, Inc., 788 F.3d 1359, 1363, 115 USPQ2d 1090, 1093 (Fed. Cir. 2015) (sending messages over a network) and/or ii. Presenting offers and gathering statistics, OIP Techs., 788 F.3d at 1362-63, 115 USPQ2d at 1092-93” as well as “storing and retrieving information in memory” that are identified as well-understood, routine, conventional computer functions as recognized by the court decisions Versata Dev. Group, Inc. v. SAP Am., Inc., 793 F.3d 1306, 1334, 115 USPQ2d 1681, 1701 (Fed. Cir. 2015) listed in MPEP § 2106.05(d).and thus remains insignificant extra-solution activity that does not provide significantly more. Therefore, claim 1 is directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Claims 2-5, 7-10, 21-22, which depend on claim 1 and include all the limitations of claim 1, recite the additional elements of “receiving, by the computing system, an input from the first client device, the input indicative of a request to view files stored in the storage medium and related to the first subject matter; and causing the user interface to present the first user interface element in response to receipt of the input. causing, by the computing system and based at least in part on determining the first keyword, the user interface to present a second user interface element indicative of the first keyword, the second user interface element being selectable to enable viewing of files related to the first subject matter receiving, by the computing system, an input from the client device indicating that the first file is to be shared; and causing, by the computing system, the first file to be shared with a second client device associated with the one or more potential recipients. receiving, by the computing system from at least one other computing system, interaction data for a time period, the at least one other computing system configured to provide remote access to the one or more applications at the client device, the interaction data including at least one of: email content, messaging content and project content; and processing, by the computing system, the interaction data to determine the first keyword; identifying, by the computing system, a plurality of files, stored in the storage medium, that a user operating the client device is authorized to access using a file sharing service provided by the computing system; and determining, by the computing system and based at least in part on contents of the plurality of files, that the first file, from the plurality of files, includes content corresponding to the first keyword. receiving, by the computing system, an input from the client device, the input indicating a second file, different than the first file, is to be shared; determining, by the computing system, that contents of the second file does not correspond to the first keyword; and causing, by the computing system and based at least in part on contents of the second file not corresponding to the first keyword, the user interface to present a notification that the second file is not related to the first subject matter. determining, by the computing system, first vector data corresponding to the first keyword; determining, by the computing system, second vector data corresponding to contents of the first file; calculating, by the computing system, a similarity between the first vector data and the second vector data; and identifying, by the computing system, the first file based on the calculated similarity. wherein the computing system is configured to provide a remote access application at the client device so as to enable access to the one or more applications hosted at one or more remote computing systems; where the matching value is based on the cosine similarity of the first file and the first keyword”. These limitations do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea of a mental process.
Therefore, claims 2-5, 7-10, 21-22 are directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Claims 11-15, 17-20 recite similar limitations and are also directed to the abstract idea of a mental process collecting, analyzing, and displaying information. These claims are rejected using the same rationale used in claims 1-5, 7-10 above.
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 1-3, 10, 11-13, 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yamauchi (U.S Pub # 20170123630) in view of Krasik (U.S Pub # 20220141234) and in further view of Keen (U.S Pub # 20200106876).
With regards to claim 1, Yamauchi discloses a method comprising:
determining, by a computing system and based at least in part on communications exchanged via one or more applications, at least a first keyword indicative of a first subject matter ([0036] keyword input by user);
determining, by the computing system, that at least a first file includes content corresponding to the first keyword, the first file being stored in a storage medium and accessible by a first client device ([0037] search for file with the keyword inputted by the user); and
causing, by the computing system and based at least in part on the first file including content corresponding to the first keyword, a user interface, at the first client device, to present at least a first user interface element indicative of the first file, the first user interface element being selectable to enable retrieval of the first file from the storage medium ([0089] search results are displayed and user can instruct display of contents of the file).
Yamauchi does not disclose however Krasik discloses:
determining, by a computing system and based at least in part on communications exchanged via one or more software as a service (SaaS) applications ([0087] SaaS);
determining a matching value based on the similarity of the first file to the first keyword ([0036] match “Sigma Ransomware” with a .975 score);
confirming the matching value exceeds a threshold ([0037] above a threshold); and;
causing, by the computing system and based at least in part on the first file including content corresponding to the first keyword and the matching value exceeding a threshold, a user interface, at the first client device, to present at least a first user interface element indicative of the first file and displaying the matching value (Fig. 3 # 104 [0038] present to the user those above a threshold and the score to the user).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the date the current invention was effectively filed to have modified the system of Yamauchi by Krasik to determine similarity values based on textual analysis.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to perform a similarity analysis based on matching dictionary methods (Krasik [0017]).
Keen discloses:
at least a first keyword indicative of a first subject matter and associated with one or more potential recipients ([0018] determine topic of message and recipients);
storing, based at least in part on the matching value exceeding the threshold, the one or more potential recipients as metadata for the first file ([0066-0067] identify a threshold for number of messages that include both the selected recipient and the determined topic. If there are more messages with the selected recipient than the threshold, the recipient is considered and assigned an important recipient);
and the one or more potential recipients (Fig. 3a [0079] display content and “important recipients”).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the date the current invention was effectively filed to have modified the system of Yamauchi and Krasik by Keen to analyze intended recipients of a message.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to identify a plurality of recipients of an email message (Keen [0004]).
Claims 11 and 20 correspond to claim 1 and are rejected accordingly.
With regards to claim 2, Yamauchi further discloses:
receiving, by the computing system, an input from the first client device, the input indicative of a request to view files stored in the storage medium and related to the first subject matter ([0037] user inputting search keywords); and
causing the user interface to present the first user interface element in response to receipt of the input ([0037] display search results).
Claim 12 corresponds to claim 2 and is rejected accordingly.
With regards to claim 3, Yamauchi further discloses:
causing, by the computing system and based at least in part on determining the first keyword, the user interface to present a second user interface element indicative of the first keyword, the second user interface element being selectable to enable viewing of files related to the first subject matter ([0089] file icons and file names that may be selected).
Claim 13 corresponds to claim 3 and is rejected accordingly.
With regards to claim 10, Yamauchi further discloses:
wherein the computing system is configured to provide a remote access application at the first client device so as to enable access to the one or more applications hosted at one or more remote computing systems ([0126] client can server for files stored in an external electronic device such as a cloud server).
Claims 4-5, 7, 14-15, 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yamauchi (U.S Pub # 20170123630) in view of Krasik (U.S Pub # 20220141234) and in further view of Keen (U.S Pub # 20200106876) and Prado (U.S Pub # 20080228479).
With regards to claim 4, Yamauchi does not disclose however Prado discloses:
receiving, by the computing system, an input from the client device indicating that the first file is to be shared ([0048] selects the files he wishes to send); and
causing, by the computing system, the first file to be shared with a second client device associated with the one or more potential recipients ([0048] choose the recipient of files to be sent to).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the date the current invention was effectively filed to have modified the system of Yamauchi, Krasik and Keen by the system of Prado to share files with a designated recipient.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to transfer data files to another party by way of electronic mail or facsimile (Prado [0012]).
Claim 14 corresponds to claim 4 and is rejected accordingly.
With regards to claim 5, Yamauchi does not disclose however Prado discloses:
receiving, by the computing system from at least one other computing system, interaction data for a time period, the at least one other computing system configured to provide remote access to the one or more applications at the first client device, the interaction data including at least one of: email content, messaging content and project content ([0048] email); and
processing, by the computing system, the interaction data to determine the first keyword ([0040] files relevant to a keyword).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the date the current invention was effectively filed to have modified the system of Yamauchi, Krasik and Keen by the system of Prado to share files with a designated recipient.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to transfer data files to another party by way of electronic mail or facsimile (Prado [0012]).
Claim 15 corresponds to claim 5 and is rejected accordingly.
With regards to claim 7, Yamauchi does not disclose however Prado discloses:
identifying, by the computing system, a plurality of files, stored in the storage medium, that a user operating the first client device is authorized to access using a file sharing service provided by the computing system ([0045] authorized users that can review files); and
determining, by the computing system and based at least in part on contents of the plurality of files, that the first file, from the plurality of files, includes content corresponding to the first keyword ([0040] files relevant to a keyword).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the date the current invention was effectively filed to have modified the system of Yamauchi, Krasik and Keen by the system of Prado to share files with a designated recipient.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to transfer data files to another party by way of electronic mail or facsimile (Prado [0012]).
Claim 17 corresponds to claim 7 and is rejected accordingly.
Claims 8 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yamauchi (U.S Pub # 20170123630) in view of Krasik (U.S Pub # 20220141234) and in further view of Keen (U.S Pub # 20200106876) and Brand (U.S Pub # 20170147600).
With regards to claim 8, Yamauchi does not disclose however Brand discloses:
receiving, by the computing system, an input from the first client device, the input indicating a second file, different than the first file, is to be shared ([0032] sharing files);
determining, by the computing system, that contents of the second file does not correspond to the first keyword ([0032] evaluate the topic or keywords of the attachments based on the textual content of the files); and
causing, by the computing system and based at least in part on contents of the second file not corresponding to the first keyword, the user interface to present a notification that the second file is not related to the first subject matter ([0032] collaboration policy may require warning the sender to check and reconsider whether they are indeed sharing the files with the intended recipient).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the date the current invention was effectively filed to have modified the system of Yamauchi, Krasik and Keen by the system of Brand to warn users before sharing files.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to securely share files from a cloud storage (Brand [0009]).
Claim 18 corresponds to claim 8 and is rejected accordingly.
Claims 9 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yamauchi (U.S Pub # 20170123630) in view of Krasik (U.S Pub # 20220141234) and in further view of Keen (U.S Pub # 20200106876) and Chen (U.S Pub # 20210004406).
With regards to claim 9, Yamauchi does not disclose however Chen discloses:
determining, by the computing system, first vector data corresponding to the first keyword ([0105] acquire a semantic vector for characterizing semantics of a text);
determining, by the computing system, second vector data corresponding to contents of the first file ([0105] for search as a target semantic vector. The searching unit 702 is configured to search in a database to determine a predetermined number of media files, based on the target semantic vector);
calculating, by the computing system, a similarity between the first vector data and the second vector data ([0105] similarity between semantic vector and target semantic vector); and
identifying, by the computing system, the first file based on the calculated similarity ([0105] search for media files based on similarity).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the date the current invention was effectively filed to have modified the system of Yamauchi, Krasik and Keen by the system of Chen to calculate similarity measurements for queries.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to characterize semantics of a context of a media file (Chen [0005]).
Claim 19 corresponds to claim 9 and is rejected accordingly.
Claims 21-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yamauchi (U.S Pub # 20170123630) in view of Krasik (U.S Pub # 20220141234) and in further view of Keen (U.S Pub # 20200106876) and Lipka (U.S Pub # 20170242906).
With regards to claim 21, Yamauchi does not disclose however Lipka discloses:
wherein the matching value is based on the cosine similarity of the first file and the first keyword ([0035] cosine similarity).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the date the current invention was effectively filed to have modified the system of Yamauchi, Krasik and Keen by the system of Lipka to use a cosine similarity to determine how similar a file is to a keyword.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to identify files with similar content (Lipka [0016]).
Claim 22 corresponds to claim 21 and is rejected accordingly.
Conclusion
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/TONY WU/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2166