DETAILED ACTION
This Office action is in response to the amendment filed December 22, 2025.
Claims 21-40 are pending and have been examined.
Claims 21, 24, and 31 have been amended.
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 .
Response to Amendment
Double Patenting
Applicant is advised that should claim 34 be found allowable, claim 37 will be objected to under 37 CFR 1.75 as being a substantial duplicate thereof. When two claims in an application are duplicates or else are so close in content that they both cover the same thing, despite a slight difference in wording, it is proper after allowing one claim to object to the other as being a substantial duplicate of the allowed claim. See MPEP § 608.01(m).
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); and In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on a nonstatutory double patenting ground provided the conflicting application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with this application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement.
Effective January 1, 1994, a registered attorney or agent of record may sign a terminal disclaimer. A terminal disclaimer signed by the assignee must fully comply with 37 CFR 3.73(b).
Claims 21-40 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 5-8 and 12-14 and 14 of U.S. Patent No. 11,429,458. Although the conflicting claims are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the examined application claim is anticipated by the reference claims. In determining whether a nonstatutory basis exists for a double patenting rejection, the first question to be asked is — does any claim in the application define an invention that is anticipated by, or is merely an obvious variation of, an invention claimed in the patent? If the answer is yes, then an “obviousness-type” nonstatutory double patenting rejection may be appropriate. See MPEP 804 (II)(B)(1) Nonstatutory Double Patenting, Obvious-Type. The examined application claim is anticipated by the reference claims in U.S. Patent No. 11,429,458 because all the features recited in claims 21-40 of this application can also be found in the claims of the reference patent as per the following mappings. Claims 13, 6, 7, 8, 14, 14, 8, 12, 5, and 13 of the reference patent anticipates the examined application’s claims 21-30, respectively and similarly for the corresponding system claims 31-40.
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 21-28 and 31-38 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over de Castro Alves (US 2014/0156683) in view of de Castro Alves (US 8,122,006), hereinafter de Castro Alves ‘006.
Regarding claim 21, de Castro Alves discloses:
under control of a computing system comprising one or more computing devices configured to execute specific instructions, obtaining a source event […] from a notification data store of a source event stream (see at least paragraph 20, a continuous event processor receives events from a data stream in real-time and performs analytical processing relative to those events as they are received; paragraph 22, Map-Reduce job considers event data that has been stored within a scheduled time; figure 2; paragraph 34, Continuous event processor 206 can continuously read events from data stream 204 and also can continuously store the events that it reads into distributed data storage 210.),
wherein the notification data store includes […] one or more notifications of a continuous event (see at least paragraph 34, Continuous event processor 206 can continuously read events from data stream 204 and also can continuously store the events that it reads into distributed data storage 210.);
determining to generate a transformed event from a source event associated with the source event notification (see at least paragraph 34, Continuous event processor 206 can continuously read events from data stream 204 and can continuously execute a CQL query relative to those events; paragraph 36, CQL query operators may include filter, join, projection operators);
extracting, from the source event notification, a source event payload storage location of an event payload data store associated with the source event stream; obtaining a source event payload from the source event payload storage location; generating a transformed event payload from the source event payload (see at least paragraph 27, continuous event processor computes a preliminary query result based on the most recent execution of the CQL query relative to data events that are within the specified window of time; paragraph 28, continuous event processor merges the preliminary query result with the result of the most recently completed Map-Reduce job, if any Map-Reduce job has completed. This merger produces a unified query result. In one embodiment of the invention, if no Map-Reduce job has yet completed, then the preliminary query result becomes the unified query result.; paragraph 34, Continuous event processor 206 can continuously read events from data stream 204 and also can continuously store the events that it reads into distributed data storage 210.);
storing the transformed event payload to a transformed event payload storage location of an event payload data store of a target event stream; and […] to an event notification data store associated with the target event stream, wherein the transformed event notification references the transformed event payload storage location (see at least paragraph 31, the result of the Map-Reduce job is stored; paragraph 29, the unified query result is output to interested listening entities)
However de Castro Alves does not explicitly disclose, but de Castro Alves ‘006 discloses:
obtaining a source event notification; sending a transformed event notification (see at least paragraph 108, listeners may be attached and notified when events occur; paragraph 766, event notifications are propagated from sources to listeners)
[…] includes one or more notifications of an event caused by a user request and one or more notifications of a continuous event (see at least paragraph 766, event notifications propagated from sources to listeners; paragraph 768, event sources can be streams or client POJOs);
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify de Castro Alves by adapting the teachings of de Castro Alves ‘006 to include event notifications in an event data stream system as well as user generated event sources. The combination allows for listeners to be aware of the operations within the event stream processing system.
Regarding claim 22, the rejection of claim 21 is incorporated, and de Castro Alves as modified further discloses:
wherein sending the transformed event notification to the event notification data store comprises sending the transformed event notification to a first computing device that is different from a second computing device at which the transformed event payload storage location is located (see at least de Castro Alves ‘006 paragraph 108, listeners may be attached and notified when events occur; paragraph 766, event notifications are propagated from sources to listeners)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine de Castro Alves and de Castro Alves ‘006 for the reasons listed above.
Regarding claim 23, the rejection of claim 21 is incorporated, and de Castro Alves as modified further discloses:
wherein sending the transformed event notification to the event notification data store comprises sending the transformed event notification to an event notification queue (see at least de Castro Alves ‘006 paragraph 542 discusses queues and virtual pipes; paragraph 781, sending events to listeners similar to a queue; paragraphs 795-800, execution queues)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine de Castro Alves and de Castro Alves ‘006 for the reasons listed above.
Regarding claim 24, the rejection of claim 21 is incorporated, and de Castro Alves further discloses:
determining the transformed event payload storage location, wherein:
the transformed event payload storage location comprises a path of a data object in an object data store (see at least paragraph 34, Continuous event processor 206 can continuously read events from data stream 204 and also can continuously store the events that it reads into distributed data storage 210.; paragraph 31, the result of the Map-Reduce job is stored)
However de Castro Alves does not explicitly disclose, but de Castro Alves ‘006 discloses:
the source event is an event caused by a user request (see at least paragraph 768, event sources can be streams or client POJOs); and
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine de Castro Alves and de Castro Alves ‘006 for the reasons listed above.
Regarding claim 25, the rejection of claim 21 is incorporated, and de Castro Alves further discloses:
wherein generating the transformed event payload from the source event payload comprises applying, to the source event payload, at least one of a formatting transformation or a content transformation (see at least paragraph 36, operations include filtering and joining data)
Regarding claim 26, the rejection of claim 21 is incorporated, and de Castro Alves further discloses:
wherein generating the transformed event payload from the source event payload comprises applying, to the source event payload, at least one of a filter or an augmentation (see at least paragraph 36, operations include filtering and joining data)
Regarding claim 27, the rejection of claim 21 is incorporated, and de Castro Alves further discloses:
determining the transformed event payload storage location, wherein the transformed event payload storage location comprises a path of a data object in an object data store (see at least paragraph 34, Continuous event processor 206 can continuously read events from data stream 204 and also can continuously store the events that it reads into distributed data storage 210.; paragraph 31, the result of the Map-Reduce job is stored)
Regarding claim 28, the rejection of claim 21 is incorporated, and de Castro Alves as modified further discloses:
obtaining a subscribed event notification from a notification data store of a subscribed event stream; extracting a subscribed event payload storage location from the subscribed event notification; obtaining a subscribed event payload from the subscribed event payload storage location of an event payload data store of the subscribed event stream; and providing the subscribed event payload to an event subscriber device (see at least de Castro Alves paragraph 20, event streams can be listened to by entities that are interested in receiving those events; paragraph 34, Continuous event processor 206 can continuously read events from data stream 204 and also can continuously store the events that it reads into distributed data storage 210.; de Castro Alves ‘006 paragraph 108, listeners may be attached and notified when events occur; paragraph 766, event notifications are propagated from sources to listeners)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine de Castro Alves and de Castro Alves ‘006 for the reasons listed above.
Regarding claims 31-38, the scope of the instant claims does not differ substantially from that of claims 21-28 and are rejected for the same reasons, respectively.
Response to Arguments
Double Patenting
Based on the claim amendments and Applicant’s remarks, examiner restates from the previous action that should claim 24 be found allowable, claim 27 will be objected to as a substantial duplicate, and separately should claim 34 be found allowable, claim 37 will be objected to as a substantial duplicate. Applicant’s amendments to claim 24 correct the issue for claim 27, but the issue relating to claims 34 and 37 remains.
Rejection of claims under §103:
Applicant's arguments with respect to the claims have been considered but are not persuasive. The prior art discloses the newly added limitations as seen in the rejections above. Specifically, the teachings of de Castro Alves ‘006 related to client or user POJO event sources.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Han discloses architecture for even processing and storing event notifications (¶33) including an event stream as well as user requests.
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KIMBERLY L JORDAN whose telephone number is (571)270-5481. The examiner can normally be reached Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday 9am-3pm.
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/KIMBERLY L JORDAN/Examiner, Art Unit 2194
/KEVIN L YOUNG/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2194
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