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 .
DETAILED ACTION
The Action is responsive to the Amendments and Remarks filed on 12/11/2025. Claims 1-20 are pending claims. Claims 1, 13, and 17 are written in independent form.
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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-patentable subject matter. The claimed invention is directed to one or more abstract ideas without significantly more. The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than judicial exception. The eligibility analysis in support of these findings is provided below.
As per Claims 1, 13, and 17,
STEP 1:In accordance with Step 1 of the eligibility inquiry (as explained in MPEP 2106), the claimed method (claims 1-12), non-transitory computer-readable media (claims 13-16), and system (claims 17-20) are directed to one of the eligible categories of subject matter and therefore satisfies Step 1.
STEP 2A Prong One:The independent claims 1, 13, and 17 recite the following limitations directed to an abstract idea:
Automatically determining, by processing the indication, at least one affected asset which is stored by the digital preservation system and is affected by the change;
The limitation recites a mental process of observation, evaluation, judgement, and/or opinion by observing and evaluating the indication of a change to configuration data and/or tools and determining at least one asset affected by the change. This is broadly recited as to how the determination of the affected asset is performed and thus is understood as something that could be performed by the human mind.
Automatically determining at least one action to be performed by a tool of the digital preservation system on the at least one affected asset,
The limitation recites a mental process of observation, evaluation, judgement, and/or opinion by making a judgement of which tool of the system should perform a specific action on a digital asset. This is something that a human data archive analyst or coordinator is capable of performing based on their knowledge of the tools in the preservation system.
The at least one action comprising determining and storing digital properties of the at least one affected asset; and
It is noted that the limitation recites intended use language of determining an action “to be performed by a tool”, where the action comprises “…determining and storing digital properties…” and is thus not being given patentable weight within this limitation. Therefore, the limitation is understood as reciting “processing the at least one affected asset” which is understood to be a mental process capable of being performed by the human mind through observation, evaluation, judgement, and/or opinion.
Automatically performing the determined at least one action on the at least one affected asset, wherein the at least one action is performed on only one of the first representation and the second representation and wherein performing the determined at least one action includes determining and storing the digital properties of the at least one affected asset;
The limitation recites a mental process capable of being performed by the human mind through observation, evaluation, judgement, and/or opinion by observing and evaluating digital properties of either the first or second representation of the at least one affected asset and performing the determined at least one action on only one of the first and the second representation using the human mind to determine and store/remember digital properties.
Determining that one or more preservation actions are to be performed on the at least one affected asset;
The limitation recites a mental process of observation, evaluation, judgement, and/or opinion by making a judgement and/or opinion of that one or more preservation actions are to be performed on the at least one affected asset.
Preserving the at least one affected asset by performing the one or more preservation actions on the at least one affected asset causing the at least one affected asset to change format;
The limitation recites a mathematical concept of executing a mathematical formula (preservation actions) on the at least one affected asset that takes the at least one affected asset as input and outputs the at least one affected asset in a changed format.
Determining the digital properties of the at least one affected asset after the one or more preservation actions are performed on the at least one affected asset; and
The limitation recites a mental process of observation, evaluation, judgement, and/or opinion by observing and evaluating the at least one affected asset after the one or more preservation actions are performed on the at least one affected asset, and based on the observation and evaluation, making a judgement and/or opinion of digital properties of the at least one affected asset after the preservation action(s) are performed.
Validating based on the determined digital properties of the at least one affected asset, the one or more preservation actions performed on the at least one affected asset, wherein validating the one or more preservation actions comprises comparing (i) the digital properties of the at least one affected asset determined before the one or more preservation actions are performed on the at least one affected asset with (ii) the digital properties of the at least one affected asset determined after the one or more preservation actions are performed on the at least one affected asset causing the at least one affected asset to change format.
The limitation recites a mental process of observation, evaluation, judgement, and/or opinion by observing and evaluating (i) digital properties of the at least one affected asset determined before the one or more preservation actions are performed on the at least one affected asset and (ii) the digital properties of the at least one affected asset determined after the one or more preservation actions are performed on the at least one affected asset causing the at least one affected asset to change format, and based on the observation and evaluation, making a judgement and/or opinion as to the validation of the one or more preservation actions performed on the at least one affected asset.
STEP 2A Prong Two:Claim 1 recites that the method performed using “a digital preservation system” and “one or more computing devices”, which is a high-level recitation of generic computer components and represents mere instructions to apply on a computer as in MPEP 2106.05(f), which does not provide integration into a practical application.
Claim 13 recites “one or more non-transitory computer-readable media” and “one or more computing devices”, which is a high-level recitation of generic computer components and represents mere instructions to apply on a computer as in MPEP 2106.05(f), which does not provide integration into a practical application.
Claim 17 recites a computer system comprising “one or more processors” and “one or more non-transitory computer-readable media”, which is a high-level recitation of generic computer components and represents mere instructions to apply on a computer as in MPEP 2106.05(f), which does not provide integration into a practical application.
The claims 1, 13, and 17 recite the following additional elements:
Receiving an indication of a change to at least one selected from a group consisting of configuration data and tools of the digital preservation system;
The limitation recites an insignificant extra solution activity as retrieval of data (ie. Mere data gathering) such as ‘obtaining information’ as identified in MPEP 2106.05(g) and does not provide integration into a practical application.
Wherein the at least one affected asset comprises a first representation and a second representation;
The limitation recites an insignificant extra-solution activity as selecting a particular type of data being used to represent the at least one affected asset as identified in MPEP 2106.05(g) and does not provide integration into a practical application.
the at least one action comprising determining and storing digital properties of the at least one affected asset,
The limitation recites an insignificant extra-solution activity as selecting a particular type of data/action(s) being used to represent the at least one action as identified in MPEP 2106.05(g) and does not provide integration into a practical application.
The digital properties being attributes of the at least one affected asset that do not change when the at least one affected asset is migrated from one format to another;
The limitation recites an insignificant extra-solution activity as selecting a particular type of data being used to represent the digital properties as identified in MPEP 2106.05(g) and does not provide integration into a practical application.
Viewing the additional limitations together and the claim as a whole, nothing provides integration into a practical application.
STEP 2B:
The conclusions for the mere implementation using a computer are carried over and does not provide significantly more.
With respect to “Receiving an indication of a change to at least one selected from a group consisting of configuration data and tools of the digital preservation system;” identified as insignificant extra-solution activity above this is also WURC as court-identified see MPEP 2106.05(d)(II)(i).
With respect to “Wherein the at least one affected asset comprises a first representation and a second representation;” identified as insignificant extra-solution activity above this is also WURC when claimed in a merely generic manner as court-identified see MPEP 2106.05(d)(II)(iv).
With respect to “the at least one action comprising determining and storing digital properties of the at least one affected asset,” identified as insignificant extra-solution activity above this is also WURC when claimed in a merely generic manner as court-identified see MPEP 2106.05(d)(II)(iv).
With respect to “The digital properties being attributes of the at least one affected asset that do not change when the at least one affected asset is migrated from one format to another;” identified as insignificant extra-solution activity above this is also WURC when claimed in a merely generic manner as court-identified see MPEP 2106.05(d)(II)(iv).
Looking at the claim as a whole does not change this conclusion and the claim is ineligible.
As per Dependent Claims 2-12, 14-16, and 18-20,
STEP 1:In accordance with Step 1 of the eligibility inquiry (as explained in MPEP 2106), the claimed method (claims 1-12), non-transitory computer-readable media (claims 13-16), and system (claims 17-20) are directed to one of the eligible categories of subject matter and therefore satisfies Step 1.
STEP 2A Prong One:The dependent claims 2-12, 14-16, and 18-20 recite the following limitations directed to an abstract idea:
The limitation of Dependent Claim 2 includes the step(s) of:
The one or more operations including at least one selected from a group consisting of:
Identification of a format of a file;
The limitation recites a mental process of observation, evaluation, judgement, and/or opinion capable of being performed by a human because human can look at a file and reasonably identify the format of the file.
Determination of digital properties of a file;
The limitation recites a mental process of observation, evaluation, judgement, and/or opinion capable of being performed by a human because human can look at a file and reasonably determine properties of the file.
Validation of conformance by a file to a particular file format;
The limitation recites a mental process of observation, evaluation, judgement, and/or opinion capable of being performed by a human because human can look at a file, observe the format of the file, and validate whether the file is in a particular file format or a different file format.
Migration of a file from one file format to another;
The limitation recites a mathematical concept of executing a function to migrate, or transform, an asset from one format to another.
Validation that a migration from one file format to another has performed successfully; and
The limitation recites a mental process of observation, evaluation, judgement, and/or opinion capable of being performed by a human because human can look at a file and reasonably identify that a file that was in a first format is now in another file format.
The limitation of Dependent Claim 6 includes the step(s) of:
Wherein migration comprises modifying the at least one affected asset by adding a new representation of data of the asset,
The limitation recites a mathematical concept of executing a mathematical formula on the at least one affected asset that includes modifying the at least one affected asset by adding a new representation of data of the asset.
The limitation of Dependent Claims 10, 14, and 18 includes the step(s) of:
Determining a first part of the multi-part asset that is affected by the change and
The limitation recites a mental process of observation, evaluation, judgement, and/or opinion capable of being performed by a human because a human can observe an asset, in its broadest reasonable interpretation, and determine multiple parts including a first part of the asset.
wherein the at least one action is performed only on the first part of the multi-part asset.
The limitation recites a mathematical concept of executing an action/function on a determined part of an asset.
The limitation of Dependent Claims 11, 15, and 19 includes the step(s) of:
Determining a second part of the multi-part asset that is affected by the change and
The limitation recites a mental process of observation, evaluation, judgement, and/or opinion by observing and evaluating the multi-part asset, and based on the observation and evaluation, determining a second part of the multi-part asset affected by the change. This is broadly recited as to how the determination of the affected asset is performed and thus is understood as something that could be performed by the human mind.
Performing at least one different action on the second part of the multi-part asset.
The limitation recites a mental process capable of being performed by the human mind through observation, evaluation, judgement, and/or opinion by observing and evaluating the second part of the multi-part asset, and based on the observation and evaluation, making a judgement and/or opinion to perform any “at least one different action” on the second part of the multi-part asset that is capable of being performed by the human mind.
The limitation of Dependent Claims 12, 16, and 20 includes the step(s) of:
Validating whether the at least one asset complies with a format specification for an indicated format of the at least one affected asset.
The limitation recites a mental process of observation, evaluation, judgement, and/or opinion capable of being performed by a human because human can look at an asset, observe the format of the asset, and validate whether the asset is in a particular format indicated by a format specification/rule.
STEP 2A Prong Two:The claim(s) recite the following additional elements:
The limitation of Dependent Claim 2 includes the step(s) of:
Wherein the digital preservation system comprises one or more tools for performing one or more operations on data stored within the digital preservation system,
It is noted that the limitation recites intended use language of “…one or more tools for performing…” and is thus not being given patentable weight. Therefore, the limitation is understood as reciting “wherein the digital preservation system comprises one or more tools” which is a high-level recitation of generic computer components and represents mere instructions to apply on a computer as in MPEP 2106.05(f), which does not provide integration into a practical application.
The operations including at least one selected from a group consisting of:
Rendering of content.
The limitation is a high-level recitation of generic computer components and represents mere instructions to apply on a computer as in MPEP 2106.05(f), which does not provide integration into a practical application. Rending content is understood as merely providing, displaying, or presenting content.
The limitation of Dependent Claim 3 includes the step(s) of:
Wherein the indication of a change comprises an indication of a change to one or more of the tools.
The limitation recites an insignificant extra-solution activity of receiving a particular type of data in the form of an indication of a change to one or more tools as identified in MPEP 2106.05(g) and does not provide integration into a practical application.
The limitation of Dependent Claim 4 includes the step(s) of:
Wherein the digital properties comprise at least one of a number of pages, a number of images, an image size, a period of time of audio, and a period of time of a video stream.
The limitation recites an insignificant extra-solution activity as selecting a particular type of data being used to represent the properties as identified in MPEP 2106.05(g) and does not provide integration into a practical application.
The limitation of Dependent Claim 5 includes the step(s) of:
Wherein the first representation comprises an editable representation of the at least one affected asset and the second representation comprises a representation of the at least one affected asset that is intended for presentation.
The limitation recites an insignificant extra-solution activity as selecting a particular type of data being used to represent the first representation and the second representation as identified in MPEP 2106.05(g) and does not provide integration into a practical application.
The limitation of Dependent Claim 6 includes the step(s) of:
Wherein the at least one action comprises migration of the at least one affected asset;
The limitation recites an insignificant extra solution activity as sending/receiving data (ie. Mere data gathering) such as ‘obtaining information’ as identified in MPEP 2106.05(g) and does not provide integration into a practical application.
the new representation forming a new generation of the at least one affected asset.
The limitation recites an insignificant extra-solution activity as selecting a particular type of data being used to represent “the new representation” as identified in MPEP 2106.05(g) and does not provide integration into a practical application.
The limitation of Dependent Claim 7 includes the step(s) of:
Wherein the configuration data of the digital preservation system comprises a file format database and
The limitation is a high-level recitation of generic computer components and represents mere instructions to apply on a computer as in MPEP 2106.05(f), which does not provide integration into a practical application. Rending content is understood as merely providing, displaying, or presenting content.
the indication of a change comprises a change to the file format database.
The limitation recites an insignificant extra-solution activity of receiving a particular type of data in the form of an indication of a change to a file format database as identified in MPEP 2106.05(g) and does not provide integration into a practical application.
The limitation of Dependent Claim 8 includes the step(s) of:
Wherein the digital preservation system comprises a plurality of predetermined preservation actions and
The limitation recites a high-level recitation of generic computer components and represents mere instructions to apply on a computer as in MPEP 2106.05(f), which does not provide integration into a practical application. A preservation action can be broadly interpreted as any action that preserves data, such as a storage instructions to be applied on a computer.
the indication of a change comprises an indication of a change to one or more of the plurality of predetermined preservation actions.
The limitation recites an insignificant extra-solution activity of receiving a particular type of data in the form of an indication of a change to one or more of predetermined preservation actions as identified in MPEP 2106.05(g) and does not provide integration into a practical application.
The limitation of Dependent Claim 9 includes the step(s) of:
Wherein the digital preservation system comprises one or more user policies and
The limitation recites a high-level recitation of generic computer components and represents mere instructions to apply on a computer as in MPEP 2106.05(f), which does not provide integration into a practical application. A user policy can be broadly interpreted as any instructions to be applied on a computer because a policy are simply rules such as instructions.
the indication of a change comprises an indication of a change to one or more of the one or more user policies.
The limitation recites an insignificant extra-solution activity of receiving a particular type of data in the form of an indication of a change to one or more of the one or more user policies as identified in MPEP 2106.05(g) and does not provide integration into a practical application.
The limitation of Dependent Claims 10, 14, and 18 includes the step(s) of:
Wherein the at least one affected asset is a multi-part asset
The limitation recites an insignificant extra-solution activity of data being a particular type of data in the form of an asset having multiple parts as identified in MPEP 2106.05(g) and does not provide integration into a practical application.
Viewing the additional limitations together and the claim as a whole, nothing provides integration into a practical application.
STEP 2B:
The conclusions for the mere implementation using a computer are carried over and does not provide significantly more.
With respect to Claim 3 reciting “Wherein the indication of a change comprises an indication of a change to one or more of the tools” identified as insignificant extra-solution activity above this is also WURC when claimed in a merely generic manner as court-identified see MPEP 2106.05(d)(II)(iv).
With respect to Claim 4 reciting “Wherein the digital properties comprise at least one of a number of pages, a number of images, an image size, a period of time of audio, and a period of time of a video stream.” identified as insignificant extra-solution activity above this is also WURC when claimed in a merely generic manner as court-identified see MPEP 2106.05(d)(II)(iv).
With respect to Claim 5 reciting “Wherein the first representation comprises an editable representation of the at least one affected asset and the second representation comprises a representation of the at least one affected asset that is intended for presentation.” identified as insignificant extra-solution activity above this is also WURC when claimed in a merely generic manner as court-identified see MPEP 2106.05(d)(II)(iv).
With respect to Claim 6 reciting “Wherein the at least one action comprises migration of the at least one affected asset;” identified as insignificant extra-solution activity above this is also WURC when claimed in a merely generic manner as court-identified see MPEP 2106.05(d)(II)(i).
With respect to Claim 6 reciting “the new representation forming a new generation of the at least one affected asset.” identified as insignificant extra-solution activity above this is also WURC when claimed in a merely generic manner as court-identified see MPEP 2106.05(d)(II)(iv).
With respect to Claim 7 reciting “the indication of a change comprises a change to the file format database” identified as insignificant extra-solution activity above this is also WURC when claimed in a merely generic manner as court-identified see MPEP 2106.05(d)(II)(iv).
With respect to Claim 8 reciting “the indication of a change comprises an indication of a change to one or more of the plurality of predetermined preservation actions” identified as insignificant extra-solution activity above this is also WURC when claimed in a merely generic manner as court-identified see MPEP 2106.05(d)(II)(iv).
With respect to Claim 9 reciting “the indication of a change comprises an indication of a change to one or more of the one or more user policies” identified as insignificant extra-solution activity above this is also WURC when claimed in a merely generic manner as court-identified see MPEP 2106.05(d)(II)(iv).
With respect to Claims 10, 14, and 18 reciting “Wherein the at least one affected asset is a multi-part asset” identified as insignificant extra-solution activity above this is also WURC when claimed in a merely generic manner as court-identified see MPEP 2106.05(d)(II)(iv).
Looking at the claim as a whole does not change this conclusion and the claim is ineligible.
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.
Claim(s) 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Non-Patent Literature O'Sullivan, J. et al., "Towards Automated Digital Preservation through Preservation Action Registries." Archiving Conference. Vol. 17, Society for Imaging Science and Technology, 2020 (Year: 2020). and further in view of Anand et al. (U.S. Pre-Grant Publication No. 2006/0053181, hereinafter referred to as Anand) and Matsuhara et al. (U.S. Pre-Grant Publication No. 2004/0190045, hereinafter referred to as Matsuhara).
Regarding Claim 1:
O’Sullivan teaches a computer-implemented method of automatically preserving digital documents stored in a digital preservation system, comprising, at least one or more computer devices of the digital preservation system:
Receiving, by the one or more computing devices of the digital preservation system, an indication of a change to at least one selected from a group consisting of configuration data and tools of the digital preservation system;
O’Sullivan teaches “an automated periodic check for pertinent changes to the Preservica registry, i.e. changes to Preservation Actions, Business Rules or RuleSets that form part of the chain of Preservation Policy configured within the system” (Page 9 Column 2).
Automatically determining, by processing the indication by the one or more computing devise of the digital preservation system, at least one affected asset which is stored by the digital preservation system and is affected by the change,
O’Sullivan teaches “to determine how the change should be retroactively applied to existing content, we created a new PAR-like entity to describe a set of Recommended Processes, with some assessment of priority to allow the system to make an automated decision about what processes to trigger.” and “a ‘Re-Migrate’ process that instructed the system to create new access representations for all affected records” (Page 10 Column 1) thereby teaching determining which existing content the change should be retroactively applied to and at least one affected record asset.
Wherein the at least one affected asset comprises a first representation and a second representation;
O’Sullivan teaches application of policy where an original Kodak PhotoCD preservation representation being normalized to TIFF as a second representation, and also “[creating] an access representation, which is in JPEG format” (Page 8 Column 2) thereby teaching the assets in at least first and second representations.
Automatically determining, by the one or more computing devices of the digital preservation system, at least one action to be performed by a tool of the digital preservation system on the at least one affected asset,
O’Sullivan teaches “the period check for changes was configured to also read these Recommended Processes and apply them automatically to previously ingested content. This triggered a second migration process against the Kodak PhotoCD content” (Page 10 Column 1) thereby teaching determining an action to be performed on the affected record assets.
the at least one action comprising determining and storing digital properties of the at least one affected asset,
O’Sullivan teaches “[triggering] a second migration process against the Kodak PhotoCD content” where “the outcome was the creation of a new PNG access representation, alongside the ‘original’ JPEG” (Page 10 Column 1) thereby teaching processing the affected Kodak PhotoCD original JPEG content to determine and store properties of the affected Kodak PhotoCD original JPEG content as new PNG content. O’Sullivan teaches at least first and second properties of the affected asset as being the format of the affected Kodak PhotoCD original JPEG content and the new format as being PNG. O’Sullivan further teaches storing additional properties of each generation of content such as metadata describing the format group, compression type, colour space, x sampling frequency, image width, sampling frequency unit, byte order, image height, etc. (Figure 5 on Page 9).
It is noted that the term “digital properties” is given its broadest reasonable interpretation because a property is merely any descriptive information about or associated with the digital object it is describing.
The digital properties being attributes of the at least one affected asset that do not change when the at least one affected asset is migrated from one format to another;
O’Sullivan teaches determining and storing the properties by teaching “[triggering] a second migration process against the Kodak PhotoCD content” where “the outcome was the creation of a new PNG access representation, alongside the ‘original’ JPEG” (Page 10 Column 1) thereby teaching processing the affected Kodak PhotoCD original JPEG content to determine and store properties of the affected Kodak PhotoCD original JPEG content as new PNG content. O’Sullivan teaches at least first and second properties of the affected asset as being the format of the affected Kodak PhotoCD original JPEG content and the new format as being PNG. O’Sullivan further teaches storing additional properties of each generation of content such as metadata describing the format group, compression type, colour space, x sampling frequency, image width, sampling frequency unit, byte order, image height, etc. (Figure 5 on Page 9). By teaching properties of the tiff format group including a compression type of “uncompressed” and a colour space of “RGB”, and another representation in Figure 5 as a .jpg, which is also an uncompressed format type with colour space of “RGB”, O’Sullivan is teaching at least some of the determined properties of the affected asset as not changing, or being preserved, via performance of the one or more preservation actions. O’Sullivan also teaches an additional property that does not change as being the file name “fmt-211 (Kodak PhotoCD)[1]” being consistent between the .pcd, .tiff, and .jpg copies.
Automatically performing, by the one or more computing devices of the digital preservation system, the determined at least one action on the at least one affected asset,
O’Sullivan teaches “an automated and dynamically applied Preservation Policy” (Page 10 Column 2) and “to determine how the change should be retroactively applied to existing content, we created a new PAR-like entity to describe a set of Recommended Processes, with some assessment of priority to allow the system to make an automated decision about what processes to trigger” (Page 10 Column 1) thereby teaching automatically applying/performing the triggered process/action of the preservation policy on the affected content/assets.
Wherein the at least one action is performed on only one of the first representation and the second representation and
O’Sullivan teaches application of policy where an original Kodak PhotoCD preservation representation being normalized to TIFF as a second representation, and also “[creating] an access representation, which is in JPEG format” (Page 8 Column 2) thereby teaching the assets in at least first and second representations and only performing an action to create an access representation in JPEG format from TIFF.O’Sullivan further teaches applying another change of policy example of “a change in advice where JPEG was deprecated and PNG became the only acceptable access format” (Page 9 Column 2).
Wherein performing the determined at least one action includes determining and storing the digital properties of the at least one affected asset;
O’Sullivan teaches “an automated and dynamically applied Preservation Policy” (Page 10 Column 2) and “to determine how the change should be retroactively applied to existing content, we created a new PAR-like entity to describe a set of Recommended Processes, with some assessment of priority to allow the system to make an automated decision about what processes to trigger” (Page 10 Column 1) thereby teaching automatically applying/performing the triggered process/action of the preservation policy on the affected content/assets.
O’Sullivan further teaches the actions including determining and storing the digital properties by teaching “[triggering] a second migration process against the Kodak PhotoCD content” where “the outcome was the creation of a new PNG access representation, alongside the ‘original’ JPEG” (Page 10 Column 1) thereby teaching processing the affected Kodak PhotoCD original JPEG content to determine and store properties of the affected Kodak PhotoCD original JPEG content as new PNG content, and at least first and second properties of the affected asset as being the format of the affected Kodak PhotoCD original JPEG content and the new format as being PNG. O’Sullivan further teaches storing additional properties of each generation of content such as metadata describing the format group, compression type, colour space, x sampling frequency, image width, sampling frequency unit, byte order, image height, etc. (Figure 5 on Page 9).
It is noted that the term “digital properties” is given its broadest reasonable interpretation because a property is merely any descriptive information about or associated with the digital object it is describing.
Determining, by the one or more computing devices of the digital preservation system, that one or more preservation actions are to be performed on the at least one affected asset;
O’Sullivan teaches “the original preservation representation has a single logical piece of content, the image itself” and “following the policy that we configured, this is normalized to TIFF, creating a second generation of the content…[and] to create an access representation, which is in JPEG format” (Page 8 Column 2). O’Sullivan further teaches business rules where “the allowable purposes are for creation of new preservation copies of the original content, or for new access copies of the original content” (Page 7 Column 1). Therefore, O’Sullivan teaches using business rules to determine particular preservation actions to be performed on affected assets.
Preserving, by the one or more computing devices of the digital preservation system, the at least one affected asset by performing the one or more preservation actions on the at least one affected asset causing the at least one affected asset to change format;
O’Sullivan teaches “the original preservation representation has a single logical piece of content, the image itself” and “following the policy that we configured, this is normalized to TIFF, creating a second generation of the content…[and] to create an access representation, which is in JPEG format” (Page 8 Column 2). O’Sullivan further teaches business rules where “the allowable purposes are for creation of new preservation copies of the original content, or for new access copies of the original content” (Page 7 Column 1). Therefore O’Sullivan teaches preserving the affected asset(s), based on the determined one or more preservation actions from the business rules, using at least the format properties to normalize and create new copies in different formats that preserve the original content.
Determining, by the one or more computing devices of the digital preservation system, the properties of the at least one affected asset after the one or more preservation actions are performed on the at least one affected asset; and
O’Sullivan teaches “[triggering] a second migration process against the Kodak PhotoCD content” where “the outcome was the creation of a new PNG access representation, alongside the ‘original’ JPEG” (Page 10 Column 1) thereby teaching processing the affected Kodak PhotoCD original JPEG content to determine and store properties of the affected Kodak PhotoCD original JPEG content as new PNG content. O’Sullivan teaches at least first and second properties of the affected asset as being the format of the affected Kodak PhotoCD original JPEG content and the new format as being PNG. O’Sullivan further teaches storing additional properties of each generation of content before and after preservation actions are performed on the at least one affected as, such as metadata describing the format group, compression type, colour space, x sampling frequency, image width, sampling frequency unit, byte order, image height, etc. (Figure 5 on Page 9).
O’Sullivan explicitly teaches all of the elements of the claimed invention as recited above except:
Validating, by the one or more computing devices of the digital preservation system, based on the determined digital properties of the at least one affected asset, the one or more preservation actions performed on the at least one affected asset,
Wherein validating the one or more preservation actions comprises comparing, by the one or more computing devices of the digital preservation system, (i) the digital properties of the at least one affected asset determined before the one or more preservation actions are performed on the at least one affected asset with (ii) the digital properties of the at least one affected asset determined after the one or more preservation actions are performed on the at least one affected asset causing the at least one affected asset to change format.
However, in the related field of endeavor of monitoring and managing archive operations, Annand teaches:
Validating, by the one or more computing devices of the digital preservation system, based on the determined properties of the at least one affected asset, the one or more preservation actions performed on the at least one affected asset.
Anand teaches validating whether the archive was successful based on properties of the archival action including a comparison of the number of records being transmitted to the number of records successfully received at the storage location (Para. [0256]).
Anand also teaches “validation parameters of the protected objects at the production location obtained in block 3503 and the validation parameters of the objects at the storage location obtained in block 3505 are compared to confirm that the objects located at the storage location match the protected objects located at the production location” (Para. [0215]).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Anand and O’Sullivan at the time that the claimed invention was effectively filed, to have combined the confirmation of a successful archive operation, as taught by Anand, with the systems and methods for digital preservation, as taught by O’Sullivan.
One would have been motivated to make such combination because Anand teaches determining if a task of an archive job was successful, and remediating the unsuccessful job with an archive makeup job (Abstract) and it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art that having a failsafe for when an action is not successful would improve the robustness and reliability of the archival system.
Anand and O’Sullivan explicitly teach all of the elements of the claimed invention as recited above except:
Wherein validating the one or more preservation actions comprises comparing, by the one or more computing devices of the digital preservation system, (i) the digital properties of the at least one affected asset determined before the one or more preservation actions are performed on the at least one affected asset with (ii) the digital properties of the at least one affected asset determined after the one or more preservation actions are performed on the at least one affected asset causing the at least one affected asset to change format.
However, in the related field of endeavor of image processing, Matsuhara teaches:
Wherein validating the one or more preservation actions comprises comparing, by the one or more computing devices of the digital preservation system, (i) the digital properties of the at least one affected asset determined before the one or more preservation actions are performed on the at least one affected asset with (ii) the digital properties of the at least one affected asset determined after the one or more preservation actions are performed on the at least one affected asset causing the at least one affected asset to change format.
Matsuhara teaches “A file converter 265 converts the format of a file in the memory 261 to, for example, compact PDF format. It is possible to convert it to a format such as tag image file format (TIFF) or Joint Photographic Experts Group (JPEG) format. It may also be converted to one of a plurality of formats.” (Para. [0034]) where “the second processing (or file conversion in this example) is performed simultaneously. Preferably, the host computer 6 receives the image data subjected to the second processing, and the screen for selection shown in FIG. 7 to check the received image data and the original image data. The files before and after the processing are shown at the left and right side in the screen, and the user who issued the print job observes and compares the image data before and after the processing to confirm the result of the second processing (file conversion, color conversion, OCR and encoding, or the like) performed during the printing by the image processing apparatus (MFP).” (Para. [0044]).
Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Matsuhara, Anand, and O’Sullivan at the time that the claimed invention was effectively filed, to have combined the comparison of image data before and after the processing to confirm he result of the file conversion, as taught by Matsuhara, with the confirmation of a successful archive operation, as taught by Anand, with the systems and methods for digital preservation, as taught by O’Sullivan.
One would have been motivated to make such combination because Matsuhara teaches “an advantage of the present invention is that a plurality of processings can be used more easily in an image processing apparatus” (Para. [0013]) including the example of “a user of the host computer 6 instructs file conversion as the second processing at the same time as printing, and sends print data from the host computer 6 with the instruction” (Para. [0038]) and it would be obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art that performing other image processing operations in addition to file conversion/migration, would expand the capabilities of the file conversion/migration system taught by the combination of Anand and O’Sullivan.
Regarding Claim 2:
Matsuhara, Anand, and O’Sullivan further teach:
Wherein the digital preservation system comprises one or more tools for performing one or more operations on data stored within the digital preservation system,
O’Sullivan teaches “a means for invoking a tool on some input content and mapping the output to something useful” (Page 7 Column 1) and “a decision to use a new tool to perform a migration might not require previously run migrations to be re-performed, but a decision to use a different long-term preservation format might” (Page 6 Column 2). Therefore, O’Sullivan teaches one or more tools for performing operations on data stored in the digital preservation system.
It is noted that the limitation recites intended use language of “…one or more tools for performing…” and is thus not being given patentable weight. Therefore, the limitation is understood as reciting “wherein the digital preservation system comprises one or more tools”. However, for the purpose of compact prosecution, tools that perform operations on stored data have been taken into consideration and addressed above.
The one or more operations including at least one selected from a group consisting of:
Identification of a format of a file;
Determination of digital properties of a file;
Validation of conformance by a file to a particular file format;
Migration of a file from one file format to another;
O’Sullivan teaches “[triggering] a second migration process against the Kodak PhotoCD content” where “the outcome was the creation of a new PNG access representation, alongside the ‘original’ JPEG” (Page 10 Column 1) thereby teaching a migration of the affected Kodak PhotoCD content from the original JPEG format to a PNG access representation.
Validation that a migration from one file format to another has performed successfully; and
Rendering of content.
Regarding Claim 3:
Matsuhara, Anand, and O’Sullivan further teach:
Wherein the indication of a change comprises an indication of a change to one or more of the tools.
O’Sullivan teaches “an automated periodic check for pertinent changes to the Preservica registry, i.e. changes to Preservation Actions, Business Rules or RuleSets that form part of the chain of Preservation Policy configured within the system” (Page 9 Column 2).
Regarding Claim 4:
Matsuhara, Anand, and O’Sullivan further teach:
Wherein the digital properties comprise at least one of:
A number of pages,
A number of images,
O’Sullivan teaches storing properties of each generation of content such as metadata describing the number of generations (Figure 7 on Page 9). By teaching tracking each numbered generation of content, O’Sullivan teaches a property as being the number of images associated both with the overall representation and underlying content as well as the number of images within each generation of the underlying content.
An image size,
O’Sullivan teaches storing properties of each generation of content such as metadata describing the format group, compression type, colour space, x sampling frequency, image width, sampling frequency unit, byte order, image height, etc. (Figure 5 on Page 9). By teaching the image width and height as properties, O’Sullivan teaches an image size as a property of the content.
Anand also teaches using validation parameters of objects including “file size” (Para. [0214]).
A period of time of audio, and
A period of time of a video stream.
Regarding Claim 5:
Matsuhara, Anand, and O’Sullivan further teach:
Wherein the first representation comprises an editable representation of the at least one affected asset and the second representation comprises a representation of the at least one affected asset that is intended for presentation.
O’ Sullivan teaches “the outcome was the creation of a new PNG access representation, alongside the ‘original’ JPEG” (Page 10 Column 1) thereby teaching an editable representation and another representation intended for presentation. It is noted that both PNG and JPEG formats are both editable as well presentable.
Regarding Claim 6:
Matsuhara, Anand, and O’Sullivan further teach:
Wherein the at least one action comprises migration of the at least one affected asset by the one or more computing devices of the digital preservation system;
O’Sullivan teaches “[triggering] a second migration process against the Kodak PhotoCD content” where “the outcome was the creation of a new PNG access representation, alongside the ‘original’ JPEG” (Page 10 Column 1) thereby teaching a migration of the affected Kodak PhotoCD content from the original JPEG format to a PNG access representation.
Wherein migration comprises modifying, by the one or more computing devices of the digital preservation system, the at least one affected asset by adding a new representation of data of the at least one affected asset, the new representation forming a new generation of the at least one affected asset.
O’Sullivan teaches “[triggering] a second migration process against the Kodak PhotoCD content” where “the outcome was the creation of a new PNG access representation, alongside the ‘original’ JPEG” (Page 10 Column 1) thereby teaching a migration of the affected Kodak PhotoCD content from the original JPEG format to a PNG access representation/generation.
Regarding Claim 7:
Matsuhara, Anand, and O’Sullivan further teach:
Wherein the configuration data of the digital preservation system comprises a file format database and the indication of a change comprises a change to the file format database.
O’Sullivan teaches a file format database and an indication of a change comprising a change to the file format database by teaching storing mappings “between specific File Formats, the preservation Action that can be run, and the allowable purposes (expressed as a Preservation Action Type)” (Page 7 Column 1)
Regarding Claim 8:
Matsuhara, Anand, and O’Sullivan further teach:
Wherein the digital preservation system comprises a plurality of predetermined preservation actions and the indication of a change comprises an indication of a change to one or more of the plurality of predetermined preservation actions.
O’Sullivan teaches “Preservica constrains users to perform actions that are defensible as ‘reasonable approaches’…[and] allows multiple Business Rules to be available to run against content of a particular format” (Page 7 Column 1) thereby teaching predetermined preservation actions in the form of Business Rules. O’Sullivan further teaches “we configured an automated periodic check for pertinent changes to the Preservica registry, i.e. changes to Preservation Actions, Business Rules or RuleSets that form part of the chain of a Preservation Policy configured within the system” (Page 9 Column 2) thereby teaching detecting an indication of a change to a predetermined preservation action in the Preservica registry.
Regarding Claim 9:
Matsuhara, Anand, and O’Sullivan further teach:
Wherein the digital preservation system comprises one or more user policies and the indication of a change comprises an indication of a change to one or more of the one or more user policies.
O’Sullivan teaches “we configured an automated periodic check for pertinent changes to the Preservica registry, i.e. changes to Preservation Actions, Business Rules or RuleSets that form part of the chain of a Preservation Policy configured within the system” (Page 9 Column 2) and a user interface “to allow an Inexperienced User to ‘subscribe’ to these RuleSets as part of their overall Preservation Policy” (Page 8 Column 1). Therefore, O’Sullivan teaches detecting an indication of a change to a user policy in the Preservica registry.
Regarding Claim 10:
Matsuhara, Anand, and O’Sullivan further teach:
Wherein the at least one affected asset is a multi-part asset and
O’Sullivan teaches an Asset fmt-211 (Kodak PhotoCD) with multiple parts (Page 9 Figures 5 and 7 & Page 10 Figure 10)
Determining, by the one or more computing devices of the digital preservation system, a first part of the multi-part asset that is affected by the change and wherein the at least one action is performed only on the first part of the multi-part asset.
O’Sullivan teaches determining “how the change should be retroactively applied to existing content” and “instructed the system to create new access representations for all affected records” (Page 10 Column 1) thereby teaching determining the affected part of the asset and applying the retroactive change to the affected part.
Regarding Claim 11:
Matsuhara, Anand, and O’Sullivan further teach:
Determining, by the one or more computing devices of the digital preservation system, a second part of the multi-part asset that is affected by the change and performing at least one different action on the second part of the multi-part asset.
O’Sullivan teaches “the ingest of a single PhotoCD image has triggered a Normalization to TIFF and the creation of a JPEG access representation” where “the event history for the PhotoCD shows the ingest, and separate background processes to create the normalized TIFF and access JPEG copies” (Page 9 Column 1 Figure 5). Therefore, O’Sullivan teaches executing multiple separate background processes operating on the same asset where an asset can have multiple parts.
Regarding Claim 12:
Matsuhara, Anand, and O’Sullivan further teach:
Validating, by the one or more computing devices of the digital preservation system, whether the at least one affected asset complies with a format specification for an indicated format of the at least one affected asset.
O’Sullivan teaches “following the policy that we configured…our policy also configured the system to create an access representation, which is in JPEG format” (Page 8 Column 2) thereby teaching validating the asset complies with a format specified in the policy.
Regarding Claim 13:
Some of the limitations herein are similar to some or all of the limitations of Claim 1.
Matsuhara, Anand, and O’Sullivan further teach:
One or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing computer-readable instructions configured to cause one or more computing devices of a digital preservation system to perform operations.
O’Sullivan teaches a “Digital Preservation system…and how its finite compute, memory and storage resources should be allocated to performing different tasks” (Page 10 Column 2).
Regarding Claim 14:
All of the limitations herein are similar to some or all of the limitations of Claim 10.
Regarding Claim 15:
All of the limitations herein are similar to some or all of the limitations of Claim 11.
Regarding Claim 16:
All of the limitations herein are similar to some or all of the limitations of Claim 12.
Regarding Claim 17:
Some of the limitations herein are similar to some or all of the limitations of Claim 1.
A Matsuhara, Anand, and O’Sullivan further teach a computing system comprising:
One or more processors; and
O’Sullivan teaches a “Digital Preservation system…and how its finite compute, memory and storage resources should be allocated to performing different tasks” (Page 10 Column 2).
One or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing computer-readable instructions configured to cause one or more processors of the digital preservation system to perform operations.
O’Sullivan teaches a “Digital Preservation system…and how its finite compute, memory and storage resources should be allocated to performing different tasks” (Page 10 Column 2).
Regarding Claim 18:
All of the limitations herein are similar to some or all of the limitations of Claim 10.
Regarding Claim 19:
All of the limitations herein are similar to some or all of the limitations of Claim 11.
Regarding Claim 20:
All of the limitations herein are similar to some or all of the limitations of Claim 12.
Response to Amendment
Applicant’s Amendments, filed on 12/11/2025 are acknowledged and accepted.
Response to Arguments
On pages 10-11 of the Remarks filed on 12/11/2025, Applicant argues, with respect to the 101 rejection, that “the Examiner indicates that the claim language "to determine and store properties" recites "intended use language...and is thus not being given patentable weight." The quoted language "to determine and store properties" does not appear in any of the previously-presented claims. Rather, the previously-presented claims generally recited (i) automatically determining at least one action to be performed by a tool of the preservation system on an affected asset, wherein the at least one action comprised "determining and storing properties of the at least one affected asset" and (ii) automatically performing the determined at least one action on the at least one affected asset. Accordingly, the claim language did not merely recite intended use regarding the determining and storing of properties of an asset but actively recited performing such determining and storing of properties”Applicant’s argument is not convincing because the limitation being addressed does not actively recite determining and storing of properties, but instead determining at least one action “to be performed” and “the at least one action comprising determining and storing properties of the at least one affected asset” but the determining and storing is not actively performed in the specific limitation. However, it is noted that the subsequent amended limitation does actively recite “performing…the determined at least one action…” including “determining and storing the digital properties…” which has been addressed in the rejection above.
On page 11 of the Remarks filed on 12/11/2025, Applicant argues, with respect to the 101 rejection, that “the claim element ‘preserving... the at least one affected asset by performing the one or more preservation actions on the at least one affected asset causing the at least one affected asset to change format’ recited in independent claim 1 (and similarly recited in the other independent claims) does not recite a mathematical concept” because “The noted claim element does not recite any type of mathematical relationship, formula, equation, or calculation and, in fact, the Examiner has failed to demonstrate that changing a format of an asset (e.g., a digital file) involve or is based on a mathematical concept (e.g., as compared to syntax or metadata type transformations).”Applicant’s argument is not convincing because while the language of “preserving” at surface level is very broad, doing so by performing actions “causing the at least one affected asset to change format” is understood as a mathematical formula/function to take as input the contents of the asset represented as a first format and manipulate the contents into the changed format. For example, when the asset is one or more images (as the present Specification refers to multiple times in the Specification as a possibility: Paras. [0002], [0026], [0027], [0029], [0032], and [0067]), the change in format of images might require pixel manipulation, resizing/compression, color transformations, converting visual data into numerical representations, etc.
On pages 11-12 of the Remarks filed on 12/11/2025, Applicant argues, with respect to the 101 rejection, that “even assuming for the pure sake of argument that any of the claim elements recite an abstract idea, the claimed subject matter recites a practical application of any alleged abstract idea by providing an improvement in data preservation technology. The claimed digital preservation system addresses concrete problems associated with maintaining accessibility and integrity of digital assets over time, and, thus, the claimed subject matter is clearly a technical solution to a technical problem.” where “by, among other things, automatically determining affected assets based on in response to a received indication of a change to configuration or tools of the data preservation system, the claimed subject matter addresses the noted problems with existing preservation strategies.” and “Furthermore, the validation process recited in the pending claims improves data preservation technology as incorrect preservations can be identified and mitigation (see, e.g., Paragraph [0073]).”.Applicant’s argument is not convincing because the limitations related to automatically determining affected assets based on a received indication of a change to configuration or tools of the data preservation system and validation were determined to be an abstract idea (mental process) and an abstract idea itself cannot integrate the claims into a practical application.
On pages 12-14 of the Remarks filed on 12/11/2025, Applicant argues, with respect to the 103 rejection, that Masuhara does not teach the limitation of “wherein validating the one or more preservation actions comprises comparing…” because “A user observing and comparing images is not analogous to one or more processors of a digital preservation system comparing properties of an affected asset determined before and after preservation actions are performed on the affected asset.”.Applicant’s argument is not convincing because the claims do not recite how the properties are compared (e.g., pixel-wise comparison, feature-based matching, histogram-based comparisons, etc), just that the properties before and after the format change are compared, which the cited portions of Matsuhara are understood as teaching.It is noted that the example methods of comparing properties are merely examples known in the art for comparing images and don’t appear to be recited in/supported by Applicant’s specification.
On page 14 of the Remarks filed on 12/11/2025, Applicant argues, with respect to the 103 rejection, that Masuhara does not teach the amended clarification that the properties are “digital properties of the affected asset” because “the only properties that may be considered to be "compared" in Paragraph [0044] of Matsushara are visual properties observed by the user and not digital properties”.Applicant’s argument is not convincing because digital properties are merely understood as properties of the digital content, and thus can include visual properties. Further, Claim 4 of the present application clarifies that “the digital properties comprise at least one of…a number of images, an image size…” which are understood as identifiable visual properties that Applicant is explicitly considering to also be digital properties.
On pages 14-15 of the Remarks filed on 12/11/2025, Applicant argues, with respect to the 103 rejection, that “Masuhara is non-analogous art and cannot be properly combined with O'Sullivan and Anand to reject the pending claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103. A reference qualifies as analogous art only if it is either (1) from the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention, or (2) reasonably pertinent to the particular problem with which the inventor is concerned. See MPEP § 2141.01(a). The Federal Circuit and the USPTO have consistently held that references outside these boundaries are not proper for combination under § 103.” because “The pending claims are generally directed to a digital preservation system that automatically determines affected assets, performs preservation actions, and validates those actions by comparing digital properties before and after the preservation event. In sharp contrast, Matsuhara is directed to peripherals and user interfaces associated with simultaneous processing of data by such peripherals. Matsuhara is unrelated to data storage or preservation to ensure stored data is accessible as tools and configurations change.” and “In addition, "[a] reference is reasonably pertinent if it logically would have commended itself to an inventor's attention in considering the problem with which the inventor was concerned." See MPEP § 2141.01(a). The problem addressed by the pending claims is generally ensuring the integrity and accessibility of digital assets in the face of system changes, migrations, and evolving formats. The claimed subject matter generally provides an automated, system-based solution for automatically identified affected assets based on received indications of changes to tools or configurations, changing the format of such affected assets, and validating preservation actions using digital properties (attributes represented as data). Matsuhara, by contrast, describes a user interface where a human user visually compares images before and after processing in the context of a printer or copier. Accordingly, a person of ordinary skill in the art, seeking to solve the problems of digital preservation or archiving would not look to a reference focused on user- driven visual comparison in a peripheral device. The Examiner's rationale for combing the references based on Paragraph [0013] of Matsuhara, which discusses advantages specific to image processing apparatuses, does not provide a sufficient reason for one of ordinary skill in the art to apply Matsuhara's teachings to the field of digital data preservation. The technical fields, problems, and solutions are simply too remote.”Applicant’s argument is not convincing because the field of endeavor is understood as including changing the format of files/images and validating the change in format. The mere use of this for the purpose of preserving assets does not diminish the core functions of converting assets to new formats and validating the change in format, which Matsuhara is understood as being analogous to.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Brockway et al. (U.S. Pre-Grant Publication No. 8,346,825) teaches a system and method are provided for verifying data copies and reverifying the copies over the life span of media according to a verification policy. Characteristics of media and use of media are tracked to provide metrics which may be used to dynamically reevaluate and reassign verification policies to optimize media usage. Copies that fail verification operations may be repaired by repeating a storage operation for recent copies or by substituting a close temporal copy of the failed copy.The reference further teaches initiating “a verification operation in accordance with the verification policy, by directing an archive check manager, job manager, copy manager or other component to commence a verification operation” (Col. 12 Line 63 – Col. 13 Line 15) and comparing a first set of metadata to a second set of metadata to determine whether the sets of metadata for the underlying data at two different locations are similar or equivalent (Col. 7 Lines 32 - 60).
Non-Patent Literature O’Sullivan, Jack and Tilbury, Jonathan (2021, March 1). “Using preservation action registries to automate digital preservation” In the Journal of Digital Media Management, Volume 9, Issue 3 <https://hstalks.com/article/6200/using-preservation-action-registries-to-automate-d/?business> teaches how the exchange of file format best practice across the whole digital preservation community, including between suppliers of competing systems, is leading to improved automation. The primary focus of this work is on enabling users without deep technical knowledge to avail themselves of these technologies, so they can focus on the organisation, curation and presentation of their collections. The paper also explores some of the unanswered questions regarding how this automation can be achieved and what part users who do have deep technical knowledge will play in this future.
Non-Patent Literature Bennett, John C. A framework of data types and formats, and issues affecting the long term Preservation of digital material. available at: www. ukoln. ac. uk/services/elib/papers/supporting/# blric: British Library Research and Innovation Centre, 1997 teaches the aim of the study is to develop a framework which can help manage the resolution of the issues associated with the long-term preservation of digital material. Although a great deal has been discussed and written about digital material preservation, there would appear to be no overall structure which brings together the findings of the numerous contributors to the debate, and allows them to be compared. This Report attempts to provide such a structure, whereby it should be possible to identify the essential elements of the preservation debate and to determine objectively the criticality of the other unresolved issues. This Report attempts to identify the most critical issues and employ them in order to determine their affect on preservation practice. Where possible, the management issues and recommended approaches are high-lighted where they occur. For the purposes of clarity, some of the issues are documented as two working papers attached to the report.
Metzer et al. (U.S. Pre-Grant Publication No. 2008/0072290) teaches controlling access to a plurality of records and/or documentary materials to be persisted in an electronic archives system are provided. The plurality of records and/or documentary material and all preserved information may be stored and accessed on the basis of user and/or object attributes. The user attributes include group affiliation, ownership, and state (e.g., workflow step and time of day). The object attributes include group affiliation, business role, clearance or access level, and network address from which access is requested. Access to the plurality of records and/or documentary material can be obtained both from within a single security domain as well as across more than one security domain.The reference further teaches “At any time after the AIP has been placed into Managed Storage (also sometimes called Archival Storage), archivists may perform Preservation Processing, which includes transforming the records to authentically preserve them. Policies, business rules, Preservation and Service Plans, and management discretion will drive these tasks. Preservation processing supplements the Preservation Description Information metadata in the archives, and produces new (transformed) record versions.” (Para. [0108]).
Cunningham et al. (U.S. Patent No. 10,970,255) teaches synchronizing data between a customer data management system and a data warehouse system. A data warehouse server may constantly monitor a dynamic metadata flow from the customer data management system, compare it with the metadata in the data storage device, and dynamically update the metadata in the data storage device. The data warehouse server may track activities over time and accumulate a long running history, which may include multiple versions of accounts in the customer data management system, e.g., the account as of today, the account as of yesterday, and another version that was the account two weeks ago.The reference further teaches “a user is looking at an account object via the CRM 130, and may decide to add an extra attribute to it. For example, a color attribute. The data warehouse server 111 may automatically detect that change, dynamically change the schema of data in the data warehouse 110 to reflect that change, and merge the color data with data in the data storage device 112. When the user looks at that account object later, he/she may see the old version and new version.” (Column 3 Lines 42-49).
Gilderman et al. (U.S. Patent No. 10,509696) teaches migration of data from a source data store to a target data store may be monitored for errors. When an error is detected, one or more responsive actions may be identified to modify performance of the migration. In some embodiments, responsive actions may include further analyses to validate the migration. In some embodiments, the responsive actions may be corrective actions to correct the detected error. Once identified, the responsive actions may be performed to modify performance of the migration.The reference further teaches “responsive actions may make retroactive corrections (e.g., reformatting data already copied to the second database)” (Column 14 Lines 18-42 & Claim 9).
Bennett et al. (U.S. Pre-Grant Publication No. 2014/0365277) teaches retroactive document retention service including a database comprising rules relating to maintenance of information stored in an archive and retroactively applying the document retention service to one or more data items by modifying a retention time fore ach of the one or more data items.
Slik et al. (U.S. Pre-Grant Publication No. 2016/0267103) teaches a system can apply file placement rules to dynamically place files and directories within file system views backed by objects in an object storage system. After detection of an update to a first file system view that causes an update of an object in a storage grid, an object manager begins evaluation of file placement rules against metadata of the object. For each file placement rule that is triggered, the object manager determines identifies gateways that export the first file system view. The object manager then instructs the gateways to update their representations of the first file system view. The disclosed embodiments may be able to scale to managing hundreds of billions of files spanning thousands of file system views, especially in the presence of disconnected operation.The reference further teaches retroactively applying a rules change to create a new representation of a file system (Paras. [0097]-[0102]).
Non-Patent Literature Yu Zhang, "The studies and implementation for conversion of image file format", July 1, 2015, 2015 10th International Conference on Computer Science & Education (ICCSE) Page(s): 190-193 (Year: 2015) teaches “In this paper, the image file formats and the method of conversion have been studied. Both BMP, GIF image file formats are analyzed . As it is only provided supporting for BMP formation by the VC itself, through the file structure analysis, GIF' s structure is defined in the program. By comparing the color difference between the two models of different file formats, researched two compression algorithm for BMP, GIF format, designed conversion step process, and implemented the image file format conversion from BMP to GIF. After testing, the satisfactory results are obtained in quality of converted image. Image file format conversion algorithm is not only one. Their efficiency and quality are not the same. With the rapid development of computer technology, the image compression algorithms are improved in continuous and the image file formats are constantly modified, such as the GIF 87a and 89a edition version. This study is a foundation for the study on other image file format conversion.” (Page 3 Column 2).
Suzuki et al. (U.S. Pre-Grant Publication No. 2003/0093760) teaches “the validity verification process S102 is a step of verifying whether the output (structured document F2) by the XSLT conversion process follows a document type definition D2 after conversion and is performed using the document type definition D2 after conversion. The validity verification process S102 can be performed by the existing software (e.g., XML4C). If the result of the validity verification process S102 is acceptable, a new structured document F3 is generated. If it is not acceptable, document structure correction process S104 is performed for the structured document F2 based on the error content, and the validity verification process S102 is again performed for the corrected structured document F2.” (Para. [0013]) & Fig. 1).
Kalas et al. (U.S. Pre-Grant Publication 2015/0046407) teaches described are systems and methods for preserving digital assets, which assets comprise one or more files. The system and methods prepare a digital file for ingest into an asset management system, store a plurality of copies of the digital file based on a set of storage policies for the digital file, and perform a health check on each copy of the digital file. The system and method may include performing an asset repair on the copies of the digital file that failed the health check as well as the exporting of a digital file.The reference further teaches “file-level metadata may include detailed information specific to each file. File details may include, but are not limited to, file order, file ID, file name, MD5 checksum, file size, file path, ingest date/time, file status, etc.” (Para. [0035]). Kalas teaches “the method 500 receives the submitted ticket for technical validation. In step 520, the method 500 runs the media information and compares attributes” (Para. [0073]).
Gilderman et al. (U.S. Patent No. 10,509,696) teaches errors may be detected and mitigated during the migration of data. Migration of data from a source data store to a target data store may be monitored for errors. When an error is detected, one or more responsive actions may be identified to modify performance of the migration. In some embodiments, responsive actions may include further analyses to validate the migration. In some embodiments, the responsive actions may be corrective actions to correct the detected error. Once identified, the responsive actions may be performed to modify performance of the migration.The reference further teaches “data stored in a source data store may be stored in a data format (e.g., a file format, schema, etc.) that is different the data format used or supported by the target data store, in some embodiments. Data migration, therefore may convert the data from the format of the source data store to the format of the target data store, in one embodiment.” (Column 2 Lines 16-31).
Non-Patent Literature Bauer et al., "Automated Preservation: The Case of Digital Raw Photographs", October 2011, Digital Libraries: For Cultural Heritage, Knowledge Dissemination, and Future Creation - 13th International Conference on Asia-Pacific Digital Libraries, ICADL 2011 (Year: 2011) teaches in digital preservation, a common approach for preservation actions is the migration to standardized formats. Full validation of the results of such conversion processes is required to ensure authenticity and trust. This process of quality assurance is a key obstacle to achieving scalability for large volumes of content. In this article, we address the quality assurance process for the preservation of born-digital photographs and validate conversions of raw image formats into standard formats such as Adobe Digital Negative. To achieve this, we rely on a systematic planning framework. We classify requirements that have to be evaluated according to their measurement needs. We extend an existing measurement framework using a combination of tools, image similarity algorithms, and purpose-built plugins. By combining metadata extraction, image rendering and comparison, and perceptual-level quality assurance, we evaluate the feasibility of automating the core part of quality assurance that is often the most costly part of preservation processes.
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/ROBERT F MAY/Examiner, Art Unit 2154 1/7/2026
/SYED H HASAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2154