DETAILED ACTION
Response to Amendment
1. The amendment filed on 1/9/2026 has been entered. No claims have been amended, added or cancelled. Accordingly, claims 1-32 are pending in this office action.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
2. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
3. In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-7, 9-12, 14-23, 25-29 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by US 2020/0334254 (hereinafter Arye).
As for claim 1 Arye discloses: An apparatus that executes a method for sorting or searching that is characterized by performing a transformation or rebuilding of an old, or construction of a new counter table (particularly a table that contains information about the number of records whose keys contain a certain digit or symbol value, or information about the frequency at which digits or symbols occur in the subset of records being sorted, or information about the statistical characteristics of their distribution, or properties of the distribution of the key values themselves); or is characterized by performing the transformation or rebuilding of an old, or construction of a new index table (particularly a table with references to lists of records or other data structures enumerating records) (See abstract and paragraphs 0011-0015, 0019 0055 and 0065 note a materialized view is creating based on queries/statistics within the database to transform or create a new table that is maintained based on the insertions/deletions etc. within the system) whereby said transformation or rebuilding of an old, or construction of the new counter table or index table is performed during the sorting process (See paragraphs 0138 and 0140 note the information can be sorted by particular fields) and utilizes the information contained in the values of the original counter table or index table elements, or information derived using these values taken from the original tables (See paragraphs 0019-0022 and 0064 note the materialized view is derived from the base table or raw data).
As for claim 2 Arye discloses: An apparatus that executes a method for determining the optimal information capacity, digit capacity, bit depth, or radix of digits or symbols that is characterized by computing or determining the optimal information capacity, digit capacity, bit depth, or radix of digits or symbols using information extracted from the elements of the counter table or index table during searching or sorting (See abstract and paragraphs 0011-0015, 0019 0055 and 0065 note a materialized view is creating based on queries/statistics within the database to transform or create a new table that is maintained based on the insertions/deletions etc. within the system and further see paragraphs 0138, 0151 and 0157 note the system sorts and creates a view of fields to optimize informational capacity).
As for claim 3 Arye discloses: An apparatus that during sorting or searching executes a method for determining an optimal information capacity, digit capacity, bit depth, or radix of digits or symbols that is characterized by utilizing an analysis or transformation of a counter table or an index table to determine the optimal information capacity, digit capacity, or bit-depth of digits or symbols, achieved through a function that incorporates information obtained from said analysis or transformation, or based on the fact that the sequence of iterations in said analysis or transformation is terminated (See abstract and paragraphs 0011-0015, 0019 0055 and 0065 note a materialized view is creating based on queries/statistics within the database to transform or create a new table that is maintained based on the insertions/deletions etc. within the system and further see paragraphs 0138, 0151 and 0157 note the system sorts and creates a view of fields to optimize informational capacity).
As for claim 4 Arye discloses: An apparatus that executes a method for sorting or searching that is characterized by utilizing information extracted from a counter table or an index table to determine the termination criterion of an iterative algorithm for transforming the counter table or the index table, enabling the subsequent use of a different information capacity, digit capacity, bit depth, or radix for digits or symbols at a certain step or steps in the process of sorting, searching, or other data processing (See abstract and paragraphs 0011-0015, 0019 0055 and 0065 note a materialized view is creating based on queries/statistics within the database to transform or create a new table that is maintained based on the insertions/deletions etc. within the system further note machine learning is by definition an iterative process).
As for claim 5 Arye discloses: An apparatus that during sorting, searching, or sorting or building auxiliary tables or data structures therefor executes a method for evaluating some optimization criterion (such as the estimated workload or cache memory load of a computational system) or for estimating a characteristic of the processed set of records that is characterized by using accumulation of information in an auxiliary data structure, where the elements of said auxiliary data structure correspond to groups of buckets, groups of elements of the counter table, or groups of elements of the index table, and these buckets, or elements of the counter table, or elements of the index table within each group correspond to a certain set or a certain range of values of a some feature that characterizes these buckets or elements of the table (See abstract and paragraphs 0011-0015, 0019 0055 and 0065 note a materialized view is creating based on queries/statistics within the database to transform or create a new table that is maintained based on the insertions/deletions etc. within the system).
As for claim 6 Arye discloses: An apparatus that during sorting, searching, or sorting or building auxiliary tables or data structures therefor executes a method for processing set of buckets, element of counter table, or elements of index table that is characterized by the accumulation of values of a certain characteristic or set of characteristics for those buckets or for those elements of the counter table or index table that have similar values of a certain selected feature characterizing these buckets or elements of the counter table or index table, regardless of the purpose and manner in which the information accumulated in this way will be subsequently used (See abstract and paragraphs 0011-0015, 0019 0055 and 0065 note a materialized view is creating based on queries/statistics within the database to transform or create a new table that is maintained based on the insertions/deletions etc. within the system).
As for claim 7 Arye discloses: An apparatus that during sorting, searching, or sorting or building auxiliary tables or data structures therefor executes a method for processing set of object that is characterized by the use of computing the value of a certain function, hereinafter referred to as a “compression function” that maps the original set of possible values of a certain selected quantity characterizing the elements of an original set of objects into a more compact set of values, with the purpose of using such computed values of said compression function for indexing or addressing a certain auxiliary data structure, the elements of which are used for the accumulation of any information obtained or computed using arbitrary values that characterizing the elements of the original set of objects, or for counting the number of such elements of the original set of objects that correspond to certain computed value or values of said compression function, possibly in combination with other criteria (See abstract and paragraphs 0011-0015, 0019 0055 and 0065 note a materialized view is creating based on queries/statistics within the database to transform or create a new table that is maintained based on the insertions/deletions etc. within the system).
As for claim 9 Arye discloses: An apparatus that executes a method for sorting that is characterized by utilizing the computation of a logarithmic function, a function for determining the value or extracting the biased or unbiased value of an exponent, a function for determining the position or location of the leading or trailing bit, digit, or symbol in a representation or notation of the numeric value, a function for counting the number of significant bits, digits, or symbols in the representation or notation of the numeric value, a function for determining the length of the representation or notation of the numeric value, a function for counting the number of leading or trailing bits, digits, or symbols equal to a certain value in the representation or notation of the numeric value, a function for reinterpreting the data type of an argument, a function for counting the number of specific digits or symbols in the representation or notation of the numeric value, or an any other function that is analogous or derived from at least one of the functions listed here, which applied to a record key or to some value derived from or obtained using information taken from a record or record key for determining the value of a digit or symbol in a numerical value of the key, or for selecting an element of a counter table or an index table, or for selecting or determining a bucket number, interval number, or bin number corresponding to a given record or record key (See abstract and paragraphs 0011-0015, 0019 0055 and 0065 note a materialized view is creating based on queries/statistics within the database to transform or create a new table that is maintained based on the insertions/deletions etc. within the system and further see paragraph 0124 note that prefixes are used to determine the view including longest and shortest prefix which involve leading and trailing bits).
As for claim 10 Arye discloses: An apparatus that executes a method designed to determining the position of the pivot element based on the key value, or to search for an element using key comparisons, or to determine the position or select an element when accessing a data structure (particularly an array) during sorting or searching, or to construct a data structure used as an index during sorting or searching, that is characterized by utilizing the computation of a logarithmic function, a function for determining the value or extracting the biased or unbiased value of an exponent, a function for determining the position or location of the leading or trailing bit, digit, or symbol in a representation or notation of the numeric value, a function for counting the number of significant bits, digits, or symbols in the representation or notation of the numeric value, a function for determining the length of the representation or notation of the numeric value, a function for counting the number of leading or trailing bits, digits, or symbols equal to a certain value in the representation or notation of the numeric value, a function for reinterpreting the data type of an argument, a function for counting the number of specific digits or symbols in the representation or notation of the numeric value, or an any other function that is analogous or derived from at least one of the functions listed here; provided that the result of such a function is used in this method for comparison(s) instead of the original key value, or is used to determine the position of the pivot element, or to select a specific element in a data structure, or to determine the position or value of a digit or symbol that is subsequently used for accessing a data structure (See abstract and paragraphs 0011-0015, 0019 0055 and 0065 note a materialized view is creating based on queries/statistics within the database to transform or create a new table that is maintained based on the insertions/deletions etc. within the system and further see paragraph 0124 note that prefixes are used to determine the view including longest and shortest prefix).
As for claim 11 the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated and further Arye discloses: Specific implementation of the apparatus from claim 1, that is characterized by not performing new accesses to the set or subset of records used to construct an original counter table or index table during a transformation or rebuilding of an old, or creation of a new counter table or index table, because said transformation or rebuilding of an old, or creation of the new counter table or index table is performed using the information already present in the previously constructed original counter table or index table (which may correspond to digits or symbols of higher information capacity or digit capacity), even if the transformed, rebuilt, or new counter table or index table corresponds to digits or symbols of lower information capacity or digit capacity (See paragraphs 0015 and 0019 note the system will note create another materialized view if a previously generated view satisfies the request).
As for claim 12 Arye discloses: An apparatus that during sorting or searching executes a method for evaluating a certain optimization criterion (particularly for estimating the workload or cache memory load of a computing system) or for evaluating a certain characteristic of the processed set of records by using information extracted from the elements of the counter table or index table to compute the estimate of the optimization criterion or the characteristic of the processed set of records (See paragraphs 0041, 0084 and 0102 note the system optimized access by creating a view of the data to only access necessary elements of a table (See abstract and paragraphs 0011-0015, 0019 0055 and 0065 note a materialized view is created based on queries/statistics within the database to transform or create a new table that is maintained based on the insertions/deletions etc. within the system).
As for claim 14 discloses: An apparatus that executes a method for radix, bucket or interval sorting, or for searching within a set of objects divided into buckets associated with specific digit or character values that is characterized by the fact that, when switching to the use of other sorting or searching methods within a certain bucket or bin, it employs modifications of those other sorting or searching methods in which some or all string comparisons are performed with the exclusion of the initial prefix, final suffix, or another group of characters that are common or insignificant within the given bucket, and this achieved by skipping comparisons or computations for some or all digits or characters that compose or comprise such common or insignificant parts of strings to be compared during the sorting or searching process (See abstract and paragraphs 0011-0015, 0019 0055 and 0065 note a materialized view is creating based on queries/statistics within the database to transform or create a new table that is maintained based on the insertions/deletions etc. within the system and further see paragraph 0124 note that prefixes are used to determine the view including longest and shortest prefix with other parts being rendered insignificant).
As for claim 15 Arye discloses: An apparatus that executes a method for radix, bucket, or interval sorting, or for searching within a set of records divided into buckets that is in the process of determining whether a certain record belongs to a certain bucket it utilizes a comparison between the key value of such a record and a certain boundary value, which corresponds to the maximum or minimum key value for the given or for an it’s neighboring bucket, wherein such boundary value or values computed using a formula, a method, an algorithm, or they determined by analyzing the keys of the records processed at a previous step or stage in the sorting or searching process, or they are obtained or derived from the characteristics of given bucket (See abstract and paragraphs 0011-0015, 0019 0055 and 0065 note a materialized view is created based on queries/statistics within the database to transform or create a new table that is maintained based on the insertions/deletions etc. within the system and further note paragraphs 0200-0202 noting that time buckets are used to cluster data).
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As for claim 16 Arye discloses: An apparatus that executes a method for radix, bucket, or interval sorting that involves the preliminary movement or relocation of records corresponding to elements located within a specific region of an array or another data structure, which boundaries correspond to the future placement of a specific bucket inside said array or another data structure; wherein said preliminary movement or relocation of records occurs at a stage preceding the movement or relocation of records between areas corresponding to the final placement of different buckets rather than just inside said specific bucket (See abstract and paragraphs 0011-0015, 0019 0055 and 0065 note a materialized view is creating based on queries/statistics within the database to transform or create a new table that is maintained based on the insertions/deletions etc. within the system and further see paragraphs 0200-0202 noting that time buckets are used to cluster data).
As for claim 17 Arye discloses: An apparatus that executes a method for sorting, or searching within a fully or partially sorted set of records, which involves performing an analysis during its operation, where such analysis refers to computations or operations on the data, resulting in an evaluation of a certain assumption or hypothesis about the nature of the statistical distribution of record key values, or involves an analysis to evaluate a hypothesis or assumption about the correspondence of record keys to a specific pattern or set of patterns, or involves an analysis intended to estimate the amount of information or entropy in the record keys or in certain parts of such keys, or involves analysis of a least one element of a counter table or index table (See paragraphs 0074, 0090 and 0126 note the system performs analytical calculations on the base tables and the materialized view and can further perform calculations on a per record basis and uses this information to store information in chunks); and subsequently result of at least one such analysis is directly or indirectly, via a chain of dependent variables, used as a parameter or variable that controls the sorting or searching process or as a condition influencing the choice of further actions; wherein the term "index table" is understood as a data structure used in numerical sorting and search algorithms in which a set of records is partitioned into buckets corresponding to values of digits or symbols extracted from their keys, and the set of these buckets corresponds to elements of such index table (See paragraph 0086 note the system uses access statistics to plan the query and decided what data to cache as a view and further see abstract and paragraphs 0011-0015, 0019 0055 and 0065 note a materialized view is created based on queries/statistics within the database to transform or create a new table that is maintained based on the insertions/deletions etc. within the system).
As for claim 18 Arye discloses: An apparatus that executes an improved method of arbitrary sorting, or for improvement of searching specifically in a partially or fully sorted set of objects for which a counter table or an index table is built, the elements of which correspond to groups of records containing a specific value(s) of a digit or symbol in their keys that is characterized by utilizing at least one parameter directly or through a chain of dependent variables used as a parameter controlling the sorting or search algorithm, or as a parameter in a condition influencing the selection of further action strategies, where such parameter depends on the output variable or represents the output variable of a Bayesian network, Bayesian classifier, belief propagation network, Markov network or chain, Restricted Boltzmann Machine, another machine learning-based classifier, model, or network, a layer of perceptrons or a separate perceptron, neural network, or some combination thereof (See paragraph 0075 note the system uses a machine learning based classifier and the output is based on learning further see abstract and paragraphs 0011-0015, 0019 0055 and 0065 note a materialized view is created based on queries/statistics within the database to transform or create a new table that is maintained based on the insertions/deletions etc. within the system).
As for claim 19 Arye discloses: An apparatus that executes a method for sorting or searching within a fully or partially sorted set of objects that is characterized by the utilization of a dictionary or table of prefixes or suffixes, a counter table, an index table, or a histogram constructed for the digits or symbols, or for their corresponding prefixes or suffixes that may have different lengths, different radixes, different digit capacity, different bit depth, or different information capacity (See abstract and paragraphs 0011-0015, 0019 0055 and 0065 note a materialized view is creating based on queries/statistics within the database to transform or create a new table that is maintained based on the insertions/deletions etc. within the system and further see paragraph 0022 stating that the system alters/modifies indexes).
As for claim 20 Arye discloses: An apparatus that executes a method for sorting, searching, or other data processing, characterized by utilizing the values of the elements of a counter table or index table that correspond to certain digit or symbol values in the numeric values of the record keys, whereby the said counter or index table is constructed in a previous stage, round, pass, or step of the sorting, searching, or other data processing process, and some values of its elements have already been used directly or after certain transformation on the previous stage, round, pass, or step of the such sorting, searching, or other data processing process in connection with the digits or symbols of lower information capacity, digit capacity, bit depth, or lower radix than the one used during the construction of said counter table or index table (See abstract and paragraphs 0011-0015, 0019 0055 and 0065 note a materialized view is creating based on queries/statistics within the database to transform or create a new table that is maintained based on the insertions/deletions etc. within the system and further note that the view is created based on the identifier/key/attribute used to create the view).
As for claim 21 Arye discloses: An apparatus that executes a method for sorting, or searching within a fully or partially sorted set of objects that is characterized by the utilization of a stage or process of constructing a dictionary or table of prefixes or suffixes, a counter table or an index table, or histogram, which elements correspond to prefixes or suffixes of varying lengths, or to digits or symbols with different radix, bit depth, digit capacity or information capacity; and said method is also characterized by the calculation or evaluation of a certain optimization criterion such as workload estimation, estimation of the cache memory load of a computing system, estimation of the overall size or the number of elements of the data structure corresponding to the dictionary or table of prefixes or suffixes, counter table or index table, or histogram, or any other optimization criterion; wherein computed or evaluated value of said optimization criterion or a logical condition involving it is then employed to limit the overall size or number of elements in the dictionary or table of prefixes or suffixes, counter table or index table, or histogram, during process of its construction, and this is achieved by replacing or removing one or more elements while or instead of adding a new element to such the dictionary, table or histogram, or by refraining from adding a new element altogether (See abstract and paragraphs 0011-0015, 0019 0055 and 0065 note a materialized view is creating based on queries/statistics within the database to transform or create a new table that is maintained based on the insertions/deletions etc. within the system and further see paragraph 0022 stating that the system alters/modifies indexes).
As for claim 22 Arye discloses: An apparatus that executes a method for organizing a counter table or index table for sorting or searching that is characterized by utilizing a transformation of said counter table or index table constructed for fixed-resolution digits or symbols into a new counter table or index table that enables support for different resolutions for elements corresponding to different digits or symbols, achieves this by being divided into zones or layers, or by having elements of different types or formats that correspond to digits or symbols of varying resolution, or by adding additional parallel data structures allowing to define type or resolution for particular elements, zones or layers (See abstract and paragraphs 0011-0015, 0019 0055 and 0065 note a materialized view is creating based on queries/statistics within the database to transform or create a new table that is maintained based on the insertions/deletions etc. within the system and further See paragraphs 0144 and 0202 note the view determines the visibility/resolution of the element as some elements are hidden or obfuscated via abstraction and data segmentation).
As for claim 23 Arye discloses: An apparatus that executes a method for partially ordering a set of records, characterized by using radix sort, bucket sort or interval sort modified for skipping the processing of those buckets whose location or content allows them to be classified as definitely not containing records that fall into the subset requiring further ordering (See abstract and paragraphs 0011-0015, 0019 0055 and 0065 note a materialized view is creating based on queries/statistics within the database to transform or create a new table that is maintained based on the insertions/deletions etc. within the system and further note that the system can further create an updated view/ordering based on changes).
As for claim 25 Arye discloses: An apparatus that executes a method for sorting, searching, or similar processing data that utilizes counter tables or index tables whose elements correspond to buckets into which the set of records is partitioned or to digits or symbols obtained using record keys, which is characterized by the summation or accumulation using an accumulation function of element values or the results of applying a certain function to the elements of the counter table or index table, where this summation or accumulation is performed for elements that are located at the beginning, end, in a certain fragment, or in a certain set of fragments, or taken from a specific sample of elements taken from the counter table or index table, or simultaneously belong to several of the mentioned subsets; wherein the result of summation or accumulated information is subsequently used in the process of selecting a strategy for further actions or in determining the value of a control parameter (see abstract and paragraphs 0011-0015, 0019 0055 and 0065 note a materialized view is created based on queries/statistics within the database to transform or create a new table that is maintained based on the insertions/deletions etc. within the system and further the strategy is the query plan for execution).
As for claim 26 Arye discloses: An apparatus that executes a method for estimating the number of records that have matching or similar prefixes or suffixes, or that have prefixes or suffixes of a specific type, which utilizes the summation or accumulation of values of elements or information computed or obtained using elements of a counter or index table, where these elements are taken from a fragment or set of fragments or from a sample taken from the counter table or index table; or, alternatively, which utilizes the summation or accumulation of the results of applying a certain function to such information; wherein result of this summation or accumulation, obtained using this method, can be used to assess the feasibility of switching to logarithmic or other sorting or searching methods, or as a parameter or variable that controls the sorting or searching process (See abstract and paragraphs 0011-0015, 0019 0055 and 0065 note a materialized view is creating based on queries/statistics within the database to transform or create a new table that is maintained based on the insertions/deletions etc. within the system and further see paragraph 0124 note that prefixes are used to determine the view including longest and shortest prefix).
As for claim 27 Arye discloses: An apparatus that executes a method for sorting or searching, wherein, for estimation of an amount of information or entropy in the sorting or searching process the apparatus estimates said amount of information or entropy for a set of arbitrary elements by calculating a hash function or a set of hash functions for each of the elements being evaluated, and then counting the non-uniformity of the distribution of digits, symbols, or bits in different positions within the computed values obtained from applying the hash function or set of hash functions, possibly combined together using some function or rule (See paragraphs 0150 note load balancing can purposefully spread out the data for load balancing within the system and further see abstract and paragraphs 0011-0015, 0019 0055 and 0065 note a materialized view is created based on queries/statistics within the database to transform or create a new table that is maintained based on the insertions/deletions etc. within the system).
As for claim 28 Arye discloses: An apparatus that during sorting, searching, of building auxiliary tables or data structures therefor executes a method designed to estimate the amount of information or entropy that is characterized by estimating the amount of information or entropy in the values of a certain sample of elements or in the data obtained by applying a certain function to a sample of elements taken from the counter table or index table, or in the sums of such element values or function results, or in aggregated element values or function results; where subsequently the estimated value of information or entropy obtained through such processing of a sample of elements taken from the counter table or index table is used as or to calculate a general estimation of the amount of information or entropy present in a set of record key values, in specific value(s) of digits or symbols in the record keys, or in individual position(s) of digits or symbols, which were used in the process of constructing the counter table or index table, for all records or for a subset of records corresponding to the processed subset of counter table or index table elements (See abstract and paragraphs 0011-0015, 0019 0055 and 0065 note a materialized view is created based on queries/statistics within the database to transform or create a new table that is maintained based on the insertions/deletions etc. within the system.)
As for claim 29 Arye discloses: An apparatus that executes a method for the parallel implementation of the step or phase of record redistribution in a sorting process or another process of ordering a set of records, which uses a counter table, index table, or some auxiliary or working table oy data structures that is characterized by creating a separate “shadow” copy of the main counter table, index table, auxiliary or working table for each an executive device, thread, or program control flow in this specific implementation; wherein said “shadow” table is subsequently used instead of the main table in the main part of the operation of the said executive device, thread, or program control flow; and at certain points during the operation, the elements of said “shadow” table are dynamically modified to be populated with new information, and this is achieved by executive devices by capturing a part of elements or a portion of space designated for the placement of records from those areas indicated by corresponding elements of the main counter table, index table, auxiliary or working table (see abstract and paragraphs 0011-0015, 0019 0055 and 0065 note a materialized view is created based on queries/statistics within the database to transform or create a new table that is maintained based on the insertions/deletions etc. within the system and further the strategy is the query plan for execution and further note the shadow copy is the materialized view).
4. Claim(s) 8, 13, 24, and 30-32 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by US 2007/0217676 (hereinafter Grauman).
As for claim 8 Grauman discloses: An apparatus that executes a method for sorting or searching, characterized by the utilization of a normalization of the numeric values of the keys or normalization of the values of information extracted or derived from them before their use in the sorting or searching process, where such normalization is performed by applying a certain function to the numeric values of the keys or to the values of information extracted or derived from them, which modifies such characteristic as the range, statistical or probabilistic distribution, length or form of representation, structure, nature, or pattern of digit or symbol distribution for the normalized values, or modifies a combination of two or more of these characteristics (See abstract and paragraphs 0062, 0071, 0186 and 0208 note data is normalized, placed into bins using the radix sort algorithm, the normalization avoids any favoring of data).
As for claim 13 Grauman discloses: An apparatus that during sorting or building auxiliary tables or data structures therefor, executes a method for optimizing operations during a some process involving reducing or determining the optimal information capacity, digit capacity, radix, or bit depth of digits or symbols, or during evaluating some optimization criterion, or during estimating a characteristic of the processed set of objects, which involves the combination or summation of “a” to the power of “n” elements of a counter table, the combination or merging of “a” to the power of “n” buckets or data structures represented by corresponding elements of an index table, or the combination, merging or summation of “a” to the power of “n” elements of other data structure at the current iteration of said process where otherwise such combination, merging or summation would be performed in several passes through the entire set of elements of the counter table, index table, or by entire object set; wherein “a” represents the number of buckets, the number of the elements of the counter or index table, or number of data structure elements that are combined, merged or summed in a single step of iteration in the unoptimized said process, and “n” is an estimation of the number of iterations of the unoptimized said process that can be performed immediately. (See abstract and paragraphs 0062, 0071, 0186 and 0208 note data is normalized, placed into bins using the radix sort algorithm, the normalization avoids any favoring of data, moreover see paragraphs 0134 and 0216 note the system uses summations for the intercession of histogram points i.e. pyramid intersection points or squaring).
As for claim 24 Grauman discloses: An apparatus that executes a method for partially ordering radix, bucket, or interval sorting, which are characterized by the fact that, when not all non-empty buckets fall into the set of buckets of interest for further processing, then, at least at one step of sorting, the ordering of the sorted subset of records is performed using certain sorting process implementation, which does not guarantee ordering for records whose keys do not correspond to the buckets included in the set of buckets of interest for further processing (See abstract and paragraphs 0062, 0071, 0186 and 0208 note data is normalized, placed into bins using the radix sort algorithm, the normalization avoids any favoring of data and further see paragraphs 0072 and 0109 note the system uses non-zero bins because the actual number of bins and further has non empty bins/buckets as a level).
As for claim 30 Grauman discloses: An apparatus that executes a method for deferred record relocation in a parallel implementation of the | step or phase of record redistribution between bin or buckets during sorting or preparation therefor, characterized by placing a record or a pointer to it into a queue associated with an element of a data structure corresponding to the target bucket when it is necessary to defer the placement of a certain record in the target bucket as it is moved from its location in the source bucket to a certain target bucket and also performing a check for the presence in this data structure of another queue of elements associated with the source bucket, from which the relocation of the deferred record to the target bucket occurred, and if this other queue is not empty, then taking a record from one of its elements and placing it into the position vacated by the deferred record, after which the said element is removed from the corresponding queue it belonged to (See abstract and paragraphs 0062, 0071, 0186 and 0208 note data is normalized, placed into bins using the radix sort algorithm, the normalization avoids any favoring of data and further see paragraphs 0165-0166 note the system uses pointers in a processing queue until all the pointers are processed and the data moved).
As for claim 31 Grauman discloses: An apparatus that executes a method for radix sort, bucket sort, or interval sort that utilizes information about the initial boundary, final boundary, middle point between such boundary values for a specific bucket or that utilizes information extracted or derived from the counter table or index table to improve the selection of the pivot element or to calculate synthetic value of the pivot element, which may be used in another sorting algorithm applied to the contents of a specific bucket (See abstract and paragraphs 0062, 0071, 0186 and 0208 note data is normalized, placed into bins using the radix sort algorithm, the normalization avoids any favoring of data and further see paragraphs 0051, 0057 and 0150 noting that the user or the system can set the boundaries beyond the initial boundary).
As for claim 32 Grauman discloses: An apparatus that executes a method for partial sorting based on radix sort, bucket sort, or interval sort that is characterized by collecting target records at a certain step or stage of its operation and placing them at the beginning, end, or any other desired area within the sorted array or data structure, even if in a fully sorted set these target records would have been located elsewhere, achieved by changing the positions of buckets representing the buckets of interest during the sorting process while ignoring other buckets that are not of interest and will be discarded at said step or stage of operation (See abstract and paragraphs 0062, 0071, 0186 and 0208 note data is normalized, placed into bins using the radix sort algorithm, the normalization avoids any favoring of data and further see paragraphs 0051, 0057 and 0150 noting that the user or the system can set the boundaries beyond the initial boundary and lastly see paragraphs 0064 noting that superfluous data is ignored/ignored/discarded).
Response to Arguments
5. Applicant's arguments filed 1/9/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Examiner states initially the arguments will be generally grouped by reference since a lot of the arguments are repetitive. For example claims 2-4 are not rejected under U.S.C. 103. There are two 102 rejections.
Applicant’s argue (all grouped as Arye):
Applicant generally argues Arye does not disclose any particular limitation.
Examiner responds:
Examiner is not persuaded. The express, implicit, and inherent disclosures of a prior art reference may be relied upon in the rejection of claims under 35 U.S.C. 102 or 103. “The inherent teaching of a prior art reference, a question of fact, arises both in the context of anticipation and obviousness.” In re Napier, 55 F.3d 610, 613, 34 USPQ2d 1782, 1784 (Fed. Cir. 1995) (affirmed a 35 U.S.C. 103 rejection based in part on inherent disclosure in one of the references). See also In re Grasselli, 713 F.2d 731, 739, 218 USPQ 769, 775 (Fed. Cir. 1983).
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Moreover, Examiner is entitled to give claim limitations their broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the specification. Interpretation of Claims-Broadest Reasonable Interpretation: During patent examination, the pending claims must be ‘given the broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification.’ Applicant always has the opportunity to amend the claims during prosecution and broad interpretation by the examiner reduces the possibility that the claim, once issued, will be interpreted more broadly than is justified. In re Prater, 162 USPQ 541,550-51 (CCPA 1969). In this case sorting is generally the basis for optimization and depending on the algorithm certain aspects can be prioritized and as previously stated (See abstract and paragraphs 0011-0015, 0019 0055 and 0065 note a materialized view is creating based on queries/statistics within the database to transform or create a new table that is maintained based on the insertions/deletions etc. within the system). Examiner recommends amendments to clarify how the system is optimized.
Applicant’s argue (all grouped as Grauman):
Applicant generally argues Grumman does not disclose any limitation.
Examiner responds:
Initially, examiner states that Gruman is only cited for claims 8, 13, 24, and 30-32. Examiner is entitled to give claim limitations their broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the specification. Interpretation of Claims-Broadest Reasonable Interpretation: During patent examination, the pending claims must be ‘given the broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification.’ Applicant always has the opportunity to amend the claims during prosecution and broad interpretation by the examiner reduces the possibility that the claim, once issued, will be interpreted more broadly than is justified. In re Prater, 162 USPQ 541,550-51 (CCPA 1969). In this case Gruman discloses normalization as data is placed in a bin using a favoring algorithm such as a “radix sort” (See abstract and paragraphs 0062, 0071, 0186 and 0208).
Conclusion
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 ELIYAH STONE HARPER whose telephone number is (571)272-0759. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday 10:00 am - 6:00 pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Sanjiv Shah can be reached on (571)270-375098. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/Eliyah S. Harper/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2166 January 24, 2026