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
This is in response to the amendments of 09/11/2025. Claims 1-11 have been amended. Claims 1-11 are pending and have been considered below.
Priority
18267690 filed 06/15/2023 is a National Stage entry of PCT/JP2021/012047, International Filing Date: 03/23/2021.
Drawings
The drawings filed on 06/15/2023 are accepted.
Specification
The amendment to the specification filed on 06/15/2023 is accepted.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see remarks page 7 , with respect to “Claim Objection” have been fully considered and are persuasive. The Objection to the claims has been withdrawn in view of amendment to the claims.
Applicant's arguments with respect to “Claim rejection under 35 USC 101”, remarks page 7 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive because: after review of the claims, the examiner notes that the claims are directed toward an abstract. The claims recite a judicial exception and the exception is not integrated in to practical application. The examiner further notes that the specification or claims fails to provide details regarding the manner in which the invention accomplished the alleged improvement when holding the claimed method , apparatus and CRM of extracting symbols and detecting backdoor code by calculating score of the extracted symbols is ineligible., therefore the rejection has been maintain.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
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 1-11: the claims are directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claims recite the limitation of the extracting in step (a) to step (c) may be performed by processes including removing, eliciting extorting, reading, breaking binary data into set of distinct value or blocks or symbols to make data more suitable for analysis and interpretation, which may be practically performed in the human mind using observation, evaluation, judgment and opinion. The output in step( e) encompasses observing a result for the data set. Such mental observations or evaluations fall within the mental processes grouping of abstract ideas.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claim only recites one additional element – using a processor to perform both the extracting and outputting steps. The processor is recited at a high-level of generality (i.e., as a generic processor performing a generic computer function of (extracting and outputting) such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Accordingly, this additional element does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claim is directed to an abstract idea.
The claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional element of using a processor to perform both the extracting and outputting steps amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept. The claim is not patent eligible.
Allowable Subject Matter
As allowable subject matter has been indicated, applicant's reply must either comply with all formal requirements or specifically traverse each requirement not complied with. See 37 CFR 1.111(b) and MPEP § 707.07(a).
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Duggan et al U.S. 20230359739 A1 is directed toward Systems, methods, and software can be used to detect backdoors in binary software code. In some aspects, a method comprises: obtaining, by a server, binary software code corresponding to source code; generating, by the server, a backdoor abstraction of the binary software code; and generating, by the server, a backdoor risk assessment based on the backdoor abstraction of the binary software code.
Lie et al U.S. 2019/0220596 A1 is directed toward A first set of code, for example source code, and a second code, for example binary code, are compared to find corresponding functions. A comparison of features can be used to find correspondences of functions. The comparison of functions can be iterated and can be refined and can be further used to carry out a further, stricter comparison of functions found to correspond to reduce the chance of falsely finding a function in the second code to be accountable in the first code.
Shimada et al U.S. 2022/0276863 A1 teaches a software analyzing device capable of extracting a candidate for an unauthorized feature or an unnecessary feature contained in a code of software is to be provided. The software analyzing device includes a feature identifying means for identifying a predetermined specific feature in a code of software, a control-flow identifying means for identifying a control flow connecting with the specific feature, and a candidate extracting means for extracting, as a candidate for an unauthorized feature or an unnecessary feature, a first code part the code of the software unreachable from the control flow connecting with the specific feature.
The above prior art either alone or in combination fails to the limitations as presented in the independent claims such as “a symbol extraction process of extracting a plurality of predetermined symbols from codes included in a binary of a program; a first code block extraction process of extracting a code block having a specific property from the codes included in the binary of the program as a first code block to be analyzed as to whether the code block is a backdoor; a second code block extraction process of extracting, as a plurality of second code blocks, a plurality of code blocks that access the plurality of respective predetermined symbols from the codes included in the binary of the program; a symbol narrowing-down process of extracting, from the plurality of predetermined symbols, a symbol to be accessed by the second code block satisfying a condition on a control flow according to a type of the backdoor to be analyzed among the plurality of second code blocks” in combination with the other elements.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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.
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Saturday, November 29, 2025
/FATOUMATA TRAORE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2436
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