6DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Amendment filed on 06/12/2026 has been entered. Claims 1-3 and 5-6 are pending. Claim 4 has been canceled without prejudice.
Specification
The amendments to the specification filed on 06/12/2026 have been entered.
Claim Objections
Claim 1 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Line 6 recites “the other participants”, which is lack of antecedent basis.
Line 9 recites “the selected part of the samples”, which is lack of antecedent basis.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1-3 and 5-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim 1 contains subject matter “step (2) aligning, by all the participants, data according to the data indexes, taking received feature data as a label, taking each missing feature as a learning task, and training a model for each task with feature data originally held in a same data index, to complete missing feature data of each of the participants and to transform a vertical federated learning scenario into a horizontal federated learning scenario” and “step (4) obtaining, by all the participants, a final trained model by jointly using horizontal federated learning method after completing the transformation from the vertical federated learning scenario to the horizonal federated learning scenario”, which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention. Paragraph [0031] of Specification discloses “provides a new idea for the development of vertical federated learning by transforming vertical federated learning into horizontal federated learning”, but NOT as claimed in step (2) and step (4) recited in claim 1. Please verify.
Claims 2-3 and 5-6 further depend claim 1. Therefore, claims 2-3 and 5-6 are rejected under the same rationale.
Response to Arguments
In the Remarks, Applicant’s arguments regarding claim rejections under 35 U.S.C. Sec. 101 (See pages 7-9) have been considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection under 35 U.S.C. Sec. 101 is hereby withdrawn.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37CFR 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 extension fee 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 CHAU T NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)272-4092. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday from 8am to 5pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Cesar Paula, can be reached at telephone number 5712724128. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) Form at https://www.uspto.gov/patents/uspto-automated-interview-request-air-form.
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).
/CHAU T NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2145
