DETAILED ACTION
Authorization for Internet Communications
The examiner encourages Applicant to submit an authorization to communicate with the examiner via the Internet by making the following statement (from MPEP 502.03):
“Recognizing that Internet communications are not secure, I hereby authorize the USPTO to communicate with the undersigned and practitioners in accordance with 37 CFR 1.33 and 37 CFR 1.34 concerning any subject matter of this application by video conferencing, instant messaging, or electronic mail. I understand that a copy of these communications will be made of record in the application file.”
Please note that the above statement can only be submitted via Central Fax, Regular postal mail, or EFS Web (PTO/SB/439).
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 .
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 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.
Examiner Notes
Examiner cites particular columns and line numbers in the references as applied to the claims below for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings in the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested that, in preparing responses, the applicant fully consider the references in entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the examiner.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-20 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph and 35 USC § 101, set forth in this Office action.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Regarding claim 1, 11, and 20, recite “occurrence frequency” is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “occurrence frequency” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
Regarding claim 1, 11, and 20, recite “a weightage” is relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “a weightage” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
Regarding claim 1, 11, and 20, recite “downstream” and it is not clear what the metes and bounds of the term mean.
Regarding claims 2-10, 12-19 are dependent claims rejected for the same reasons.
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 an abstract idea without significantly more.
Step 1: Regarding claim 1, this part of the eligibility analysis evaluates whether the claim falls within any statutory category. MPEP §2106.03. The claim recites method steps; thus, the claim is directed to a process which is one of the statutory categories of invention.
Step 2A Prong 1: This part of the eligibility analysis evaluates whether the claim recites a judicial exception. As explained in MPEP 2106.04(II) and the October 2019 Update, a claim “recites” a judicial exception when the judicial exception is “set forth” or “described” in the claim.
The limitations “to classify the received application data into a plurality of categories based on a type of the application data;” “to assign a unique credential for each of at least one of the plurality of client devices and the plurality of sub-client devices corresponding to each of the plurality of applications, based on the classification;” “configured to assign metadata for each of the stored plurality of event data objects;” “to generate a knowledge graph corresponding to the plurality of event data objects, by correlating the plurality of event data objects, based on the analyzed plurality of validity parameters of the output data;” “to classify the plurality of validity parameters based on at least one of an occurrence frequency and one or more connections in the generated knowledge graph, based on the extracted dependency map;” “to assign a weightage to the plurality of validity parameters, based on the classification of the plurality of validity parameters;” “to analyze downstream data corresponding to the plurality of event data objects in real time, based on the assigned weightage;” “to generate one or more insights, in real-time, based on the analyzed downstream data; ”as drafted, recite functions that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers functions that could reasonably be performed in the mind, including with the aid of pen and paper, but for the recitation of generic computer components. That is, the limitations as drafted, are functions that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, recite the abstract idea of a mental process. The limitations encompass a human mind carrying out the functions through observation, evaluation, judgment and/or opinion, or even with the aid of pen and paper. Thus, these limitations recite and fall within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas. See MPEP §2106.04(a)(2). Accordingly, claim 1 recites a judicial exception (i.e. an abstract idea).
Step 2A, Prong 2, This part of the eligibility analysis evaluates whether the claim as a whole integrates the recited judicial exception into a practical application of the exception. This evaluation is performed by (a) identifying whether there are any additional elements recited in the claim beyond the judicial exception, and (b) evaluating those additional elements individually and in combination to determine whether the claim as a whole integrates the exception into a practical application. 2019 PEG Section III(A)(2), 84 Fed. Reg. at 54-55.
In this case, this judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The claim recites the following additional elements “one or more hardware processors; a memory coupled to the one or more hardware processor, wherein the memory comprises a plurality of modules in form of programmable instructions executable by the one or more hardware processors,” “a data classifying module,” “a credential assigning module,” “a restriction applying module,” “an object storing module,” “an output data storing module,” “a parameter analyzing module,” “a graph generating module,” “a graph extracting module,” “a parameter classifying module,” a downstream data analyzing module,” a metadata assigning module,” “an insight generating module,” are recited at a high-level of generality such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component, or merely a generic computer or generic computer components to perform the judicial exception. Accordingly, the additional elements do not integrate the recited judicial exception into a practical application, and the claim is therefore directed to the judicial exception. See MPEP 2106.05(f).
The additional element “configured to receive application data from one or more endpoints, wherein the one or more endpoints comprise at least one of a plurality of applications, a plurality of client devices, and a plurality of sub-client devices;” “to store, in a predefined format, a plurality of event data objects received from the one or more endpoints, in a database, based on applying one or more restrictions to each of the one or more endpoints;” “to store, in the database, output data corresponding to the plurality of event data objects, based on the assigned metadata, wherein the database is a part of at least one of a multi-tenant data storage, multi-tenant data analytics, and artificial intelligence (Al)-based insights and outcome generation;” fails to meaningfully limit the claim because the element is regarding data gathering and applying the method for execution, thus is categorized as insignificant extra solution activity, thus not a practical application. See MPEP 2106.05(d).
The additional element “to generate, in real-time, one or more machine learning (ML)-based insights, one or more Al-based insights, based on ML-based analytics of the generated one or more insights and the analyzed downstream data, wherein the one or more machine learning (ML)- based insights generated in real-time comprises at least one of exceptions occurring during event analysis, transactions, activities on websites, applications, and social media posts,” do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application, because it only amounts to insignificant extra-solution activity of data input and output. Data input and output is consider well understood, routine, and conventual activity. See MPEP 2106.05(g).
The additional element “to apply one or more restrictions to each of the one or more endpoints for streaming the application data corresponding to a plurality of predefined identifiers, based on assigning the unique credential;” “to analyze a plurality of validity parameters of the output data, using at least one of a machine learning (ML) technique, and applying data standardization technique for the analyzed plurality of validity parameters;” is at best the equivalent of merely adding the words “apply it” to the judicial exception. Accordingly, the additional elements do not integrate the recited judicial exception into a practical application, and the claim is therefore directed to the judicial exception. See MPEP 2106.05(f).
Step 2B, This part of the eligibility analysis evaluates whether the claim as a whole amounts to significantly more than the recited exception, i.e., whether any additional element, or combination of additional elements, adds an inventive concept to the claim. MPEP 2106.05.
As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional elements of “one or more hardware processors; a memory coupled to the one or more hardware processor, wherein the memory comprises a plurality of modules in form of programmable instructions executable by the one or more hardware processors,” “a data classifying module,” “a credential assigning module,” “a restriction applying module,” “an object storing module,” “an output data storing module,” “a parameter analyzing module,” “a graph generating module,” “a graph extracting module,” “a parameter classifying module,” a downstream data analyzing module,” a metadata assigning module,” “an insight generating module,” are merely a generic computer or generic computer components to apply the judicial exception which cannot provide an inventive concept.
The claims include additional elements “configured to receive application data from one or more endpoints, wherein the one or more endpoints comprise at least one of a plurality of applications, a plurality of client devices, and a plurality of sub-client devices;” “to store, in a predefined format, a plurality of event data objects received from the one or more endpoints, in a database, based on applying one or more restrictions to each of the one or more endpoints;” “to store, in the database, output data corresponding to the plurality of event data objects, based on the assigned metadata, wherein the database is a part of at least one of a multi-tenant data storage, multi-tenant data analytics, and artificial intelligence (Al)-based insights and outcome generation,” that are not sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because they are essentially regarding data gathering and applying method for execution. Under step 2B, the courts have identified data gathering as well understood routine and conventional. See MEPE 2106.05d.
The additional element “to generate, in real-time, one or more machine learning (ML)-based insights, one or more Al-based insights, based on ML-based analytics of the generated one or more insights and the analyzed downstream data, wherein the one or more machine learning (ML)- based insights generated in real-time comprises at least one of exceptions occurring during event analysis, transactions, activities on websites, applications, and social media posts,” that are not sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because it only amounts to insignificant extra-solution activity of data input and output. Data input and output is consider well understood, routine, and conventual activity. See MPEP 2106.05(g).
The additional element “to apply one or more restrictions to each of the one or more endpoints for streaming the application data corresponding to a plurality of predefined identifiers, based on assigning the unique credential;” “to analyze a plurality of validity parameters of the output data, using at least one of a machine learning (ML) technique, and applying data standardization technique for the analyzed plurality of validity parameters;” is at best the equivalent of merely adding the words “apply it” to the judicial exception. See MPEP 2106.05(f).
Accordingly, the additional elements mentioned above are not sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, and the claims are therefore directed to the judicial exception. Thus, the claims do not appear to be patent eligible under 35 USC 101.
Claims 2, is a dependent claim rejected for the same reasons as claim 1. Furthermore, the claims include additional elements “wherein the plurality of modules further comprises: an insights retrieving module configured to retrieve at least one of real-time insights, historic insights, and predictions from the analyzed plurality of validity parameters of the output data corresponding to the event data objects; an issue severity determining module configure to determine issue severity using the retrieved at least one of the real-time insights, the historic insights, and the predictions; and a data outputting module configured to output the retrieved predictions, and the real-time insights to the one or more endpoints in a push-pull format, based on the determined issue severity, and an insights subscription of the one or more endpoints.” This additional element does not amount to a practical application, nor recite significantly more than a judicial exception, is merely data gathering which the court have identified as well understood, routine, and conventual activity. See MPEP 2106.05(d).
Claim 3, is a dependent claim rejected for the same reasons as claim 1. Furthermore, claims include additional elements “wherein the application data comprises at least one of software application data, web application data, mobile application data, and Internet of Things (loT) sensor-enabled devices data, and wherein the application data is received based on streaming by client devices using a plurality of coding languages and a message broker technique,” This additional element does not amount to a practical application, nor recite significantly more than a judicial exception, is merely data gathering which the court have identified as well understood, routine, and conventual activity. See MPEP 2106.05(d).
Claim 4, is a dependent claim rejected for the same reasons as claim 1. Furthermore, claims include additional elements “wherein the plurality of predefined identifiers comprises at least one of predefined internet protocol (IP) addresses, predefined hostnames, and predefined topics of the application data.” This additional element does not amount to a practical application, nor recite significantly more than a judicial exception, is merely data gathering which the court have identified as well understood, routine, and conventual activity. See MPEP 2106.05(d).
Claim 5, is a dependent claim rejected for the same reasons as claim 1. Furthermore, claims include additional elements “wherein the predefined format comprises at least one of an actor, an action, a context, and objects.” This additional element does not amount to a practical application, nor recite significantly more than a judicial exception, is merely data gathering which the court have identified as well understood, routine, and conventual activity. See MPEP 2106.05(d).
Claim 6, is a dependent claim rejected for the same reasons as claim 1. Furthermore, claims include additional elements “wherein the metadata comprises at least one of a timestamp,a geolocation, and a device information.” This additional element does not amount to a practical application, nor recite significantly more than a judicial exception, is merely data gathering which the court have identified as well understood, routine, and conventual activity. See MPEP 2106.05(d).
Claim 7, is a dependent claim rejected for the same reasons as claim 1. Furthermore, claims include additional elements “wherein the plurality of validity parameters comprises at least one of a consistency, errors, and a format of an action, an object, a context, and an actor” This additional element does not amount to a practical application, nor recite significantly more than a judicial exception, is merely data gathering which the court have identified as well understood, routine, and conventual activity. See MPEP 2106.05(d).
Claim 8, is a dependent claim rejected for the same reasons as claim 1. Furthermore, claims include additional elements “wherein the plurality of event data objects is correlated based on the metadata and the one or more endpoints to identify relationships between the one or more endpoints.” This additional element does not amount to a practical application, nor recite significantly more than a judicial exception, is merely data gathering which the court have identified as well understood, routine, and conventual activity. See MPEP 2106.05(d).
Claim 9, is a dependent claim rejected for the same reasons as claim 1. Furthermore, claims include additional elements “wherein the ML-based insights comprise at least one of a ML- based issue severity detection, a ML-based anomaly detection, and a ML-based next best action detection.” This additional element does not amount to a practical application, nor recite significantly more than a judicial exception, is merely data gathering which the court have identified as well understood, routine, and conventual activity. See MPEP 2106.05(d).
Claim 10, is a dependent claim rejected for the same reasons as claim 1. Furthermore, claims include additional elements “wherein the one or more insights comprises at least on one of descriptive insights, diagnostic insights, and predictive insights, and wherein the VIL-based insights comprise at least one of a ML-based issue severity detection, a VIL-based anomaly detection, and a ML-based next best action detection.” This additional element does not amount to a practical application, nor recite significantly more than a judicial exception, is merely data gathering which the court have identified as well understood, routine, and conventual activity. See MPEP 2106.05(d).
Regarding claim 11, is an independent method claim corresponding with system claim 1, therefore it is rejected for the same reasons.
Regarding claim 12-19, are dependent method claims, corresponding to claims 2-10, respectively, and are rejected for the same reasons.
Regarding claim 20, is an independent storage medium claim corresponding with system claim 1, therefore it is rejected for the same reasons. Furthermore, claims include additional elements “A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium having programmable instructions stored therein, that when executed by one or more hardware processors, cause the one or more hardware processors.” This additional element does not amount to a practical application, nor recite significantly more than a judicial exception, the claims are merely generic computing components.
Interview Requests
In accordance with 37 CFR 1.133(a)(3), requests for interview must be made in advance. Interview requests are to be made by telephone (571-270-7848) call or FAX (571-270-8848). Applicants must provide a detailed agenda as to what will be discussed (generic statement such as “discuss §102 rejection” or “discuss rejections of claims 1-3” may be denied interview). The detail agenda along with any proposed amendments is to be written on a PTOL-413A or a custom form and should be faxed (or emailed, subject to MPEP 713.01.I / MPEP 502.03) to the Examiner at least 5 business days prior to the scheduled interview. Interview requests submitted within amendments may be denied because the Examiner was not notified, in advance, of the Applicant Initiated Interview Request and due to time constraints may not be able to review the interview request to prior to the mailing of the next Office Action.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Roberts et al. (U.S. PG PUB 2014/0324751) teaches a system for providing user information to a recommender. During operation, the system receives, from the recommender, a registration for notification of changes to a context graph. The context graph includes information about user behavior and/or user interests. Next, the system receives, from a mobile device, event data derived from contextual data collected using detectors that detect the mobile device's physical surroundings. The system modifies the context graph based on the event data. The system then determines that the modification to the context graph matches the registration, and sends a notification of context graph change to the recommender.
Masiero et al. (U.S. PG PUB 2017/0017929) teaches a stream of event data for a plurality of events corresponding to an entity is received. A timeline for the plurality of events is generated based on the stream of the event data. A set of event chains is identified based on the timeline, the event data, and a set of policies. A trigger related to an event belonging to an event chain of the set of event chains is detected. A number of effects of the trigger is identified in which the number of effects includes at least one of a number of insights, a number of actions, or a number of opportunities.
Kinder et al. (U.S. PG PUB 2017/0244762) teaches a system for collection and analysis of forensic and event data comprising a server and an endpoint agent operating on a remote system. The server is configured to receive event data including process creation data, persistent process data, thread injection data, network connection data, memory pattern data, or any combination thereof, and analyze the event data to detect compromises of a remote system. The endpoint agent is configured to acquire event data, and communicate the event data to the server.
Guo et al. (U.S. PG PUB 2018/0165621) teaches providing productivity insights regarding user networks are provided. Productivity insights are determinable based on event data, such as email messaging events and/or calendaring events, and enable a user to see at a glance how and with whom the user has spent his or her time. Additionally, productivity insights highlight any changes that occur over time within a user network. Analytics based on event data allow a user to easily identify top collaborators, which may or may not be the most important collaborators, as well as specific metrics for each collaborator, such as response time, email read rate, total collaboration time, etc. Thus, productivity insights serve to qualify and quantify collaborative relationships for individual employees so that they can leverage their time more effectively by improving collaboration within their networks, thereby increasing workplace productivity.
Vaidhyanathan et al. (U.S. PG PUB 2018/0260442) teaches event data may be processed so as to generate collections of event data in a graphical representation, the graphical representation having identifiers and relationships between those identifiers. Event data may be tracked for various resources (e.g., websites, webpages, web elements, files, applications, etc.) and may be associated with identifiers, e.g., resource type, event type, value type, etc. Rulesets may be applied to collections of event data to generate inferred data, e.g., inferred relationships, and to create enriched collections. Base on the collections and/or enriched collections, a library specifying the resources and/or events for tracking may be annotated. Moreover, based on the collections and/or enriched collections, the rulesets may be modified to generate additional or different inferred data. In some aspects, automatic annotations to the library and/or modifications to the rulesets may generate a self-tutoring graph of event data.
Kurian et al. (U.S. PG PUB 2018/0276287) teaches providing contextual insights and notifications regarding a plurality of deployed applications deployed across a plurality of devices is provided. The method includes the steps of retrieving application data of the plurality of deployed applications generated by the plurality of devices, which is stored on a central cloud storage repository, identifying an application data associated with the first deployed application using a pre-defined data mining template corresponding to the first deployed application, and an application data associated with the second deployed application using a pre-defined data mining template corresponding to the second deployed application, and analyzing, the application data associated with the first deployed application and the application data associated with the second deployed application along with a user specific information to provide one or more contextual insights or notifications to the user on a single display associated with the computing system.
ILIOFOTOU et al. (U.S. PG PUB 2019/0098068) teaches a distributed computing environment generates a user behavior analytics (UBA) deployment to process structured event data. The deployment manager configures a streaming cluster to perform streaming processing on real-time data and configures a batch cluster to perform batch processing on aggregated data. A configuration manager executing in the distributed computing environment interoperates with the deployment manager to update the UBA deployment with user-provided code and configurations that define streaming and batch models, among other things. In this manner, the deployment manager provides a scalable UBA deployment that can be customized, via the configuration manager, by a user.
Li et al. (U.S. PG PUB 2019/0197030) teaches incoming data is processed in real-time to generate data records that may be improved over time, for example, by automatically correcting inaccurate data in the records. In some embodiments, when data is received, a real-time process is initially performed on the received data under a first time constraint to produce first data for a data record. Subsequently, one or more non-real-time processes are then performed on the received data under a second time constraint to produce second data for the data record. The second data may be used to update the data record, for example, to correct any inaccuracy caused by the real-time process of the received data. Preferably, the second time constraint is longer than the first time constraint.
Cote (U.S. PG PUB 2019/0361755) teaches dynamically allocating event data from a plurality of client devices among a set of event processors includes: at a partitioning controller, storing an initial shard map allocating initial subsets of the client devices to respective data stores, each data store associated with a respective one of the event processors; at the partitioning controller, obtaining an operational parameter for each of the event processors; at the partitioning controller, generating an updated shard map based on the operational parameter for each of the event processors, the updated map allocating updated subsets of the client devices to the respective data stores; responsive to generating the updated shard map, transmitting a map update notification from the partitioning controller for the client devices.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CARINA YUN whose telephone number is (571)270-7848. The examiner can normally be reached Mon, Tues, Thurs, 9-4 (EST).
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 call.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kevin Young can be reached on (571) 270-3180. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
Carina Yun
Patent Examiner
Art Unit 2194
/CARINA YUN/Examiner, Art Unit 2194