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 office action is responsive to Request for Continued Examination Transmittal received on 1/12/2026. Claims 1,12, 13 and 16 are amended. Claims 20 and 21 are newly added. Consequently, claims 1-22 are pending examination.
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 1-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
Step 1: Claims 1, 12 and 16 are directed to a system, which falls within the statutory category of machine under U.S.C. 101. Claims 2-11, 13-15, and 17-22 depend from claims 1, 12 and 16 respectively, and are also directed to system.
Step 2A: claims 1-22 are directed tot eh abstract idea of detecting anomalous email sending behavior by comparing current activity to historical patterns, which falls within the mental process and mathematical relationship categories of abstract ideas identified by the courts. Specifically, the claims recite, collecting behavior data about a sender’s email patterns (send rate, transmission velocity, frequency), calculating a baseline pattern from historical data, determining current message behavior, comparing current behavior to baseline to generate deviation, and creating warning or quarantining messages based on deviations. This process of pattern recognition and anomaly detection is a fundamental practice in security monitoring that can be performed mentally or with pen and paper by reviewing email logs and observing patterns.
This is similar to abstract ideas found in Electric Group, LLC v. Alstom S.A. (collecting and analyzing data to detect abnormalities) and Credit Acceptance Corp. v. Westlake services (using data about past transactions to identify potential fraud).
Step 2A, Prong 2: The claims do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. The additional elements such as computerized sender system, analysis server, behavior dataset, status dataset, processors, and computer readable instructions, use the abstract idea with generic computer components to perform data gathering, calculation, and notification functions. The claims do not improve the functioning of a computer or other technology, do not apply the abstract with any particular machine or transformation or provide any meaningful limitation beyond linking the abstract idea to a particular technological environment. The computer components are simply used as tool to perform the abstract idea, they do not provide a technological improvement or solution.
Step 2B: the claims do not recite an inventive concept enough to transform the abstract idea into patent eligible subject matter. When considered both individually and as an ordered combination, the additional elements amount to no more than generic computer components, conventional activities and insignificant extra solution activity. The claims recite elements at high level of generality without any specific technical implementation of unconventional configuration. There is no improving to computer functionality, network security technology, or email system operation. The computers server only as tools to automate the abstract idea. In conclusion claims 1-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C 101.
Dependent claims 2-11, 13-15 and 17-22 further describe the abstract idea of monitoring user activity, comparing it to historical patterns and flagging deviations. The dependent claims do not include additional elements that integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or that provide significantly more than the abstract idea. Therefore, the dependent claims are also not patent eligible.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments regarding 35 USC § 101 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant arguments are listed below.
The applicant argues that intercepting and quarantining messages constitutes integration into a practical application because it is a concrete, automated security action that directly affects the electronic message itself.
Response: this argument is not persuasive. Even though the claims recite intercepting and quarantining messages, these elements only apply the abstract idea using well-understood, routine, conventional computer functions. Intercepting email in transit and quarantining suspicious message s are conventional email security practices that have been performed by spam filters, anti-virus systems and email gateways for a long time. The claims do not improve how computers intercept messages, how quarantine systems operate, or how email transmission works. They simply apply generic email security functions such as interception and quarantine, to implement the abstract idea of anomaly detection.
The applicant argues that the claims recite operations that cannot practically be performed in the human mind, because they involve intercepting messages in transit at a specific point in transmission.
Response: the mental process inquiry focuses on whether the method or idea itself could be performed mentally, not whether every implementing detail requires computer automation. The concept of amended claim 1 is, first, establishing a baseline of normal sending behavior, second, observing current sending behavior, third, comparing current to baseline, fourth detecting deviations and fifth, taking protective action when anomalies show up. This process could be performed mentally or with pen and paper by a security analyst reviewing email logs. The fact that claim 1 applies this mental process using electronic interception does not change the analysis. The court held that a method was abstract even though it required constructing internet maps and consulting databases, because the underlying concept could be performed mentally. Furthermore, intercepting and quarantining are extra solution activity which are generic application environment.
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/SARGON N NANO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2443
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