DETAILED 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 .
The claims and only the claims form the metes and bounds of the invention. “Office personnel are to give claims their broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the supporting disclosure. In re Morris, 127 3d 1048, 1054-55, 44 USPQ2d 1023, 1027-28 (Fed. Cir. 1997). Limitations appearing in the specification but not recited in the claim are not read into the claim. In re Prater, 415 F.2d 1393, 1404-05, 162 USPQ 541, 550-551 (CCPA 1969)” (MPEP p 2100-8, c 2, I 45-48; p 2100-9, c 1, l 1-4). The Examiner has full latitude to interpret each claim in the broadest reasonable sense. The Examiner will reference prior art using terminology familiar to one of ordinary skill in the art. Such an approach is broad in concept and can be either explicit or implicit in meaning.
Claims 1-12 are presented for examination.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s remarks/amendment was filed on 16 March 2026.
Applicant's arguments have been considered but they are not persuasive. However, the Examiner welcomes any suggestion(s) Applicant may have on moving prosecution forward.
Applicant argues:
Claim 1 of the present application recites, in part, a computer system for managing
permissions, comprising a data storage system comprising computer readable storage media storing permissions data, the permissions data comprising a first non-normalised table comprising object and permission data, and at least a second table stored in memory containing user information, the first non-normalised table being joinable to the second table utilising an identifier. (Emphasis added).
A non-normalized table in a data storage system is a table that does not follow the
principles of database normalization. It typically contains redundant data, repeating groups, and multi-valued fields, appearing more like a flat spreadsheet than a structured relational database table.
The present application recites, in ¶ [0025], that "This table is typically extremely large as firstly it represents a large number of objects, and secondly it is de-normalised [e.g. nonnormalized] such that it will contains relatively large amounts of repeated data, for the reasons discussed above." In addition, Figure 2 of the present application shows a partially nonnormalized database structure, with Figure 3 showing a further denormalization step to provide a further improvement in efficiency of querying the database. (See Application, ¶ [0019], [0025]).
The Office Action asserts that Miyata discloses a first non-normalised table comprising object and permission data, citing ¶ [0094] and ¶ [0098] of the Miyata reference. However, Miyata does not disclose a non-normalized table. Neither the cited paragraphs, or any of the remaining sections of Miyata disclose anything about non-normalized tables.
Since Miyata does not disclose a non-normalized table, the Miyata reference cannot
disclose one or more computer readable storage media storing program instructions and one or more processors which, in response to executing the program instructions, are configured to query the first non-normalised table based on the first interim data set and stream results from the query of the first non-normalised table to deliver a predefined number of results without an interim step of generating a full output set.
In response, the Examiner respectfully submits:
Applicant’s disclosure discloses [0025] “the above tables can be joined using UserAndGroupID, and these can be joined to a folders table, also using that ID. The folders table contains folder and path details as well as full permission details, joined to the above tables by the UserAndGroupID. This table is typically extremely large as firstly it represents a large number of objects, and secondly it is de-normalised such that it will contains relatively large amounts of repeated data, for the reasons discussed above. This table is most likely sharded uniformly across computation nodes (for example based on a hash of the path), and columnar storage can be utilised to minimise storage (which typically achieves in excess of 90% compression for path names)”.
Here, Applicant’s disclosure is describing a “de-normalised” table instead of the recited “non-normalized” table. The text “[e.g. nonnormalized]” is added in by Applicant in Applicant’s remarks, but not part of the original disclosure.
According to Applicant, a non-normalized table “… typically contains redundant data, repeating groups, and multi-valued fields, appearing more like a flat spreadsheet than a structured relational database table” and "this table is typically extremely large as firstly it represents a large number of objects”.
Paragraph 0025 of Applicant’s disclosure describes what a non-normalized table typically is. It does not, however, provide a definition of “a non-normalized table”.
According to Applicant, “the Miyata reference does not teach a first nonnormalized table, and the Attaluri reference does not overcome that deficiency” and “Miyata does not disclose a non-normalized table. Neither the cited paragraphs, or any of the remaining sections of Miyata disclose anything about non-normalized tables”.
Applicant's arguments fail to comply with 37 CFR 1.111(b) because they amount to a general allegation that the claims define a patentable invention without specifically pointing out how the language of the claims patentably distinguishes them from the references.
Miyata does not mention normalization of any table.
Abstract
According to the MPEP, “the abstract should be in narrative form and generally
limited to a single paragraph on a separate sheet preferably within the range of 50 to 150 words in length. The abstract should describe the disclosure sufficiently to assist readers in deciding whether there is a need for consulting the full patent text for details.
The language should be clear and concise and should not repeat information
given in the title. It should avoid using phrases which can be implied, such as, "The disclosure concerns," "The disclosure defined by this invention," "The disclosure describes," etc. In addition, the form and legal phraseology often used in patent claims, such as "means" and "said," should be avoided."
The amended abstract of the disclosure is objected to because it includes “comprising” at lines 2-4 on page 1 of the disclosure. “Comprising” is a legal phraseology and should be changed/removed.
A corrected abstract of the disclosure is required and must be presented on a separate sheet, apart from any other text. See MPEP § 608.01(b).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1, 4, 7 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US PGPUB 2004/0260948 by Miyata et al. (“Miyata”) in view of US Patent 10,642,840 by Attaluri et al. (“Attaluri”).
As to Claim 1, Miyata teaches a computer system for managing permissions, comprising: a data storage system comprising computer readable storage media storing permissions data (Miyata: at least ¶0094; “stores the permission information in three tables 61, 71, and 81”), the permissions data comprising a first non-normalised table comprising object and permission data (Miyata: at least ¶0094; “stores the permission information in three tables 61, 71, and 81”; ¶0098 further discloses “field of contents of permission setting 73”), and at least a second table stored in memory containing user information (Miyata: at least ¶0094; “stores the permission information in three tables 61, 71, and 81”; ¶0096 further discloses “user name field 62 in the table 61”);
one or more computer readable storage media storing program instructions and one or more processors (Miyata: at least ¶0073; “respective functional blocks shown in FIG. 1 are stored in the program storage 26 of a memory 22 shown in FIG. 2 such that, upon operation, an operation procedure is read out and executed by a CPU. Permission setting values necessary for the individual functional blocks to operate are stored in the memory 22”) which, in response to executing the program instructions, are configured to: query the second table based on parameters provided by a user to generate a first interim data set (Miyata: at least ¶0098; “searches the information access user name field 72 of one of the index tables 71 which corresponds to the index number read out from the table 61”; ¶0096 also discloses “first, the user ID of the user disclosing his or her information is retrieved from an information open user name field 62 in the table 61 … and an index corresponding thereto is read out therefrom”);
query the first non-normalised table based on the first interim data set (Miyata: at least ¶¶0098-0099; “searches the information access user name field 72 of one of the index tables 71 which corresponds to the index number read out from the table 61” and “… performs the same operation when it receives a request to acquire permission settings from the user and reads out the contents thereof so that it reads out the permission settings from the contents of permission setting 73”); and
stream results from the query of the first non-normalised table to deliver a predefined number of results without an interim step of generating a full output set (Miyata: at least ¶¶0098-0099; “searches the information access user name field 72 of one of the index tables 71 which corresponds to the index number read out from the table 61” and “… acquire permission settings from the user and reads out the contents thereof so that it reads out the permission settings from the contents of permission setting 73”; note: full output set is not generated).
Miyata does not explicitly disclose, but Attaluri discloses the first non-normalised table being joinable to the second table utilising an identifier (Attaluri: at least Col. 16 Lines 13-18 & 27-30; “a database query request that joins data from two tables according to a common field value for an entry or record (e.g., a “User ID” field), may cause the selection of a hash join as part of plan to perform the query by a query engine” and “… evaluate as part of performing a plan for the database query request 515 (e.g., by evaluating whether the returned tuples satisfy the join predicate according to a hash join) and use to provide database query responses 517”).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art and the teachings of Miyata and Attaluri before him/her at a time before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Attaluri’s feature of the first non-normalised table being joinable to the second table utilising an identifier (Attaluri: at least Col. 16 Lines 13-18 & 27-30) with the system disclosed by Miyata.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to satisfy “database query request” by providing “database query responses” (Attaluri: at least Col. 16 Lines 10 & 29-30).
Claim 7 (a method claim) corresponds in scope to Claim 1, and is similarly rejected.
As to Claim 4, Miyata and Attaluri teach the computer system according to claim 1, wherein the first non-normalised table is also queried based on parameters provided by a user in relation to data stored in the first non-normalised table and not in the second table (Miyata: at least ¶¶0098-0099; “searches the information access user name field 72 of one of the index tables 71 which corresponds to the index number read out from the table 61” and “… performs the same operation when it receives a request to acquire permission settings from the user and reads out the contents thereof so that it reads out the permission settings from the contents of permission setting 73”).
Claim 10 (a method claim) corresponds in scope to Claim 4, and is similarly rejected.
Claims 2, 6, 8 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US PGPUB 2004/0260948 by Miyata et al. (“Miyata”) in view of US Patent 10,642,840 by Attaluri et al. (“Attaluri”), and further in view of US PGPUB 2017/0161327 by Lu.
As to Claim 2, Miyata and Attaluri teach the computer system according to claim 1.
Miyata and Attaluri do not explicitly disclose, but Lu discloses wherein the first non-normalised table is sharded across a plurality of nodes (Lu: at least ¶¶0032, 0034; “distributed database 101 includes two database nodes 101a and 101b on which a table, user, has been horizontally sharded” and “table information 303 can define how the user table is sharded (or partitioned) within distributed database 101. As indicated above, it is assumed that distributed database 101 includes only database nodes 101a and 101b and that the user table is horizontally sharded across these nodes”).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art and the teachings of Miyata, Attaluri and Lu before him/her at a time before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Lu’s feature of wherein the first non-normalised table is sharded across a plurality of nodes (Lu: at least ¶¶0032, 0034) with the system disclosed by Miyata and Attaluri.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to allow an “application to employ a distributed database that is dynamically provisioned without needing to be aware of the current structure of the database” (Lu: at least Abstract).
Claim 8 (a method claim) corresponds in scope to Claim 2, and is similarly rejected.
As to Claim 6, Miyata, Attaluri and Lu teach the computer system according to claim 2.
Miyata and Attaluri do not explicitly disclose, but Lu discloses wherein data is collated from the plurality of nodes and transmitted to a user (Lu: at least ¶0036; “result sets 311a and 311b are provided to ResultSet provider 212 which merges them into a single result set 312. ResultSet provider 212 can then provide result set 312 to JDBC API 202 which will return result set 312 to application 201”).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art and the teachings of Miyata and Lu before him/her at a time before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Lu’s feature of wherein data is collated from the plurality of nodes and transmitted to a user (Lu: at least ¶0036) with the system disclosed by Miyata and Attaluri.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to allow an “application to employ a distributed database that is dynamically provisioned without needing to be aware of the current structure of the database” (Lu: at least Abstract).
Claim 12 (a method claim) corresponds in scope to Claim 6, and is similarly rejected.
Claims 3 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US PGPUB 2004/0260948 by Miyata et al. (“Miyata”) in view of US Patent 10,642,840 by Attaluri et al. (“Attaluri”), and further in view of US PGPUB 2017/0161327 by Lu, and further in view of US Patent 8,935,232 by Abadi et al. (“Abadi”).
As to Claim 3, Miyata, Attaluri and Lu teach the computer system according to claim 2.
Miyata, Attaluri and Lu do not explicitly disclose, but Abadi discloses wherein the second table is stored in memory at each node and the step of querying the second table is performed at each node (Abadi: at least Col. 11 Line 67 - Col. Line 3; “simply ship the entire small table to every node in the network. Each partition of the larger table can then be joined with the smaller table on each local node”; Col. 8 Lines 47-52 & Col. 9 Lines 11-14 also disclose “processing join operations inside the database system of each node. By processing join operations in the database system, joins become local operations (no need to send data over the network) and are performed inside the DBMS which typically implements these operations very efficiently” and “ANSI standard SQL specifies four types of joins: "inner", "outer", "left", and "right".”; Col. 20 Line 66-Col. 21 Line 3 also disclose “system 100's highly efficient execution plan for this query benefits greatly from the referential partitioning (both the join and the subquery of per order threshold on sum of lineitems quantity can be computed locally)”).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art and the teachings of Miyata, Attaluri, Lu and Abadi before him/her at a time before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Abadi’s feature of wherein the second table is stored in memory at each node and the step of querying the second table is performed at each node (Abadi: at least Col. 8 Lines 47-52 & Col. 9 Lines 11-14, Col. 11 Line 67 - Col. Line 3, Col. 20 Line 66-Col. 21 Line 3) with the system disclosed by Miyata, Attaluri and Lu.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to implement “efficient data processing systems and methods for obtaining large-size data from even bigger data sets stored in databases through execution of requests or queries” (Abadi: at least Col. 2 Lines 58-61).
Claim 9 (a method claim) corresponds in scope to Claim 3, and is similarly rejected.
Claims 5 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US PGPUB 2004/0260948 by Miyata et al. (“Miyata”) in view of US Patent 10,642,840 by Attaluri et al. (“Attaluri”), and further in view of US PGPUB 2017/0344568 by Jacob et al. (“Jacob”).
As to Claim 5, Miyata and Attaluri teach the computer system according to claim 1.
Miyata and Attaluri do not explicitly disclose, but Jacob discloses wherein the user information represents users in a hierarchical structure (Jacob: at least ¶0026; “the user information that is stored includes the username in column 320, a first user detail in column 330, a second user detail in column 340, and an nth user detail in column 350”; ¶¶0032, 0038 further disclose “a tree-like data structure 124. The tree-like data structure 124 includes a plurality of nodes that can be arranged into a plurality of n different levels” and “determine whether there is a corresponding node in the tree-like data structure 124 that has a name that matches that detail of the user information 136”).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art and the teachings of Miyata, Attaluri and Jacob before him/her at a time before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Jacob’s feature of wherein the user information represents users in a hierarchical structure (Jacob: at least ¶¶0026, 0032, 0038) with the system disclosed by Miyata and Attaluri.
The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to “retrieve particular customized content” for a particular user (Jacob: at least ¶0040).
Claim 11 (a method claim) corresponds in scope to Claim 5, and is similarly rejected.
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 Huen Wong whose telephone number is (571) 270-3426. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday - Friday (10:30AM EST - 6:30PM EST). If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the Examiner's supervisor, Charles Rones can be reached on (571) 272-4034. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300 for regular communications and after final communications.
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/H .W./
Examiner, AU 2168
28 March 2026
/CHARLES RONES/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2168