DETAILED ACTION
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 04 March 2026 has been entered.
By the above submission, Claims 1, 4, 13-16, and 18-21 have been amended. Claims 7 and 8 have been canceled. New Claims 22 and 23 have been added. Claims 1, 2, 4-6, and 9-23 are currently pending in the present application.
Response to Amendment
The amendments to the claims do not fully comply with the requirement of 37 CFR 1.121(c) that each claim must include the correct status identifier. In particular, Claim 14 is indicated as “original” but includes amendments and should therefore be indicated as “currently amended”. As a courtesy and for purposes of advancing prosecution, the amendments have been treated as though they were fully compliant with 37 CFR 1.121(c). Applicant is reminded that all future amendments must fully comply with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.121.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the rejection under 35 U.S.C. 102 (pages 10-11 of the present response) have been considered but are moot in view of the new grounds of rejection set forth below.
Specification
The objection to the specification for failure to provide proper antecedent basis for the claimed subject matter is withdrawn in light of Applicant’s remarks (pages 8-9 of the present response, citing paragraphs 0096-0099 and Figure 9 of the present disclosure) and further consideration of the specification, especially paragraph 0099.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The rejection of Claim 21 under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) for failure to comply with the written description requirement is withdrawn in light of Applicant’s remarks (pages 8-9 of the present response, citing paragraphs 0096-0099 and Figure 9 of the present disclosure) and further consideration of the specification, especially paragraph 0099. The rejection of Claims 7, 8, and 18-20 under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) as indefinite are withdrawn (or moot) in light of the amendments to (or cancellation of) the claims. The rejection of Claims 1, 2, 4-6, 9-17, and 21-23 under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) is NOT withdrawn, because not all issues have been addressed and/or because the amendments have raised new issues, as detailed below.
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, 2, 4-6, 9-17, and 21-23 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.
Claim 1 recites “wherein the embedding module was previously trained based on both the encoder component and the decoder component” in lines 6-7. However, it is not clear whether it is the embedding module or the autoencoder that would have been trained. The above ambiguity renders the claim indefinite.
Claim 10 recites “converting the original data of the first type in the electronic file from the non-numeric-vector format into a numeric-vector format” in lines 4-5. There does not appear to be an algorithm defined in the claims or specification for what this conversion might encompass.
Claim 13 recites “converting… the first data from the first format into a second format that is different” in lines 8-10. There does not appear to be an algorithm defined in the claims or specification for what this conversion might encompass. The claim further recites “noise of different types” in line 20. There does not appear to be a clear definition in the claims or specification of what different types of noise may entail. The above ambiguities render the claim indefinite.
Claim 15 recites “the noise-added data” in line 2. However, because Claim 13 recited plural instances of generating noise-added data, it is not clear to which of these instances of data this limitation is intended to refer.
Claim 21 recites “storing different portions of the output noise-added data in the plurality of second partitions” in lines 5-6. It is not clear what the portions are different from; that is, it is not clear whether the data is divided into different portions from in Claim 11, or if a different subset of the data is divided into portions or if the different portions of Claim 11 are divided again into further portions.
Claims not explicitly referred to above are rejected due to their dependence on a rejected base claim.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
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, 2, 4-6, and 9-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Esmaeilzadeh et al, US Patent Application Publication 2023/0259786, in view of Yan et al, US Patent 11574069.
In reference to Claims 1 and 12, Esmaeilzadeh discloses a method that includes, on a computer system of a first entity, accessing an electronic file containing data of a first type meeting one or more specified sensitivity criteria (see paragraph 0042, for example); embedding the data into an electronic database (dataset D’ 112); accessing a request to query the data (paragraph 0064); and adding noise to the embedded data based on the request and outputting the data after the noise has been added (see paragraphs 0020-0023). However, although Esmaeilzadeh discloses an autoencoder and pruning the decoder (paragraph 0020), and although pruning the decoder could potentially be interpreted to encompass deleting the entire decoder, Esmaeilzadeh does not explicitly disclose discarding the decoder after training.
Yan discloses a method that includes training an autoencoder including an encoder and decoder (column 3, line 43-column 4, line 13) and discarding the decoder after training the autoencoder (column 4, lines 14-30). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method of Esmaeilzadeh to include discarding the autoencoder, in order to impede the restoration of the input (Yan, column 4, lines 14-30).
In reference to Claim 2, Esmaeilzadeh and Yan further disclose a batching technique and adding different amounts or types of noise so that different data is output (Esmaeilzadeh, paragraph 0028).
In reference to Claims 4 and 8, Esmaeilzadeh and Yan further disclose performing machine learning to analyze the data and using an autoencoder (Esmaeilzadeh, paragraph 0025; Yan, column 3, line 43-column 4, line 30).
In reference to Claims 5 and 10, Esmaeilzadeh and Yan further disclose a numeric vector format and non-numeric vector format and converting formats (Esmaeilzadeh, paragraph 0069).
In reference to Claims 6, 7, and 9, Esmaeilzadeh and Yan further disclose embedding the data to be inaccessible or irreversible or obfuscated (Esmaeilzadeh, paragraph 0020).
In reference to Claims 11, 21, and 22, Esmaeilzadeh and Yan further disclose first and second partitions storing different portions of the data (see Esmaeilzadeh, paragraph 0042).
Claims 13-17 and 23 are directed to systems having functionality corresponding to the methods of Claims 1, 2, 4, 10, and 23 and are rejected by a similar rationale, mutatis mutandis.
Claims 18-20 are directed to software implementations of methods similar to those recited in Claims 1, 4, 6, 8, and 10, and are rejected by a similar rationale.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Isgum et al, US Patent 10699407, discloses an autoencoder that is trained after which the decoder is removed.
Davies et al, US Patent 11126330, discloses discarding a decoder and saving an encoder after training an autoencoder.
Patel, US Patent 11170169, discloses chopping off or removing a decoder after training an autoencoder.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Zachary A Davis whose telephone number is (571)272-3870. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday, 9:00am-5:30pm, Eastern Time.
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/Zachary A. Davis/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2492