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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 2/3/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed 2/3/2026 have been fully considered and are moot in view of the new grounds of rejection presented herein.
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.
Claims 47, 49, 51 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(s) contains subject matter 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.
Claims 47, 49, and 51 recite a determining step to “determining, with a neural network, whether to watermark the portion of the resource with a visible watermark or a hidden watermark”. The relevant portions of applicant’s specification are reproduced below:
[0072] In a block 244 ICAP may determine whether RCOR(TxT) is greater than a predetermined text watermarking threshold TH(TxT−Wmark), RCOR(ImG) is greater than a predetermined image watermarking threshold TH(ImG−Wmark), or RCOR(Audio) is greater than a predetermined audio watermarking threshold TH(ImG−Wmark), and if so operates to locally watermark the MyCompany resource with a visible or invisible watermark. Local watermarking in accordance with an embodiment is performed similarly to performing local masking or deleting, without generating changes in data defining a resource as received by a UE.sub.e. From block 244 ICAP optionally proceeds to a block 248, approves the request and ends.
[0073] It is noted that whereas in flow diagram 300 ICAP determines authorization, masking or deleting, and/or watermarking based on data classes CLS, resource confidentiality levels CON and user clearance levels CLR, practice of an embodiment of the disclosure is not limited to using CLS, CON, and/or CLR as illustrated in the flow diagram. For example, a DNN net may be trained to recognize resource data classes, confidentiality levels, and/or clearance levels and be used to determine authorization and masking or deleting given a sufficient number of training examples of resource-user pairs. Such a DNN, when provided with a profile U-PRF(n) for a user U.sub.n using a CyberSafe browser SWB.sub.b and a scan or feature vector of a resource may in accordance with an embodiment determine whether the user should be granted or denied authorization to engage the resource, and if granted authorization whether or not the resource should undergo feature masking or deleting. A DNN may also be trained to determine what and how a resource should be watermarked. For example the DNN may determine that a resource being processed in SWB.sub.b should be watermarked with a visible or a hidden, steganographic watermark before the SWB.sub.b transmits the resource.
The specification indicates that based on certain thresholds a visible or invisible watermark is applied. However, the claims recite determining whether to apply a visible or invisible watermark, and the specification does not reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art any way to do so (e.g. the specification lacks any steps, algorithms, or functions required for the determination).
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim 20, 23, 25-27, 30, 32-34, 37, 39, 46, 48, and 50 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20210194888 to Bhaskar in view of US 20200152213 to Chauhan.
Regarding claim 20, Bhaskar teaches a method comprising:
based on detecting a request from a user, at a browser in a first environment, to access a resource, wherein the first environment is isolated from one or more ambient environments of an endpoint (abstract, ¶ 3-4, 33, 57, 59, 63, 65-66, 108-109, receiving request for content via isolated browser),
determining that the resource comprises one or more data types from a plurality of data types known to correspond to sensitive data (¶ 3-4, 6, 88, 91, 94, determination of sensitive content and content type); and
for each data type of the one or more data types,
determining a confidentiality level of the resource relative to the data type (¶ 88-89, 91, 94, determination of confidentiality level of data type);
determining whether the user has clearance to access a portion of the resource based, at least in part, on the confidentiality level (¶ 88-89, 91, 94, access based on user clearance and confidentiality level of data type);
based on determining that the user does not have clearance to access the portion of the resource comprising data for the data type, at least one of blocking the request and allowing partial access to the portion of the resource (¶ 88-91, 94, blocking request and allowing partial access to content based on clearance); and
Bhaskar fails to teach but Chauhan teaches:
based on determining that the confidentiality level of the resource is above a threshold confidentiality level, watermarking a portion of the resource comprising data for the data type with a watermark (¶ 179-183, 209-211, watermarking based on determined sensitivity/confidentiality level; ¶ 98, 145).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the teachings of Chauhan. The motivation to do so is that the teachings of Chauhan would have been advantageous in terms of facilitating the control of sensitive content (Chauhan, ¶ 3, 146-147, 179).
Regarding claim 23, 37, 30,
Bhaskar teaches:
wherein allowing partial access to the portion of the resource comprises hooking a renderer of the browser to instructions to at least one of locally mask and delete the data for the data type in the resource, wherein hooking the renderer of the browser to mask or delete the data comprises masking or deleting the data for the request without changing the resource at a memory location where the resource was downloaded at the endpoint (¶ 91, redacting or removing data without changing original resource).
Regarding claim 25, 32, 39,
Bhaskar teaches:
wherein allowing partial access to the portion of the resource comprises at least one of,
masking the portion of the resource when the data type is text data; masking and/or watermarking the portion of the resource when the data type is image data; and masking and/or watermarking the portion of the resource when the data type is audio data (¶ 66, 90-91, masking, watermarking, ¶ 91, text, images).
Regarding claim 26, 33,
Bhaskar teaches:
determining the confidentiality level for the data type based on clustering at least one of character strings, regular expression strings, N-grams, and text patterns for the resource (¶ 96-99, 111,114, 116, 118 sensitivity classification based on character strings, text patterns).
Claim 27 and 34 are addressed by similar rationale as claim 1.
Regarding claim 46, 48, 50,
Bhaskar fails to teach but Chauhan teaches:
wherein the watermark comprises at least one of a uniform resource locator of the resource, a file type of the resource, a rendered web page corresponding to the resource, and content corresponding to the resource displayed in the browser (¶ 179-183, 209-211, watermarking based on determined sensitivity/confidentiality level; ¶ 98, 145). Motivation to include Chauhan is the same as presented above.
Claim 47, 49, 51 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bhaskar and Chauhan in view of US 20170024551 to Phadke.
Regarding claim 47, 49, 51,
Bhaskar fails to teach: determining, with a neural network, whether to watermark the portion of the resource with a visible watermark or a hidden watermark; based on determining to watermark the portion of the resource with the visible watermark, watermarking the resource with the visible watermark; and based on determining to watermark the portion of the resource with the hidden watermark, watermarking the resource with the hidden watermark.
However, but Chauhan teaches: determining, with a neural network, whether to watermark the portion of the resource with a visible watermark or a hidden watermark; based on determining to watermark the portion of the resource with the visible watermark, watermarking the resource with the visible watermark; and based on determining to watermark the portion of the resource with the hidden watermark, watermarking the resource with the hidden watermark (¶ 138, application of hidden and visible watermarking).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the teachings of Phadke. The motivation to do so is that the teachings of Phadke would have been advantageous in terms of facilitating watermarking for security purposes (Phadke, ¶ 138).
Claim 24, 31, 38 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bhaskar and Chauhan in view of US 20200293684 to Harris.
Regarding claim 24, 31, 38,
Bhaskar teaches: wherein determining whether the user has clearance to access a portion of the resource comprises determining a clearance level of the user for the data type (¶ 88-89, 91, 94, access based on user clearance and confidentiality level of data type).
Bhaskar fails to teach using a machine learning model in determining a clearance level for a user. However, Harris teaches determining a clearance level for a user with a machine learning model (Harris, ¶ 95).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include the teachings of Harris. The motivation to do so is that the teachings of Harris would have been advantageous in terms of facilitating automated privacy control (Harris, ¶ 74, 95).
CONCLUSION
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RYAN J JAKOVAC whose telephone number is (571)270-5003. The examiner can normally be reached on 8-4 PM EST. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Oscar A. Louie can be reached on 572-270-1684. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/RYAN J JAKOVAC/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2445
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