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 non-final office action is in response to the Application filed on 11/14/2023, with priority to PRO 63/425,469 Filing Date 11/15/2022.
Claim(s) 1-22 are pending for examination. Claim(s) 1 is/are independent claim(s). Claim 1-11 are elected, claims 12-22 are withdrawn.
Election/Restriction
Restriction to one of the following inventions is required under 35 U.S.C. 121:
I. Claims 1-11, 20-22, drawn to bot control for indexing web crawling, see Figs. 8, classified in G06F 16/951.
II. Claims 1, 12-15, 20-22, drawn to glyph slicing or segmentation, see Figs. 2A, 2B, 4A, 4B, classified in G06F 40/109.
III. Claims 1, 16-19, drawn to manipulating glyph coordinates, see Fig. 5-6, classified in G06F 40/166.
The inventions are independent or distinct, each from the other because:
Inventions I, II, and III are directed to related obfuscating text in different ways. The related inventions are distinct if: (1) the inventions as claimed are either not capable of use together or can have a materially different design, mode of operation, function, or effect; (2) the inventions do not overlap in scope, i.e., are mutually exclusive; and (3) the inventions as claimed are not obvious variants. See MPEP § 806.05(j). In the instant case, the inventions as claimed are different reasons and methods for obfuscation. Furthermore, the inventions as claimed do not encompass overlapping subject matter and there is nothing of record to show them to be obvious variants.
Restriction for examination purposes as indicated is proper because all the inventions listed in this action are independent or distinct for the reasons given above and there would be a serious search and/or examination burden if restriction were not required because one or more of the following reasons apply:
A separate search is required for each invention.
Applicant is advised that the reply to this requirement to be complete must include (i) an election of an invention to be examined even though the requirement may be traversed (37 CFR 1.143) and (ii) identification of the claims encompassing the elected invention.
The election of an invention may be made with or without traverse. To reserve a right to petition, the election must be made with traverse. If the reply does not distinctly and specifically point out supposed errors in the restriction requirement, the election shall be treated as an election without traverse. Traversal must be presented at the time of election in order to be considered timely. Failure to timely traverse the requirement will result in the loss of right to petition under 37 CFR 1.144. If claims are added after the election, applicant must indicate which of these claims are readable upon the elected invention.
Should applicant traverse on the ground that the inventions are not patentably distinct, applicant should submit evidence or identify such evidence now of record showing the inventions to be obvious variants or clearly admit on the record that this is the case. In either instance, if the examiner finds one of the inventions unpatentable over the prior art, the evidence or admission may be used in a rejection under 35 U.S.C. 103 or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) of the other invention.
Applicant is reminded that upon the cancelation of claims to a non-elected invention, the inventorship must be corrected in compliance with 37 CFR 1.48(a) if one or more of the currently named inventors is no longer an inventor of at least one claim remaining in the application. A request to correct inventorship under 37 CFR 1.48(a) must be accompanied by an application data sheet in accordance with 37 CFR 1.76 that identifies each inventor by his or her legal name and by the processing fee required under 37 CFR 1.17(i).
This application contains claims directed to the following patentably distinct species I, II, III. The species are independent or distinct because each are separate methods for obfuscation and require a separate search. In addition, these species are not obvious variants of each other based on the current record.
Applicant is required under 35 U.S.C. 121 to elect a single disclosed species, or a single grouping of patentably indistinct species, for prosecution on the merits to which the claims shall be restricted if no generic claim is finally held to be allowable. Currently, claim 1 is generic.
There is a serious search and/or examination burden for the patentably distinct species as set forth above because at least the following reason(s) apply: a different search is required for each group.
Applicant is advised that the reply to this requirement to be complete must include (i) an election of a species to be examined even though the requirement may be traversed (37 CFR 1.143) and (ii) identification of the claims encompassing the elected species or grouping of patentably indistinct species, including any claims subsequently added. An argument that a claim is allowable or that all claims are generic is considered nonresponsive unless accompanied by an election.
The election may be made with or without traverse. To preserve a right to petition, the election must be made with traverse. If the reply does not distinctly and specifically point out supposed errors in the election of species requirement, the election shall be treated as an election without traverse. Traversal must be presented at the time of election in order to be considered timely. Failure to timely traverse the requirement will result in the loss of right to petition under 37 CFR 1.144. If claims are added after the election, applicant must indicate which of these claims are readable on the elected species or grouping of patentably indistinct species.
Should applicant traverse on the ground that the species, or groupings of patentably indistinct species from which election is required, are not patentably distinct, applicant should submit evidence or identify such evidence now of record showing them to be obvious variants or clearly admit on the record that this is the case. In either instance, if the examiner finds one of the species unpatentable over the prior art, the evidence or admission may be used in a rejection under 35 U.S.C. 103 or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) of the other species.
Upon the allowance of a generic claim, applicant will be entitled to consideration of claims to additional species which depend from or otherwise require all the limitations of an allowable generic claim as provided by 37 CFR 1.141.
During a telephone conversation with Michelle Leveque (Reg. No. 36193) on 1/2/2026 a provisional election was made without traverse to prosecute the invention of I, claims 1-11. Affirmation of this election must be made by applicant in replying to this Office action. Claims 12-22 withdrawn from further consideration by the examiner, 37 CFR 1.142(b), as being drawn to a non-elected invention.
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.
Claim(s) 1-6, 10, 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yang; Siying US Pub. No. 2016/0006750 (Yang).
Claim 1:
Yang teaches:
A method, comprising:
responsive to a request for displayable content having text [¶ 0044] (content or headers of a request can be pieced together to generate at least a portion of a security token):
determining a text portion of the requested displayable content to be obfuscated [¶ 0011, 30, 51, 75-77, 80, 98, 110] (text to be obfuscated); and
providing a plurality of obfuscated fonts generating the plurality obfuscated fonts from a set of obfuscated glyphs created from a plurality of glyphs representative of a plurality of characters of the text portion of the displayable content [¶ 0110] (font with glyphs to be obfuscated), said generating including:
creating the plurality of obfuscated fonts by assigning the obfuscated glyphs of the set into the plurality of obfuscated fonts in accordance with one or more messages [¶ 0020, 26-27, 30, 89, 93, 97-98] (TCP message with header); and
mapping the plurality of obfuscated fonts by assigning a value to each obfuscated glyph in the set that is different from an original value of the glyph [¶ 0051, 73-75] (font can be scrambled by re-mapping character codes with glyphs (the graphical representations of characters) in the font file used to display the textual content).
Yang teaches all the elements of the claim, however some of these elements may by in different embodiments and use different terminology, for example the character codes of Yang could be the claimed “obfuscated glyph”. It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the different embodiments of Yang and that the difference in terminology is an obvious variant.
The reason, rationale, and motivation for this combination would have been reduce malicious software [Yang: ¶ 0003].
Claim 2:
Yang teaches:
The method of claim 1, further comprising mapping one or more characters of displayable content to an identity indicator of a requestor of the displayable content [¶ 0051, 73-75] (font can be scrambled by re-mapping character codes with glyphs (the graphical representations of characters) in the font file used to display the textual content).
Claim 3:
Yang teaches:
The method of claim 2, where the identity indicator is one or more of an IP address associated with the requestor and information in a request header of a request sent by the requestor [¶ 0044, 48-49, 58, 67, 84-85, 89, 91, 93, 97] (content or headers of a request can be pieced together to generate at least a portion of a security token).
Claim 4:
Yang teaches:
The method of claim 1, further comprising determining that the request for the displayable content is from an approved requestor, not creating the plurality of obfuscated fonts, and providing the displayable content to the approved requestor without obfuscation of the displayable content [¶ 0042-44, 48-50, 64, 78-80] (security token, trusted and not trusted requestors) [¶ 0051, 73-75] (font can be scrambled by re-mapping character codes with glyphs (the graphical representations of characters) in the font file used to display the textual content).
Claim 5:
Yang teaches:
The method of claim 1, further comprising determining that the request for the displayable content is from an approved requestor and providing the plurality of obfuscated fonts and the one or more messages associated with the obfuscated fonts to the approved requestor [¶ 0042-44, 48-50, 64, 78-80] (security token, trusted and not trusted requestors) [¶ 0051, 73-75] (font can be scrambled by re-mapping character codes with glyphs (the graphical representations of characters) in the font file used to display the textual content).
Claim 6:
Yang teaches:
The method of claim 1, further comprising rendering the requested displayable content for display in accordance with the plurality of obfuscated fonts [¶ 0051, 73-75] (font can be scrambled by re-mapping character codes with glyphs (the graphical representations of characters) in the font file used to display the textual content).
Claim 10:
Yang teaches:
The method of claim 8, where the identity indicator is one or more of an IP address associated with the requestor and information in a request header of a request sent by the requestor [¶ 0048, 52, 64, 84, 89-90, 93-94, 97-100] (security token may be formed using the last four digits of the second device's 102b IP address plus the first two characters of the HTTP User-Agent header value).
Claim 11:
Yang teaches:
The method of claim 1, further comprising a server communicating to a font server the text portion of the requested displayable content to be obfuscated and determining the one or more messages [¶ 0020, 26-27, 30, 89, 93, 97-98] (TCP message with header).
Claim(s) 7-9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yang; Siying US Pub. No. 2016/0006750 (Yang) in view of Ikemoto; Fujio et al. US Pub. No. 2016/0321217 (Ikemoto)
Claim 7:
Yang discloses a server [¶ 0043] (web server), however Yang does not appear to explicitly disclose “a number of chunks into which each glyph of the plurality of glyphs are to be divided”.
However, the disclosure of Ikemoto teaches:
The method of claim 1, where the one or more messages include one or more of a number of chunks into which each glyph of the plurality of glyphs are to be divided, how the plurality of obfuscated glyphs fill the plurality of obfuscated fonts, a number of obfuscated glyphs of the set of obfuscated glyphs, a number of obfuscated glyphs in each obfuscated font, and a value for each obfuscated glyph in each obfuscated font [¶ 0138-143, 226-227] (authentication server, with font subset, separate from web server) [¶ 0013, 49-57, 209-219] (separating a plurality of pieces of the delivery font files into obfuscated information and divided font data based on predetermined information).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the method of obfuscation in Yang and the method of obfuscation in Ikemoto, with a reasonable expectation of success.
The motivation for doing so would have been the use of known technique to improve similar devices (methods, or products) in the same way; (See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 US 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385, 1396 (U.S. 2007) and MPEP § 2143(D)).
The know technique of font sub-setting in Ikemoto could be applied to the obfuscation in Yang. Ikemoto and Yang are similar devices because each obfuscate fonts. One of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that applying the known technique would improve the similar devices and resulted in an improved system, with a reasonable expectation of success, because the “speed of the communication line is increased and the performance of the document browsing device is improved” [Ikemoto: ¶ 0008, 37-38].
Claim 8:
Ikemoto teaches:
The method of claim 1, further comprising a server generating the one or more messages using one or more of an identity indicator of a requestor of the displayable content and a shared key between the server and a font server [¶ 0027, 204] (decrypting the encrypted divided font data, the document browsing device needs to execute a process of extracting a decryption key from the encrypted divided font data, a process of decrypting the divided font data based on the decryption key, and a process of combining a plurality of pieces of such divided font data, a decryption key is a “shared key”).
Claim 9:
Ikemoto teaches:
The method of claim 8, where the requestor is an approved requestor and further comprising the server sharing with the requestor the shared key between the server and the font server, where the requestor can access the displayable content without obfuscated fonts using the identity indicator of the requestor and the shared key [¶ 0027, 204] (decrypting the encrypted divided font data, the document browsing device needs to execute a process of extracting a decryption key from the encrypted divided font data, a process of decrypting the divided font data based on the decryption key, and a process of combining a plurality of pieces of such divided font data, a decryption key is a “shared key”).
Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Please See PTO-892: Notice of References Cited.
Evidence of the level skill of an ordinary person in the art for Claim 1:
CHEN, Long-zhu et al. CN 114650164 teaches: anti-scraping, obfuscating, replacing the character code of the individual character with the character code of the character according to the mapping relation.
KUROSAWA; RYOJI et al. US 20140237241 teaches: obfuscation, mapping between a character code and a glyph; characters may be divided into characters to be obfuscated and characters that are not obfuscated depending on the attribute of the document data.
Hansen; Marc R. et al. US 20140282872 teaches: ciphertext, mapping may be used to place random characters or other substitute content, obfuscated portions; prevent malicious organizations from reverse-engineering the operation of a web site so as to build automated bots that can interact with the web site.
Weldon; Richard Walter et al. US 20170004331 teaches: maps respective alphanumeric characters of the text string to symbolic depictions that are not user legible; font file.
Emigh; Aaron T. et al. US 8984640 teaches: encoded character may be any obfuscated character, substituting a UTF-8 code for a non-encoded character. IP addresses blacklist.
Knauft; Christopher L. et al. US 6981217 teaches: a token replacer that replaces selected tokens in said source HTML document with randomly selected tokens from a reserved token list, resulting in a set of obfuscated index information; key word list in header.
Stalioraitis; Giedrius et al. US 11297152 web scraping, blacklist, request count for restricted domain has reached a limit in a given time frame.
Citations to Prior Art
A reference to specific paragraphs, columns, pages, or figures in a cited prior art reference is not limited to preferred embodiments or any specific examples. It is well settled that a prior art reference, in its entirety, must be considered for all that it expressly teaches and fairly suggests to one having ordinary skill in the art. Stated differently, a prior art disclosure reading on a limitation of Applicant's claim cannot be ignored on the ground that other embodiments disclosed were instead cited. Therefore, the Examiner's citation to a specific portion of a single prior art reference is not intended to exclusively dictate, but rather, to demonstrate an exemplary disclosure commensurate with the specific limitations being addressed. In re Heck, 699 F.2d 1331, 1332-33,216 USPQ 1038, 1039 (Fed. Cir. 1983) (quoting In re Lemelson, 397 F.2d 1006, 1009, 158 USPQ 275, 277 (CCPA 1968". In re: Upsher-Smith Labs. v. Pamlab, LLC, 412 F.3d 1319, 1323,75 USPQ2d 1213,1215 (Fed. Cir. 2005); In re Fritch, 972 F.2d 1260, 1264,23 USPQ2d 1780, 1782 (Fed. Cir. 1992); Merck & Co. v. Biocraft Labs., Inc., 874 F.2d 804, 807,10 USPQ2d 1843, 1846 (Fed. Cir. 1989); In re Fracalossi, 681 F.2d 792,794 n.1, 215 USPQ 569, 570 n.1 (CCPA 1982); In re Lamberti, 545 F.2d 747, 750, 192 USPQ 278, 280 (CCPA 1976); In re Bozek, 416 F.2d 1385,1390,163 USPQ 545, 549 (CCPA 1969).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BENJAMIN J SMITH whose telephone number is (571)270-3825. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 11:00 - 7:30 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 use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, ADAM QUELER can be reached at (571) 272-4140. 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.
/Benjamin Smith/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2172 Direct Phone: 571-270-3825
Direct Fax: 571-270-4825
Email: benjamin.smith@uspto.gov