DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-20 are pending and have been examined.
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 .
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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claim(s) recite(s) identifying, ranking, and determining a copy of a document/artifact, making an evaluation in response to receiving information.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because they are broad enough to cover making such a determination out of a set of printed documents, other than the generic computer components.
Regarding Prong One, these steps, as drafted, form a process that under its broadest reasonable interpretation covers performance of the limitation in the mind or with pen/paper but for the recitation of generic computer components. That is, other than reciting “a system, “a processor”, or “media storing instructions”, nothing in the claim element precludes the step from practically being performed in the human mind. For example, but for the “a processor” language, the claim encompasses a user receiving printed information, identifying similarities, ranking, and determining a source/from which it was derived as a teacher or professor would determine cheating in submitted work.
Regarding Prong Two, there are no additional element(s) or a combination of elements in the claim that apply, rely on, or use the judicial exception in a manner that imposes a meaningful limit on the judicial exception, such that it is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception.
The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the claims only use generic computer components. Mere instructions to apply an exception using generic components cannot provide an inventive concept. Additionally, the mere nominal recitation of a generic processor does not take the claim limitation out of the mental processes grouping. Thus, the claims recite a mental process and are not patent eligible.
The claims are directed to well-understood, routine, and conventional activity as evidenced by the “background of the invention” section and the cited references.
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 1-2, 5, 8-9, 12, and 15-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Van Rotterdam (20210192204), and further in view of Brdiczka (20140137238).
Regarding claims 1 and 15, Van Rotterdam teaches A system comprising: at least one processor; and one or more computer storage media storing computer-readable instructions thereon that when executed by the at least one processor cause the at least one processor to perform operations comprising: / One or more computer storage media storing computer-readable instructions thereon that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform a method comprising (abstract, par.31-34):
identifying unique copy keypoints for each unique copy in a set of unique copies (par.33-35, determine vectors for archived documents);
identifying artifact keypoints for an artifact derived from one of the unique copies in the set of unique copies (par.35-38, for a reference document, determine similarity based on vectors to archived documents);
ranking the unique copies based on a first subset of unique copy keypoints that matches the artifact keypoints relative to the unique copy keypoints for each unique copy (par.36-40, rank based on similarity or absolute degree of similarity);
Van Rotterdam does not expressly disclose, however Brdiczka teaches
determining uniquely matching keypoints for each unique copy, the uniquely matching keypoints comprising a second subset of unique copy keypoints that matches the artifact keypoints for only one of the unique copies in the set of unique copies; and from the set of unique copies, providing a unique copy from which the artifact was derived based on an absolute match significance of a first-ranked unique copy and a unique match significance determined from the uniquely matching keypoints of the first-ranked unique copy (par.26-28, 31-43).
Therefore, one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Van Rotterdam to determine unique copy from which a document was derived as taught by Brdiczka.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to perform such a modification to further control and detect sources of leaked information (Brdiczka, par.1-10, 25-35, 45-50).
Regarding claim 8, Van Rotterdam teaches A method performed by one or more processors, the method comprising (abstract, par.31-34):
ranking unique copies of a set of unique copies based on a first subset of unique copy keypoints that matches artifact keypoints of an artifact relative to unique copy keypoints within each unique copy (par.36-40, rank based on similarity or absolute degree of similarity);
Van Rotterdam does not expressly disclose, however Brdiczka teaches
determining uniquely matching keypoints for each unique copy, the uniquely matching keypoints comprising a second subset of unique copy keypoints that matches the artifact keypoints for only one of the unique copies in the set of unique copies; and from the set of unique copies, providing a unique copy from which the artifact was derived based on an absolute match significance of a first-ranked unique copy and a unique match significance determined from the uniquely matching keypoints of the first-ranked unique copy (par.26-28, 31-43).
Therefore, one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Van Rotterdam to determine unique copy from which a document was derived as taught by Brdiczka.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to perform such a modification to further control and detect sources of leaked information (Brdiczka, par.1-10, 25-35, 45-50).
Regarding claims 2, 9, and 16, Van Rotterdam/Brdiczka teaches wherein, for each unique copy, the first subset of unique copy keypoints is determined by selecting unique copy keypoints from an individual unique copy based on the selected unique copy keypoints matching a corresponding artifact keypoint in the artifact (Van Rotterdam, par.35-38).
Regarding claims 5 and 12, Van Rotterdam/Brdiczka teaches wherein the second subset of unique copy keypoints for an individual unique copy comprises the unique copy keypoints selected from the individual unique copy that match artifact keypoints, and wherein the matching artifact keypoints for the individual unique copy do not match other unique copy keypoints of other unique copies in the set of unique copies (Brdiczka, par.26-28, 31-43).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-4, 6-7, 10-11, 13-14, and 17-20 objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: the remaining references put forth on the PTO-892 form are directed to copy detection.
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/David Garcia Cervetti/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2409