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 action is in response to the communication filed on 04/17/2024.
Claims 1-20 are under examination.
The Information Disclosure Statements filed on 02/12/2025 has been entered and considered.
Claim Interpretation
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(f):
(f) Element in Claim for a Combination. – An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
This application includes one or more claim limitations that use the word “means” or “step” but are nonetheless not being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph because the claim limitation(s) recite(s) sufficient structure, materials, or acts to entirely perform the recited function. Such claim limitation(s) is/are: “means for determining” and “means for providing” in claim 20. The specification discloses these can be embodied as general purpose computer (see paragraph 0049-0050).
Because this/these claim limitation(s) is/are not being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, it/they is/are not being interpreted to cover only the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification as performing the claimed function, and equivalents thereof.
If applicant intends to have this/these limitation(s) interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, applicant may: (1) amend the claim limitation(s) to remove the structure, materials, or acts that performs the claimed function; or (2) present a sufficient showing that the claim limitation(s) does/do not recite sufficient structure, materials, or acts to perform the claimed function.
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 of this title, 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 1-3, 9 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shelepov (US 2021/0326472 A1) and Childress et al. (US 2020/0394327 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Shelepov discloses An apparatus, comprising: a memory; and a processor coupled with the memory and configured to cause the apparatus to: determine that a file is accessible from a remote location in response to the file being flagged for external sharing [par. 0032, “when the privacy metadata is used to select a distribution policy for the file on the application 210, the application 210 is limited or restricted by the “tags” or “rules” regarding accessing, sharing, or distributing the file”, par. 0022, photo can be shared with everyone]; provide contents of the file to an artificial intelligence (AI) engine to determine whether the contents of the file satisfies at least one predetermined classification; and provide an indication to make the file inaccessible from the remote location in response to the contents of the file satisfying the at least one predetermined classification [par. 0003, “The file system can generate and associate privacy metadata to the captured data when it is detected to contain sensitive or private information, which can prevent accidental sharing of the captured data containing the sensitive or private information”].
Shelepov does not explicitly disclose provide contents of the file to an artificial intelligence (AI) engine to determine whether the contents of the file satisfies at least one predetermined classification.
However, Childress et al. teaches provide contents of the file to an artificial intelligence (AI) engine to determine whether the contents of the file satisfies at least one predetermined classification [par. 0072, “permission program 104 classifies the created data as being sensitive or not sensitive by transmitting the data to an artificial intelligence module along with instructions to analyze the data to determine whether the data contains sensitive information”].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Childress et al. into the teaching of Shelepov with the motivation to use a combination of natural language processing techniques, machine learning techniques, object and image recognition techniques to determine contents of data files and whether contents of the data files contain sensitive information pertaining to a user as taught by Childress et al. [Childress et al.: par. 0067].
Regarding claim 2, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated.
Shelepov further discloses the file is flagged for external sharing in metadata for the file [par. 0003, “The file system can generate and associate privacy metadata to the captured data when it is detected to contain sensitive or private information, which can prevent accidental sharing of the captured data containing the sensitive or private information”].
Regarding claim 3, the rejection of claim 2 is incorporated.
Shelepov further discloses the processor is configured to cause the apparatus to receive a signal that the metadata for the file has changed in response to the file being flagged for external sharing in the metadata [par. 0003, “The file system can generate and associate privacy metadata to the captured data…”, par. 0023, “the processing algorithm 240 can be instructed to re-determine the privacy preferences of a file. For example, if a file is modified or edited (e.g., if a picture file is blurred or resized to omit the private or sensitive information, or a video file is edited to omit the private or sensitive information), the processing algorithm 240 can re-run on the file to determine whether the privacy preference for the file should be updated or changed”].
Regarding claim 9, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated.
Shelepov further discloses the at least one predetermined classification comprises a sensitive data classification, the sensitive data classification comprising a personally identifiable information (PII) classification, a payment card industry (PCI) classification, a personal health information (PHI) classification, an intellectual property classification, a source code classification, or a combination thereof [par. 0015, “personally identifiable information (PII) and other highly sensitive information”, par. 0021, “The user 100 may like to keep files private if the files contain sensitive information or material... For example, a file containing financial information (e.g., credit card numbers, discussions with a banker about personal finances), personal moments, health issues, work or legal matters”].
Regarding claim 19, it recites limitations like claim 1. The reason for the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein.
Regarding claim 20, it recites limitations like claim 1. The reason for the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein.
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shelepov (US 2021/0326472 A1) and Childress et al. (US 2020/0394327 A1) as applied to claims 1-3, 9 and 19-20 above, and further in view of Abbott et al. (US 2015/0149407 A1).
Regarding claim 4, the rejection of claim 2 is incorporated.
Shelepov discloses the file is flagged for external sharing in metadata for the file [par. 0003, “The file system can generate and associate privacy metadata to the captured data when it is detected to contain sensitive or private information, which can prevent accidental sharing of the captured data containing the sensitive or private information”].
They do not explicitly disclose the processor is configured to cause the apparatus to receive a signal that the metadata for the file has changed in response to the file being stored in a shared folder.
However, Abbott et al. discloses the processor is configured to cause the apparatus to receive a signal that the metadata for the file has changed in response to the file being stored in a shared folder [par. 0055, “After server 121 receives a content item that is part of a shared folder or a shared group of content items, metadata generation module 123 applies the sharing rule and generates content item metadata for the content item”].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Abbott et al. into the teaching of Shelepov and Childress et al. with the motivation to generate indexing metadata for based on if and, optionally, how a content item is shared with a user as taught by Abbott et al. [Abbott et al.: par. 0055].
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shelepov (US 2021/0326472 A1) and Childress et al. (US 2020/0394327 A1) as applied to claims 1-3, 9 and 19-20 above, and further in view of Qiao et al. (US 2024/0012932 A1).
Regarding claim 5, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated.
Shelepov discloses the file is flagged for external sharing in metadata for the file.
They do not explicitly disclose the processor is configured to cause the apparatus to download the contents of the file to volatile memory without persistently storing the contents of the file.
However, Qiao et al. discloses the processor is configured to cause the apparatus to download the contents of the file to volatile memory without persistently storing the contents of the file [par. 0058, “the sensitivity management engine 102 may cause the file 134 to be downloaded to a temporary memory storage (e.g., Random Access Memory (RAM) of the client device 106)”].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Qiao et al. into the teaching of Shelepov and Childress et al. with the motivation to provide secure storage and maintenance of potentially sensitive file downloads as taught by Qiao et al. [Qiao et al.: par. 0008].
Claims 6-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shelepov (US 2021/0326472 A1) and Childress et al. (US 2020/0394327 A1) as applied to claims 1-3, 9 and 19-20 above, and further in view of Belgi et al. (US 2025/0156567 A1).
Regarding claim 6, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated.
Shelepov discloses the file is flagged for external sharing in metadata for the file.
They do not explicitly disclose the contents of the file comprise text content extracted from the file.
However, Belgi et al. discloses the contents of the file comprise text content extracted from the file [par. 0085, “data relating to the file may be obtained, for example metadata may be extracted from the file or otherwise obtained and text data within the file may also be extracted”].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Belgi et al. into the teaching of Shelepov and Childress et al. with the motivation such that data relating to the file , for example metadata may be extracted from the file as taught by Belgi et al. [Belgi et al.: par. 0085].
Regarding claim 7, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated.
Shelepov discloses the file is flagged for external sharing in metadata for the file.
They do not explicitly disclose the contents of the file are provided to the AI engine as one or more prompts, the AI engine comprising a generative AI engine.
However, Belgi et al. discloses the contents of the file are provided to the AI engine as one or more prompts, the AI engine comprising a generative AI engine [par. 0021, “generating, using a first generative artificial intelligence, AI, model, a text-based summary of the file by using the information about each identified individual as a prompt to the first generative machine learning model; determining, using a second generative AI model, a sensitivity classification of the file using the text-based summary; and outputting the determined sensitivity classification”].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Belgi et al. into the teaching of Shelepov and Childress et al. with the motivation such that data relating to the file , for example metadata may be extracted from the file as taught by Belgi et al. [Belgi et al.: par. 0085].
Regarding claim 8, the rejection of claim 7 is incorporated.
Belgi et al. further discloses the one or more prompts are associated with the at least one predetermined classification [par. 0021, “generating, using a first generative artificial intelligence, AI, model, a text-based summary of the file by using the information about each identified individual as a prompt to the first generative machine learning model; determining, using a second generative AI model, a sensitivity classification of the file using the text-based summary; and outputting the determined sensitivity classification”].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Belgi et al. into the teaching of Shelepov and Childress et al. with the motivation such that data relating to the file , for example metadata may be extracted from the file as taught by Belgi et al. [Belgi et al.: par. 0085].
Claims 10-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shelepov (US 2021/0326472 A1) and Childress et al. (US 2020/0394327 A1) as applied to claims 1-3, 9 and 19-20 above, and further in view of Rosswog et al. (US 9,514,414 B1).
Regarding claim 10, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated.
Shelepov further discloses the processor is configured to cause the apparatus to make the file inaccessible from the remote location [par. 0003, “The file system can generate and associate privacy metadata to the captured data when it is detected to contain sensitive or private information, which can prevent accidental sharing of the captured data containing the sensitive or private information”].
They do not explicitly disclose the processor is configured to cause the apparatus to visually present the indication within a graphical user interface (GUI).
However, Rosswog et al. discloses the processor is configured to cause the apparatus to visually present the indication within a graphical user interface (GUI) [col. 18, lines 31-34, “the document categorizer may assign categories to the electronic files based on input received from a user. Examples of assigned categories includes relevant, not relevant, confidential, not confidential, privileged, not privileged, etc”, col. 20, lines 11-13, “Document categorization GUI 800 may be generated by a GUI generator (e.g., GUI generator 360) of a client subsystem (e.g., client subsystem 112)”].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Rosswog et al. into the teaching of Shelepov and Childress et al. with the motivation for identifying and categorizing electronic documents through machine learning as taught by Rosswog et al. [Rosswog et al.: abs.].
Regarding claim 11, the rejection of claim 10 is incorporated.
Rosswog et al. further discloses the processor is configured to cause the apparatus to present a summary of the file, based on metadata for the file, within the GUI [col. 21, lines 20-27, “via GUI generator 930, may generate a display of a popup window on display 940. The popup window may present the user with a summary of the text they have selected along with metadata associated with the selection (e.g., when the text was selected, user name associated with the user who selected the text, file name of the electronic file from with the text was selected, etc.)”].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Rosswog et al. into the teaching of Shelepov and Childress et al. with the motivation for identifying and categorizing electronic documents through machine learning as taught by Rosswog et al. [Rosswog et al.: abs.].
Regarding claim 12, the rejection of claim 11 is incorporated.
Rosswog et al. further discloses the summary comprises a one-line description of the file, the at least one predetermined classification, at least a portion of the contents of the file that satisfies the at least one predetermined classification, users that the file is shared with, or a combination thereof [col. 21, lines 20-27, “via GUI generator 930, may generate a display of a popup window on display 940. The popup window may present the user with a summary of the text they have selected along with metadata associated with the selection”, col. 8, lines 60-61, “The categorizations may be received in the form of metadata”, col. 16, lines 36-38, “The content may include… metadata”].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Rosswog et al. into the teaching of Shelepov and Childress et al. with the motivation for identifying and categorizing electronic documents through machine learning as taught by Rosswog et al. [Rosswog et al.: abs.].
Regarding claim 13, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated.
Shelepov further discloses the processor is configured to cause the apparatus to allow a user to mark the file for review, to mark the file as allowed to be shared, to mark the file as unshareable, or a combination thereof [par. 0034, “the application 210 may allow a user to choose whether to upload, share, or distribute the file with associated privacy metadata, by prompting the user to verify whether the user wants to distribute the file against the distribution policy selected by the privacy metadata”, par. 0021, “the user 100 can manually tag or mark the file as private”].
Regarding claim 14, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated.
Rosswog et al. discloses the processor is configured to cause the apparatus to perform at least one action for making the file inaccessible from the remote location, the at least one action selectable via the GUI [col. 18, lines 31-34, “the document categorizer may assign categories to the electronic files based on input received from a user. Examples of assigned categories includes relevant, not relevant, confidential, not confidential, privileged, not privileged, etc”, col. 20, lines 11-13, “Document categorization GUI 800 may be generated by a GUI generator (e.g., GUI generator 360) of a client subsystem (e.g., client subsystem 112)”, col. 5, lines 8-14, “Client subsystem 112 may receive categorizations for each electronic document from the user. Categorizations may include, for example… confidential or not confidential”].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Rosswog et al. into the teaching of Shelepov and Childress et al. with the motivation for identifying and categorizing electronic documents through machine learning as taught by Rosswog et al. [Rosswog et al.: abs.].
Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shelepov (US 2021/0326472 A1) and Childress et al. (US 2020/0394327 A1) as applied to claims 1-3, 9 and 19-20 above, and further in view of Khetawat et al. (US 2015/0269386 A1).
Regarding claim 15, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated.
Shelepov discloses the processor is configured to cause the apparatus to make the file inaccessible from the remote location [par. 0003, “The file system can generate and associate privacy metadata to the captured data when it is detected to contain sensitive or private information, which can prevent accidental sharing of the captured data containing the sensitive or private information”].
They do not explicitly disclose the processor is configured to cause the apparatus to transmit the indication to make the file inaccessible from the remote location to a user.
However, Khetawat et al. discloses the processor is configured to cause the apparatus to transmit the indication to make the file inaccessible from the remote location to a user [par. 0060, “Systems described herein may identify sensitive files and may add visual indicators to representations of those files. Users viewing the sensitive files in a GUI may be reminded of the DLP policy and made aware that the files include sensitive data”, par. 0033, “an organization may create a data loss prevention policy to prevent sensitive data from being accessible to people outside the organization”].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Khetawat et al. into the teaching of Shelepov and Childress et al. with the motivation to prevent sensitive data from being accessible to people outside the organization as taught by Khetawat et al. [Khetawat et al.: par. 0033].
Claim 16 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shelepov (US 2021/0326472 A1) and Childress et al. (US 2020/0394327 A1) as applied to claims 1-3, 9 and 19-20 above, and further in view of Fioravanti (US 2015/0200884 A1).
Regarding claim 16, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated.
Shelepov discloses the file is stored in a remote cloud storage repository [par. 0028, “the file system 220 writes the file to the storage device… The storage device 230 can be a cloud storage system”].
They do not explicitly disclose the file is stored in a remote cloud storage repository, the remote cloud storage repository accessible to the apparatus using previously-stored electronic credentials.
However, Fioravanti discloses the file is stored in a remote cloud storage repository, the remote cloud storage repository accessible to the apparatus using previously-stored electronic credentials [par. 0021, “the application stores login credentials to access the user's files that are stored on cloud storage system 116 and, upon receipt of a user request to access a file that is stored on cloud storage system 116, provides the login information to server 108”].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Fioravanti into the teaching of Shelepov and Childress et al. with the motivation such that server can uses the provided login information to establish a connection to cloud storage system to access files as taught by Fioravanti [Fioravanti: par. 0021].
Claims 17 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shelepov (US 2021/0326472 A1), Childress et al. (US 2020/0394327 A1) and Fioravanti (US 2015/0200884 A1) as applied to claim 16 above, and further in view of Sims et al. (US 2023/0137747 A1).
Regarding claim 17, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated.
Shelepov discloses the file is stored in a remote cloud storage repository [par. 0028, “the file system 220 writes the file to the storage device… The storage device 230 can be a cloud storage system”].
They do not explicitly disclose the processor is configured to cause the apparatus to further track a pattern with which users access files in the storage repository, the pattern comprising how users login to the remote cloud storage repository, types of permissions that users have to the remote cloud storage repository, types of files that users access, when users access files, or a combination thereof.
However, Sims et al. discloses the processor is configured to cause the apparatus to further track a pattern with which users access files in the storage repository, the pattern comprising how users login to the remote cloud storage repository, types of permissions that users have to the remote cloud storage repository, types of files that users access, when users access files, or a combination thereof [par. 0038, “In some cases the blocking actions and the notification to the contributing user ID(s) can be based on the signature of the abnormal file access pattern, including the types and frequency of file system access requests, the requested file system objects, the number of contributing user ID(s), etc”, par. 0024, “The file access metrics 142 can categorize and provide counts of file system accesses, for example, by access type, by time period, by user ID(s) (e.g., one or more individual user ID(s), all user ID(s) in a user group, or for all user IDs having permission to access file system 130)”].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Sims et al. into the teaching of Shelepov, Childress et al. and Fioravanti with the motivation to detects an abnormal file system access pattern as taught by Sims et al. [Sims et al.: abs.].
Claim 18 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shelepov (US 2021/0326472 A1) and Childress et al. (US 2020/0394327 A1) as applied to claims 1-3, 9 and 19-20 above, and further in view of Kim et al. (US 2024/0155000 A1).
Regarding claim 18, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated.
Childress et al. discloses provide contents of the file to an artificial intelligence (AI) engine to determine whether the contents of the file satisfies at least one predetermined classification.
They do not explicitly disclose the processor is configured to cause the apparatus to select the AI engine for processing the content based on a type of the content, an efficiency of the AI engine, a speed of the AI engine, a cost of the AI engine, or a combination thereof.
However, Kim et al. discloses the processor is configured to cause the apparatus to select the AI engine for processing the content based on a type of the content, an efficiency of the AI engine, a speed of the AI engine, a cost of the AI engine, or a combination thereof [par. 0068, “Selecting the right AI engine algorithm may depend on a number of different factors, such as the problem statement and the kind of output needed, type and size of the data, the available computational time, number of features and observations in the data, and/or the like”].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Kim et al. into the teaching of Shelepov and Childress et al. with the motivation to make predictions or decisions without explicitly being programmed to do so as taught by Kim et al. [Kim et al.: par. 0068].
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to Applicant’s disclosure:
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Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JASON CHIANG whose telephone number is (571)270-3393. The examiner can normally be reached on 9 AM to 6 PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Lynn Feild can be reached on (571) 272-2092. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JASON CHIANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2431