DETAILED ACTION
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 § 112
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 1-20 are 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.
Independent Claims 1 and 7 recite “optical element” and “access entity” fail to provide objective boundaries regarding the scope of the claimed subject matter. It is unclear what structures or forms qualify as an “optical element”, what entities constitute “access entities”. Therefore, one of ordinary skill in the art would not be able to determine the metes and bounds of the claimed invention.
Dependent claims 2-6 and 8-12 are further rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112 second paragraph, for being dependent upon rejected base independent claims 1 and 7.
Independent Claim 13 recites the phrase “artifact of a webpage” renders the scope of the claim unclear because it is uncertain what forms of web page derived data qualify as an “artifact”. Additionally, the claim further recites “keypoints” and “matching the keypoints” fail to provide objective boundaries regarding the nature of the keypoints and criteria required for determining a match. Therefore, one of ordinary skill in the art would not be able to determine the metes and bounds of the claimed invention.
Dependent claims 14-20 are further rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112 second paragraph, for being dependent upon rejected base independent claim 13.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Mastrangelo et al. (US Pub. 2011/0314550 A1, hereinafter "Mastrangelo").
Claim 1: Mastrangelo teaches A computer implemented method comprising:
generating unique optical elements for access entities having access to a webpage, each unique optical element being distinct and corresponding to one of the access entities (“Mastrangelo”, Figs. 1 and 2, Abstract, [0016], [0019], claim 1, generating/applying a watermark to a web page (watermark construes as visual optical element); [0021]-[0022], the experience ID uniquely corresponds to a browser session/user (e.g., access entities) accessing the webpage);
determining that an access entity is requesting access to the webpage (“Mastrangelo”, Figs. 1 and 2, [0022], the server determines that a browser session/user is requesting access to the webpage by receiving the request from browser 102); and
causing the webpage to render with a unique optical element corresponding to the requesting access entity, wherein the rendered webpage distinguishes the requesting access entity from other access entities via the unique optical element (“Mastrangelo”, Figs. 1 and 2, [0019]-[0022], the watermark uniquely identifies the particular user/browser session and thereby distinguishes that access entity from other users/sessions accessing the webpage).
Claim 2: Mastrangelo teaches the computer implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:
generating a unique string for each of the access entities (“Mastrangelo”, Figs. 1 and 2, [0019]-[0022], generating a unique identifier e.g., experience ID (constitutes a unique string) associated with a particular browser session/user); and
encoding the unique strings into encoded optical elements to generate the unique optical elements, wherein the unique optical element corresponding to the requesting access entity comprises an encoded optical element that identifies the requesting access entity (“Mastrangelo”, Figs. 1 and 2, [0019]-[0022], generating a unique identifier e.g., experience ID (constitutes a unique string) associated with a particular browser session/user; incorporating the identifier into watermark constitutes encoding the identifier into an optical element).
Claim 3: Mastrangelo teaches the computer implemented method of claim 1, further generating nonencoded optical elements as the unique optical elements for the access entities, each nonencoded optical element having a visually different appearance (“Mastrangelo”, Figs. 1 and 2, [0019]-[0022], the watermark is nonencoded optical element because it is visually rendered text/pattern information).
Claim 4: Mastrangelo teaches the computer implemented method of claim 1, further comprising modifying a markup language used to render the webpage, such that the markup language includes a resource identifier for the unique optical element corresponding to the access entity (“Mastrangelo”, Figs. 1 and 2, [0019]-[0022], [0028]).
Claim 5: Mastrangelo teaches the computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the webpage renders with the unique optical element having an opacity that is less than an opacity of content included on the rendered webpage (“Mastrangelo”, Figs. 1 and 2, [0019]-[0022]).
Claim 6: Mastrangelo teaches the computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the webpage renders with a repeating pattern of the unique optical element (“Mastrangelo”, Figs. 1 and 2, [0019]-[0022]).
Claim 7: claim 7 is directed to one or more computer storage media for implementing the method steps of claim 1. Therefore, claim 7 is rejected under similar rationale.
Claim 8: claim 8 is directed to the media of claim 7 for implementing the method steps of claim 2. Therefore, claim 8 is rejected under similar rationale.
Claim 9: claim 9 is directed to the media of claim 7 for implementing the method steps of claim 3. Therefore, claim 9 is rejected under similar rationale.
Claim 10: claim 10 is directed to the media of claim 7 for implementing the method steps of claim 4. Therefore, claim 10 is rejected under similar rationale.
Claim 11: claim 11 is directed to the media of claim 7 for implementing the method steps of claim 5. Therefore, claim 11 is rejected under similar rationale.
Claim 12: claim 12 is directed to the media of claim 7 for implementing the method steps of claim 6. Therefore, claim 12 is rejected under similar rationale.
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 13-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mastrangelo in view of Cordara et al. (US 2013/0308861 A1, hereinafter "Cordara").
Claim 13: Mastrangelo 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:
extracting at least a portion of a unique optical element from an artifact of a webpage (“Mastrangelo”, Fig. 4, [0030], steps 402-404, extracting at least a portion of a unique optical element from an artifact of a webpage via recovering a watermark from an image/screenshot of a webpage);
generating a plurality of unique optical elements, each unique optical element of the plurality being distinct and generated for one of a plurality of access entities; (“Mastrangelo”, Figs. 1 and 2, [0019]-[0022], the watermark uniquely identifies the particular user/browser session and thereby distinguishes that access entity from other users/sessions accessing the webpage; [0030]-[0031], Fig. 4, step 406).
However, Mastrangelo does not explicitly teach identifying keypoints of the extracted unique optical element; and matching the keypoints of the extracted unique optical element to keypoints within a plurality of unique optical elements (“Cordara”, [0027], [0031]-[0035], identifying keypoints from image regions and matching keypoints between images).
It would have been obvious to one having the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Mastrangelo with the keypoints extraction and image feature matching techniques taught by Cordara in order to improve robustness and reliability of identifying webpage-associated watermark/optical elements as using keypoint image recognition techniques.
Claim 14: Mastrangelo and Cordara teach the system of claim 13, further comprising:
performing an optical character recognition process to identify text within the artifact; and removing the identified text to isolate the portion of the unique optical element from the artifact (“Mastrangelo”, Figs. 1 and 2, [0019]-[0020], [0030]).
Claim 15: Mastrangelo and Cordara teach the system of claim 13, further comprising:
performing an object recognition process to identify an object within the artifact; and
removing the identified object to isolate the portion of the unique optical element from the artifact (“Mastrangelo”, Figs. 1 and 2, [0019]-[0020], [0030]).
Claim 16: Mastrangelo and Cordara teach the system of claim 13, wherein the plurality of unique optical elements comprises nonencoded optical elements, each nonencoded optical element having a visually different appearance (“Mastrangelo”, Figs. 1 and 2, [0019]-[0022], the watermark is nonencoded optical element because it is visually rendered text/pattern information).
Claim 17: Mastrangelo and Cordara teach the system of claim 13, wherein the portion of the unique optical element is extracted from a repeating pattern of the unique optical element within the artifact (“Mastrangelo”, Figs. 1 and 2, [0019]-[0022]).
Claim 18: Mastrangelo and Cordara teach the system of claim 17, further comprising isolating the unique optical element of the artifact from among other copies of the unique optical element within the repeating pattern (“Mastrangelo”, Figs. 1 and 2, [0019]-[0022]).
Claim 19: Mastrangelo and Cordara teach the system of claim 13, further comprising modifying a contrast of the artifact to enhance optical recognition of features of the unique optical element from the artifact, wherein the portion of the unique optical element from the artifact is extracted from the artifact with the modified contrast (“Mastrangelo”, Figs. 1 and 2, [0019]-[0022]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 20 is 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.
Kandel et al. (U.S. Patent 10,839,185 B1) discloses multi-context encoding and secure communication of data.
Venkat et al. (U.S. Patent 9,887,992 B1) discloses sight codes for website authentication.
Examiner has cited particular columns and line and/or paragraph numbers in the references applied to the claims above for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings of the art and are applied to specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested from the applicant in preparing responses, to fully consider the references in entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the Examiner.
The examiner requests, in response to this Office action, support be shown for language added to any original claims on amendment and any new claims. That is, indicate support for newly added claim language by specifically pointing to page(s) and line no(s) in the specification and/or drawing figure(s). This will assist the examiner in prosecuting the application.
When responding to this office action, Applicant is advised to clearly point out the patentable novelty which he or she thinks the claims present, in view of the state of the art disclosed by the references cited or the objections made. He or she must also show how the amendments avoid such references or objections See 37 CFR 1.111(c).
Point of Contact
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PHUONG H NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)270-1300. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:30-4:00 PM.
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, William Bashore can be reached at 571-272-4088. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/PHUONG H NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2174
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