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 communication is responsive to the amendment filed on 02/13/2026.
Claims 1-20 are pending in this application and are presented for examination on merits.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 on 02/13/2026 has been entered.
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 1-4, 9, 14, 16, 17 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Thakur 2021/0014270 (Published on Jan. 14, 2021) in view of Carpentier et al. U.S. Pub. No. 2004/0220978 (Published Nov. 4, 20004).
Regarding independent claim 1, Thakur discloses:
A computer system for duplicate image search and analysis, the computer system comprising at least one processor in communication with at least one memory device, wherein the at least one processor programmed to… (See para.23 describing the duplicate for images as described in para.21; as taught Thakur )
teaches store a first plurality of hashes for a plurality of documents based upon a first hash function and ; (See para.19-20 describing the storage of hash values; as taught by Thakur)
receive a document (See para.23 describing a received document; as taught Thakur)
execute the hash function to generate a total hash of the document; (See para.23 describing the generation of a full hash function for the received document; as taught Thakur)
determine if an exact match exists between the first total hash of the document and the first plurality of hashes by comparing the first has of the document to the total first plurality of hashes; (See para.23 describing a determination made as to whether a duplicate exists; as taught Thakur)
if an exact match exists, indicate that the document is a duplicate and decline performing any additional document similarity analysis; (See para.75 At block 604, a second hash generated to represent the content is compared to each hash value in a first storage bucket of a plurality of storage buckets based on the determination that the first hash value does not exactly match any stored hash values; as taught by Thakur)
and if no exact match exists, initiate the additional document similarity analysis by causing the at least one processor is programmed to: (See para.75 At block 604, a second hash generated to represent the content is compared to each hash value in a first storage bucket of a plurality of storage buckets based on the determination that the first hash value does not exactly match any stored hash values; as taught by Thakur)
execute the second hash function to generate a total second hash of the document; (See para.75 At block 604, a second hash generated to represent the content is compared to each hash value in a first storage bucket of a plurality of storage buckets based on the determination that the first hash value does not exactly match any stored hash values; as taught by Thakur)
Compare the total second hash of the document to the (See Para.75, a second hash generated to represent the content is compared to each hash value in a first storage bucket of a plurality of storage buckets based on the determination that the first hash value does not exactly match any stored hash values; as taught by Thakur)
determine a similarity measure for the document based on the comparison; (see para.75, At block 606, a counter value associated with each of the hash values of the plurality of hash values in the first storage bucket is incremented based on similarity measure of the second hash value and at least one of the hash values in the first storage bucket; as taught by Thakur)
compare the similarity measure for the document to a threshold; (See para.75, At block 606, a counter value associated with each of the hash values of the plurality of hash values in the first storage bucket is incremented based on similarity measure of the second hash value and at least one of the hash values in the first storage bucket; as taught by Thakur)
and indicate that the document is a potential duplicate based upon the comparison; (see para.75, At block 608, content is determined to be spam based on the counter value exceeding a count threshold; as taught by Thakur)
Thakur fails to teach and a second plurality of hashes for the plurality of documents based upon a second hash function, the first hash function being different from the second hash function;
On the other hand, Carpentier a second plurality of hashes for the plurality of documents based upon a second hash function, the first hash function being different from the second hash function; (See fig.2, para.43, wherein table 200 stores hash values for documents based on two different functions, as taught by Carpentier)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine the teachings of the cited references and modify the invention as taught by Thakur, by including the teachings of Carpentier relating to the storage of different hash values for the files because both relate to the duplicate or file comparison technology, the mapping provides and facilitates the quick access to hash values for known stored files to improve efficiency, speed and trust in the process (see para.9 in Carpentier)
The combination of Thakur and Carpentier fails to teach compare the similarity measure for the document to a threshold; and indicate that the document is a potential duplicate based upon the comparison.
Regarding dependent claim 2, The combination of Thakur and Carpentier discloses wherein the hash function is a cryptographic hash function. (See para.35, describing MD2, MD5, SHA-1, SHA-256, RIPEMD-160 hash functions; as taught by Carpentier)
Regarding dependent claim 3, The combination of Thakur and Carpentier discloses wherein the hash function is a SHA-2 (See para.35, SHA-256 functions; as taught bv Carpentier)
Regarding dependent claim 4, The combination of Thakur and Carpentier discloses: wherein the at least one processor is further programmed to: perform perceptual hashing as the second has function on the document to generate the total second hash of the document, the total second hash of the document being perceptually hashed document; and(See para.75 At block 604, a second hash generated to represent the content is compared to each hash value in a first storage bucket of a plurality of storage buckets based on the determination that the first hash value does not exactly match any stored hash values; as taught by Thakur )
compare the perceptually hashed document to a plurality of perceptually hashed documents to perform the additional document similarity analysis, the second plurality of hashes comprising the plurality of perceptually hashed documents; (see para.75, At block 606, a counter value associated with each of the hash values of the plurality of hash values in the first storage bucket is incremented based on similarity measure of the second hash value and at least one of the hash values in the first storage bucket; as taught by Thakur)
Regarding dependent claim 9, The combination of Thakur and Carpentier discloses wherein the at least one processor is further programmed to perform similarity analysis on the document using a plurality of techniques; (See fig.2, para.43, wherein table 200 stores hash values for documents based on two different functions, as taught by Carpentier)
Regarding dependent claim 14, The combination of Thakur and Carpentier further discloses: wherein if an exact match exists, the at least one processor is further programmed to present the received document to a user with the indication that the received document is a duplicate (See para.42 , application 110 can be used to communicate an indication that content is spam to a user of the user device ; as taught by Thakur )
Regarding independent claim 16, while independent claim 16, a method claim, and independent claim 1, a system claim, are directed towards different statutory classes, they are similar in scope. Therefore, claim 16 is rejected under the same rationale as claim 1 provided above.
Regarding dependent claim 17, all of the particulars of claim 16 have been addressed above. Additionally, dependent claim 17 is rejected under the same rationale as claim 2 provided above.
Regarding independent claim 20, while independent claim 20, a non-transitory computer-readable media claim, and independent claim 1, a system claim, are directed towards different statutory classes, they are similar in scope. Therefore, claim 20 is rejected under the same rationale as claim 1 provided above.
Claims 5, 6, 10, 12, 13, 15 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Thakur 2021/0014270 (Published on Jan. 14, 2021) in view of Carpentier et al. U.S. Pub. No. 2004/0220978 (Published Nov. 4, 20004) and further in view of Permakoff 8,370,390 published on Feb. 5 2013.
Regarding dependent claim 5, The combination of Thakur and Carpentier fails to discloses: wherein the at least one processor is further programmed to perform dimension reduction and feature extraction on the document to generate one or more feature vectors for the document.
On the other hand Permakoff teaches wherein the at least one processor is further programmed to perform dimension reduction and feature extraction on the document to generate one or more feature vectors for the document (See Col.2, Lines 36-48 discloses creating a reduced dimension vector and comparing values [i.e., extracted features] of one reduced dimension vector representative of a document with another reduced dimension vector’s values for the purposes of similarity analysis; as taught by Permakoff)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine the teachings of the cited references and modify the invention as taught by Thakur and Carpentier, by including the teachings of the Permakoff relating to the feature extraction for comparisons, the mapping provides and facilitates a way to generate various ways of comparing documents.
Regarding dependent claim 6, The combination of Thakur, Carpentier and Permakoff discloses wherein the at least one processor is further programmed to compare the one or more feature vectors for the received document to a plurality of stored feature vectors for the plurality of documents to perform the similarity analysis (Permakoff at Column 2, Lines 36-48 discloses creating a reduced dimension vector and comparing values [i.e., extracted features] of one reduced dimension vector representative of a document with another reduced dimension vector’s values for the purposes of similarity analysis.)
Regarding dependent claim 10, The combination of Thakur, Carpentier and Permakoff further discloses: wherein the received document is at least one of an image, a text document, a PDF, and a plurality of images; (See Permakoff at Column 1, Lines 29-31 discloses the document received for similarity analysis are text documents.)
Regarding dependent claim 12, The combination of Thakur, Carpentier and Permakoff further discloses:
wherein the at least one processor is further programmed to ignore any metadata in the document prior to executing the hash function (Permakoff at Column 2, Lines 22-29 discloses using the contents of a document to generate a fingerprint for similarity analysis. Examiner is interpreting contents as disclosed in Permakoff above as not including metadata [i.e., ignore any metadata in the document prior to executing the hash function].)
Regarding dependent claim 13, a The combination of Thakur, Carpentier and Permakoff further discloses: wherein if an exact match exists, the at least one processor is further programmed to delete the received document (Permakoff at Column 1, Lines 42-46 discloses removing duplicate documents.)
Regarding dependent claim 15, all of the particulars of claim 1 have been addressed above. Additionally, the combination of Thakur, Carpentier and Permakoff discloses:
wherein if the indication is that the received document is a potential duplicate, the at least one processor is further programmed to present the received document and a detected similar document to a user (Permakoff at Column 2, Lines 36-48 discloses detecting one or more documents that are duplicate [i.e., exact match] or near-duplicate [i.e., potential duplicate]. Further, Permakoff at Column 2, Lines 11-21 discloses returning duplicate pairs.)
Regarding dependent claim 18, all of the particulars of claim 16 have been addressed above. Additionally, dependent claim 18 is rejected under the same rationale as claim 10 provided above.
Claims 7-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Thakur 2021/0014270 (Published on Jan. 14, 2021) in view of Carpentier et al. U.S. Pub. No. 2004/0220978 (Published Nov. 4, 20004) and further view of Tremblay et al. U.S. Pub. No. 2022/0343250 (hereinafter “Tremblay”).
Regarding dependent claim 7, The combination of Thakur and Carpentier does not teach:
wherein the at least one processor is further programmed to analyze the received document using a pretrained feature extractor model.
However, Tremblay at paragraph [0100] and [0167] teaches a machine learning model that extracts features from a document for similarity analysis.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine the teachings of the cited references and modify the invention as taught by Thakur and Carpentier, by including the teachings of the Tremblay of feature extractor model in duplicate/similarity analysis as taught by Tremblay to facilitate in data deduplication (See Tremblay at paragraph [0418]).
Regarding dependent claim 8, The combination of Thakur and Carpentier fails to teach
wherein the at least one processor is further programmed to perform similarity analysis on the received document using a twin neural network.
However, Tremblay at paragraph [0418] teaches using a Siamese twin tower neural network to determine duplicates.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine the teachings of the cited references and modify the invention as taught by Thakur and Carpentier by including the teachings of the Tremblay of feature twin tower neural network in duplicate/similarity analysis as taught by Tremblay to facilitate in data deduplication (See Tremblay at paragraph [0418]).
Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Thakur 2021/0014270 (Published on Jan. 14, 2021) in view of Carpentier et al. U.S. Pub. No. 2004/0220978 (Published Nov. 4, 20004) and further view of Ransom et al. U.S. Pub. No. 2021/0110447.
Regarding dependent claim 11, the combination of Thakur and Carpentier fails to teach does not disclose:
wherein the received document includes a plurality of pages, and wherein the at least one processor is further programmed to: divide the document into a plurality of separate pages; convert each separate page of the plurality of pages into an image; execute the hash function on each image for the plurality of pages to generate a plurality of hashes ; and compare the plurality of hashes for the plurality of pages to a plurality of hashes for a plurality of multi-page documents to detect an exact match.
However, Ransom at paragraph [0032] teaches generating a perceptual image hash of a document for similarity analysis to hashes of other documents.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine the teachings of the cited references and modify the invention as taught by Thakur and Carpentier, by including the teachings of the Ransom the perceptual hashing of documents for duplicate/similarity analysis as taught by Ransom to facilitate in matching data (See Ransom at paragraphs [0004]-[0005]).
Regarding dependent claim 19, all of the particulars of claim 16 have been addressed above. Additionally, dependent claim 19 is rejected under the same rationale as claim 11 provided above.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the 102 and 103 rejections raised have been
considered but are moot in view of the new grounds of rejection.
Conclusion
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/SHERIEF BADAWI/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2169
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