DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
2. This Office Action is sent in response to Applicant’s Communication received 5/23/2024 for application number 18/672,333. The Office hereby acknowledges receipt of the following and placed of record in file: Specification, Drawings, Abstract, Oath/Declaration, claims.
3. Claims 21 – 40 are presented for examination.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
4. 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.
5. Independent claim 21 is directed to a method comprising: identifying a first platform, the first platform comprising information related to a first organization, the information within the first platform configured according to a data structure comprising field keys and data in data fields formatted according to a first structure; extracting, from the first platform, at least a portion of the information, the extraction corresponding to a raw format of the portion of information from within the first platform; executing a computer model with the extracted portion of information, the computer model mapping the raw format of the portion of information to a second format, the second format corresponding to a second platform, the computer model further converting the extracted portion of information based on the mapping of the raw format of the portion of information; and communicating the converted portion of information to the second platform.
The limitations, as drafted, describe a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitations in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components. The abstract idea limitation is “identifying a first platform, the first platform comprising information related to a first organization, the information within the first platform configured according to a data structure comprising field keys and data in data fields formatted according to a first structure,” “extracting, from the first platform, at least a portion of the information, the extraction corresponding to a raw format of the portion of information from within the first platform,” “mapping the raw format of the portion of information to a second format, the second format corresponding to a second platform” and “converting the extracted portion of information based on the mapping of the raw format of the portion of information” in Prong I step 2A. Other limitations including “executing a computer model with the extracted portion of information” and “communicating the converted portion of information to the second platform” are considered pre/post-activity solutions for receiving a state of performance information and performing an action which is merely an application of the abstract idea which insignificantly amounts to a judicial exception. Thus, these claims are directing to abstract idea under 35 USC 101.
That is, other than reciting a generic processor, “executing a computer model with the extracted portion of information” and “communicating the converted portion of information to the second platform”, nothing in the claim elements preclude the steps from practically being performed in the mind such that the “identifying a first platform, the first platform comprising information related to a first organization, the information within the first platform configured according to a data structure comprising field keys and data in data fields formatted according to a first structure,” “extracting, from the first platform, at least a portion of the information, the extraction corresponding to a raw format of the portion of information from within the first platform,” “mapping the raw format of the portion of information to a second format, the second format corresponding to a second platform” and “converting the extracted portion of information based on the mapping of the raw format of the portion of information” limitations are mental processes under Prong I of step 2A. Identifying platforms, extracting information and communicating a converted portion of information as described in the specification can be performed as a manual process. If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components, then it falls within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas. Accordingly, the claims recite an abstract idea.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the components in the determining step are recited at a high-level of generality (i.e., as a generic processor performing a generic computer function of receiving information, executing a function and making a decision) such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Additionally, the steps of “executing a computer model with the extracted portion of information” and “communicating the converted portion of information to the second platform” are pre/post-activity solutions as gathering/manipulating data that are insignificant under Prong II step 2A and 2B. See buySAFE, Inc. v. Google, Inc., 765 F.3d 1350, 1355, 112 USPQ2d 1093, 1096 (Fed. Cir. 2014) (computer receives and sends information over a network) as noted in MPEP 2106.05(d)(II)(i). Accordingly, these additional elements, merely applies the judicial exception or abstract idea, does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claims are directed to an abstract idea.
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional element of using a computer to perform the noted steps amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept. The claims are not patent eligible.
Independent claims 30 and 38 are rejected on the same basis as independent claim 21. Additionally, dependent claims 22 – 29, 31 – 37, 39 and 40 are similarly rejected as being directed to an abstract idea since these claims are either further detailing the abstract idea by analyzing/processing the data or the elements are insignificant. More specifically, the dependent claims do not include additional elements, alone or in combination, that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
As per claims 22 and 31, determining a relationship between the raw format of the portion of information to a raw format of the second format; and performing the mapping of the raw format of the portion of information to the second format based on the determined relationship which recites generic computer components for applying the abstract idea.
As per claims 23 and 32, identifying field keys and data fields of a second structure associated with the second format; and determining the relationship based on the identified field keys and data fields of the second structure of the second format are additional elements of data gathering which is insignificant extra solution activity as explained above.
As per claims 24, 33 and 39, identifying a second application associated with the second platform, wherein the second format is associated with the second application; and loading the converted portion of information stored in the second platform to the second application which is an additional element of data gathering which is insignificant extra solution activity as explained above.
As per claims 25 and 34, determining that the first format is associated with a first application associated with the first application which is an additional element of data gathering which is insignificant extra solution activity as explained above.
As per claims 26 and 35, using, as the computer model, a similarity function to perform the mapping of the raw format of the portion of information, wherein the similarity function analyzes metadata related to the portion of the information which recites an additional mental process.
As per claims 27 and 36, determining that the first platform and second platform have corresponding schemas, each schema defining a number of data fields within each platform, and how each data field within a respective platform which is an additional element of data gathering which is insignificant extra solution activity as explained above.
As per claims 28, 37 and 40, applying, upon storing the converted portion of information in the second platform, the second schema to the converted portion of information, the application causing the converted portion of information to be organized within the second platform according to the second schema which recites an additional mental process.
As per claim 29, determining that the second platform corresponds to a second organization which is an additional element of data gathering which is insignificant extra solution activity as explained above.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
6. 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.
7. The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
8. This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
9. Claims 21 – 25, 27, 28, 30 – 34 and 36 – 40 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over B’Far et al. (U.S. Publication 2014/0108461) (B’Far hereinafter) (Identified by Applicant in IDS) in view of Wood et al. (U.S. Publication 2011/0093864) (Wood hereinafter).
10. As per claim 21, B’Far teaches a method comprising:
identifying a first platform, the first platform comprising information related to a first organization, the information within the first platform configured according to a data structure comprising field keys and data in data fields formatted according to a first structure [“an organization may utilize several applications during its operations where the applications may utilize separate data stores which may utilize different logical schemas to organize the data,” ¶ 0156; “a set 1906 of individual adaptors 1908 is used to collect data from a plurality of data stores. In an embodiment, an adaptor is a set of executable instructions that cause a computer system (or combination of computer systems) to read data from one data store and load it into another data store according to a mapping of the data stores' schemas. An adaptor may include instructions for performing appropriate ETL transformations from one schema to another, such as ETL operations to move data from various data stores to a semantic data store,” ¶ 0151; data store’s schemas mapped to data structure];
extracting, from the first platform, at least a portion of the information, the extraction corresponding to a raw format of the portion of information from within the first platform [“mapping data from a data source to the semantic data store 902 is described in more detail below, but generally includes extracting data from the source and loading it (or a portion of it) into the semantic data store, which may or may not involve reformatting data from one form to a form suitable for the semantic data store 902,” ¶ 0092].
B’Far does not explicitly disclose but Wood discloses executing a computer model with the extracted portion of information, the computer model mapping the raw format of the portion of information to a second format, the second format corresponding to a second platform, the computer model further converting the extracted portion of information based on the mapping of the raw format of the portion of information; and communicating the converted portion of information to the second platform [“The Common Data Model eliminates a large amount of work and creates a flexible environment for computer programs to share data in real-time. In the payroll example, with a common data model for the payroll domain depicted in FIG. 5, one common data object 50 could be called `employee`. When computer program A needs to move data for an employee to computer program B, computer program A will not send the employee data in the native data format of computer program A, but will instead convert the employee data into the common data object format using a first Common Data Model adapter 52. Computer program B then will receive the employee data in the common data object format as sent by computer program A. Computer program B then converts the data into its own data format using a second Common Data Model adapter 54.” ¶ 0071; Common Data Model mapped to model, native data format mapped to raw format].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of B’Far and Wood available before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the method of implementing storage policies as disclosed by B’Far to include the capability of dynamic data conversion as taught by Wood, thereby facilitating efficient use of computing and network resources.
11. As per claim 22, B’Far and Wood teach the method of claim 21. B’Far further teaches determining a relationship between the raw format of the portion of information to a raw format of the second format; and performing the mapping of the raw format of the portion of information to the second format based on the determined relationship [“the each of some of the adaptors 1908 maps a schema of one of the data stores 1904 to the schema of a semantic data store 1910 that is utilized by a reasoner 1912 that analyzes the data in the semantic data store 1910. The semantic data store 1910 may organize data according to a schema such as a schema in accordance with that described above in connection with FIGS. 9-11, although it may utilize a different schema. Generally, as discussed, the semantic data store, in an embodiment, stores data in a manner that realizes an ontology by associating data according to their semantic relationships to one another,” ¶ 0152;] storing data in a manner that realizes an ontology by associating data according to their semantic relationships to one another suggests determining a relationship between the raw format of the portion of information to a raw format of the second format].
12. As per claim 23, B’Far and Wood teach the method of claim 22. B’Far further teaches identifying field keys and data fields of a second structure associated with the second format; and determining the relationship based on the identified field keys and data fields of the second structure of the second format [“the relational meta-model 1002 is mapped to the ontological meta-model, as described more fully below. In an embodiment, of relational meta-model includes relational concepts 1014 which are super classes of tables 1016, columns 1018 and keys 1020. Also, as is known, each table 1016 is an aggregation of columns. As can be seen, various mappings are provided between various elements of the ontological meta-model 1000 in relational meta-model 1002. For instance, in an embodiment, one or more columns of a table are mapped to an attribute of the ontological meta model 1000. Likewise, tables 1016 are mapped to classes 1008 of the ontological meta-model 1000. As keys 1020 define relationships between tables 1016 in the relational meta-model, keys of the relational meta-model 1002 are mapped to relations of the ontological meta-model 1010 in a manner preserving the relationships between the tables 1016,” ¶ 0098; keys and relations mapped to field and data keys; “the each of some of the adaptors 1908 maps a schema of one of the data stores 1904 to the schema of a semantic data store 1910 that is utilized by a reasoner 1912 that analyzes the data in the semantic data store 1910. The semantic data store 1910 may organize data according to a schema such as a schema in accordance with that described above in connection with FIGS. 9-11, although it may utilize a different schema. Generally, as discussed, the semantic data store, in an embodiment, stores data in a manner that realizes an ontology by associating data according to their semantic relationships to one another,” ¶ 0152].
13. As per claim 24, B’Far and Wood teach the method of claim 21. B’Far further teaches identifying a second application associated with the second platform, wherein the second format is associated with the second application; and loading the converted portion of information stored in the second platform to the second application [“an organization may utilize several applications during its operations where the applications may utilize separate data stores which may utilize different logical schemas to organize the data,” ¶ 0156; “a set 1906 of individual adaptors 1908 is used to collect data from a plurality of data stores. In an embodiment, an adaptor is a set of executable instructions that cause a computer system (or combination of computer systems) to read data from one data store and load it into another data store according to a mapping of the data stores' schemas. An adaptor may include instructions for performing appropriate ETL transformations from one schema to another, such as ETL operations to move data from various data stores to a semantic data store,” ¶ 0151].
14. As per claim 25, B’Far and Wood teach the method of claim 24. B’Far further teaches determining that the first format is associated with a first application associated with the first application [“the business may also include a second relational database 910 which is modeled by a second relational schema912. There can be various reasons for having more than one source of business data, for example for storing data for different aspects of a businesses’ activities, such as sales and human resources. Businesses may also store data in different forms depending on the particular application,” ¶ 0091].
15. As per claim 27, B’Far and Wood teach the method of claim 21. B’Far further teaches determining that the first platform and second platform have corresponding schemas, each schema defining a number of data fields within each platform, and how each data field within a respective platform relates to one another [“the second schema may organize at least a portion of the second data into a collection that corresponds to a semantic concept and that comprises data from the first data store and the second data store. The mapping, in an embodiment, defines a correspondence from the second data to a plurality of semantic concepts of the ontology,” ¶ 0011].
16. As per claim 28, B’Far and Wood teach the method of claim 27. B’Far further teaches applying, upon storing the converted portion of information in the second platform, the second schema to the converted portion of information, the application causing the converted portion of information to be organized within the second platform according to the second schema [“the second schema may organize at least a portion of the second data into a collection that corresponds to a semantic concept and that comprises data from the first data store and the second data store. The mapping, in an embodiment, defines a correspondence from the second data to a plurality of semantic concepts of the ontology,” ¶ 0011; the second schema organizing data suggests applying the second schema].
17. As per claim 30, it is a media claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 21. Thus, claim 30 is also rejected under the same rationale as cited in the rejection of claim 21 above.
18. As per claim 31, it is a media claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 22. Thus, claim 31 is also rejected under the same rationale as cited in the rejection of claim 22 above.
19. As per claim 32, it is a media claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 23. Thus, claim 32 is also rejected under the same rationale as cited in the rejection of claim 23 above.
20. As per claim 33, it is a media claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 24. Thus, claim 33 is also rejected under the same rationale as cited in the rejection of claim 24 above.
21. As per claim 34, it is a media claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 25. Thus, claim 34 is also rejected under the same rationale as cited in the rejection of claim 25 above.
22. As per claim 36, it is a media claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 27. Thus, claim 36 is also rejected under the same rationale as cited in the rejection of claim 27 above.
23. As per claim 37, it is a media claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 28. Thus, claim 37 is also rejected under the same rationale as cited in the rejection of claim 28 above.
24. As per claim 38, it is a system claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 21. Thus, claim 38 is also rejected under the same rationale as cited in the rejection of claim 21 above.
25. As per claim 39, it is a system claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 24. Thus, claim 39 is also rejected under the same rationale as cited in the rejection of claim 24 above.
26. As per claim 40, it is a system claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 28. Thus, claim 30 is also rejected under the same rationale as cited in the rejection of claim 28 above.
27. Claims 26 and 35 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over B’Far, Wood and Liu (U.S. Publication 2014/0177703) (Liu hereinafter) (Identified by Applicant in IDS).
28. As per claim 26, B’Far and Wood teach the method of claim 21. B’Far and Wood do not explicitly disclose but Liu discloses using, as the computer model, a similarity function to perform the mapping of the raw format of the portion of information, wherein the similarity function analyzes metadata related to the portion of the information [“After generating a representation for each term of the one or more first categories and one or more second categories, the vector component 222 compares one or more terms for a specified first category of the one or more first categories to one or more terms for a specified second category of the one or more second categories using the cosine similarity function. The cosine similarity function may measure a similarity between two or more semantic vectors (e.g., vector representations of terms of each category). In some embodiments, the two or more semantic vectors may be non-zero vectors between which the cosine similarity function measures the cosine of the angle between the two or more vectors. In some embodiments, vectors are determined to be similar where the cosine of the angle between vectors is between zero and one in a positive space. In some instances, cosine similarity may be additionally determined when the cosine of the angle between vectors is above a predetermined threshold” ¶ 0048].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of B’Far, Wood and Liu available before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the capability of implementing storage policies as disclosed by B’Far and Wood to include the capability of automatic taxonomy mapping as taught by Liu, thereby providing a mechanism to improve system efficiency by improving content mapping.
29. As per claim 35, it is a media claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 26. Thus, claim 35 is also rejected under the same rationale as cited in the rejection of claim 26 above.
30. Claim 29 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over B’Far, Wood and Brooks et al. (U.S. Publication 2007/0088741) (Brooks hereinafter).
31. As per claim 29, B’Far and Wood teach the method of claim 21. B’Far and Wood do not explicitly disclose but Brooks discloses determining that the second platform corresponds to a second organization [“wherein upon selection of the link by a user in the second organization, the package metadata object is instantiated into a database schema associated with the second organization,” Cl. 11].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of B’Far, Wood and Brooks available before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the capability of implementing storage policies as disclosed by B’Far and Wood to include the capability of platform and organization data mapping as taught by Brooks, thereby providing a mechanism to improve system efficiency by identifying related data constructs.
Conclusion
32. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WILLIAM C WOOD whose telephone number is (571)272-5285. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 8:00 am - 4:30 pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Chat C Do can be reached at 571-272-3721. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/WILLIAM C WOOD/Examiner, Art Unit 2193
/Chat C Do/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2193
