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 1-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to abstract idea without significantly more. Claims 1 and 8 reciting an error correction method, comprising “decoding a base sequence into a first text…”; “performing word segmentation on the first text to obtain a plurality of text units”; “performing error detection on the plurality of text units to obtain a text unit having an error”; and “performing error correction on the base sequence to be subjected to error correction according to the text unit having the error”, are directed to claims describing a series of mental steps.
That is, each of the cited steps including decoding or converting a base sequence into text, segmenting or dividing the text into plurality of text units, checking/looking for errors in the text units and correcting the errors, are, under their broadest reasonable interpretation, mere mental steps performed in a human mind or actions that can be practically performed by a person using a pencil and paper or a general-purpose computer.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because, other than stating the various generic modules that are used to perform the steps, the claims do not include any limitation describing the specific hardware/software for implementing the inventive concepts.
. The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because there are no additional elements in the claims other than the one cited to describe the base sequences and the generic module used a tool to implement the mental process.
Regarding the dependent claims, similar to the claims above, they describe the steps performed to achieve the abstract idea of converting base sequences into text and correcting the errors found in the text, therefore they do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea.
Examiner’s Note
Examiner has cited particular columns and line numbers or figures in the references as applied to the claims below for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings in the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested from the applicant, in preparing the 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.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
Claim(s) 1-2 and 8-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Sakai (WO 2021145211 A1).
As to claim 1, Sakai teaches a data error correction method (Figs.2, 7, 11), comprising: Decoding St6 (S52) a base sequence (St5 that’s read from storage) to be subjected to error correction (Fig.11) into a first text St1, the base sequence to be subjected to error correction being composed of a plurality of bases; performing word segmentation on the first text to obtain a plurality of text units (dividing the text into minimum processing units, Figs.7, 14); performing error detection ( In step S54, the decoding repeat control unit 91 determines whether or not there is an error based on the erasure correction decoding processing result) on the plurality of text units to obtain a text unit having an error; and performing error correction S52-S57, (Figs.7, 14) on the base sequence to be subjected to error correction according to the text unit having the error (Figs.9, 11,14, If it is determined in step S54 that there is an error, the process proceeds to step S55. In step S55, the deletion insertion correction coding unit 94 deletes the data corrected by the erasure correction decoding process by the erasure correction decoding unit 93…… The reading unit 81 reads out the base sequence constituting the recorded data in the storage using DNA, reconstructs the encoded data from the base data corresponding to the base sequence, and outputs the encoded data to the decoding unit 82. The decoding unit 82 decodes the coded data supplied from the reading unit 81, restores it to the original input data, and outputs it. More specifically, it includes a decoding / repeating control unit 91, a deletion insertion correction decoding unit 92, an erasure correction decoding unit 93, a deletion insertion correction coding unit 94) (Figs.1-7, 9, 11, 14-15; Pgs.5-12).
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As to claim 2, Sakai teaches wherein performing error correction on the base sequence to be subjected to error correction according to the text unit having the error comprises: determining a base group having an error according to the text unit having the error to obtain a target base group, wherein each base group is composed of every N successive base groups (WD1-WD8) in the base sequence to be subjected to error correction, and N is a natural number greater than 1; and performing error correction on the base sequence to be subjected to error correction according to the target base group (Pages.7-9; Fig.7).
Regarding claims 8-9, the corresponding apparatus and program, for implementing the method of claim 1, are analogous therefore rejected as being anticipated by Sakai for the foregoing reasons.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-7 are 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.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Claim 3 is allowable because Sakai doesn’t teach wherein before decoding the base sequence to be subjected to error correction into the first text, the method further comprises: detecting whether a base group not meeting a preset coding demand exists in the base sequence to be subjected to error correction, and deciding the base group not meeting the preset coding demand as the target base group, the preset coding demand being a coding demand adopted to obtain the base sequence to be subjected to error correction; and decoding the base sequence to be subjected to error correction into the first text comprises: decoding the base sequence to be subjected to error correction into the first text if the base group not meeting the preset coding demand does not exist in the base sequence to be subjected to error correction.
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Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DANIEL DEMELASH ABEBE whose telephone number is (571)272-7615. The examiner can normally be reached monday-friday 7-4.
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/DANIEL ABEBE/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2657