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
2. This action is in response to the application filed December 3, 2025.
3. Claims 2, 9, and 12-14 have been amended.
4. Claims 1-15 have been examined and are pending with this action.
Response to Arguments
5. Applicant’s arguments, filed December 3, 2025, with respect to the rejection of claims 2-4, 7-11, 14 and 15, previously rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) and 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Sawaf et al. (US 202280129618 A1), have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Adams et al. (US 2008/0109462 A1).
It is noted that the limitation “a request from user for sending the original string of character”, merely describes a utility of the system and/or the architecture, and does not functionality limit the teachings of Sawaf to distinguish over the prior art, nor improve upon the functionality of the prior art in terms of patentability. Although the examiner believes that Sawaf clearly suggests such utility throughout the reference, Adams was cited and applied to expedite prosecution such that proper inventive elements of the invention can be focused.
For these reasons above and the rejections set forth below, claims 1-15 remain pending, claim 1 is allowable, claims 2-4, 7-11, 14 and 15 have been rejected and claims 5-6 & 12-13 have been objected to.
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.
6. Claims 2-4, 7-11, 14 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sawaf et al. (US 202280129618 A1) in view of Adams et al. (US 2008/0109462 A1).
INDEPENDENT:
As per claim 2, Sawaf teaches an anti-scraping method for protection of text-based data, the text-based data comprising an original string of characters, the anti-scraping method comprising:
receiving, utilizing one or more processors, a request from a user (see Sawaf, [0010]: “the methods further involve receiving a user input indicating selection of the scrambling font style for a text displayed on the GUI”; [0021]: “As such, the disclosed systems avoid costly document security requirements and delays associated with such requirements. Further, unlike existing document security tools, the disclosed systems quickly and efficiently scramble secure content while maintaining the design of the content, which allows users that are not authorized to view the content to access the document.”; and [0075]: “The computer 602 can receive requests over network 630 from a client application (for example, executing on another computer 602). The computer 602 can respond to the received requests by processing the received requests using software applications. Requests can also be sent to the computer 602 from internal users (for example, from a command console), external (or third) parties, automated applications, entities, individuals, systems, and computers.”);
generating, utilizing the one or more processors, a shuffled font from an original font responsive to receiving the request from the user, the original font comprising a plurality of font characters and a plurality of original glyphs, wherein an nth original glyph of the plurality of original glyphs represents an nth font character of the plurality of font characters where 1≤n≤N and N is a number of the plurality of font characters (see Sawaf, FIG. 3A; FIG. 3B; [0005]: “In one embodiment, a scrambling font style is generated for a font… ”; [0006]: “generating a plurality of duplicate glyphs for the characters, wherein each duplicate glyph is associated with: (i) a respective letterform representing one of the characters”; [0011]: “In some implementations, the methods further involve in response to receiving the user input, applying the scrambling font style to the text, where the text is scrambled after the scrambling font style is applied to the text.”; and [0014]: “changing a stylistic configuration of the text”);
generating, utilizing the one or more processors, a shuffled string of characters from the original string of characters based on the shuffled font, the shuffled string different from the original string (see Sawaf, [0011]: “In some implementations, the methods further involve in response to receiving the user input, applying the scrambling font style to the text, where the text is scrambled after the scrambling font style is applied to the text.”; [0014]: “where the text is scrambled after the stylistic configuration of the text is changed.”; and [0031]: “Selecting the scrambling font style for a text rearranges the words and numbers of the text to appear as meaningless words and zeros. The font style maintains the letter cases, punctuation marks, and font appearance.”); and
sending, utilizing the one or more processors, the shuffled font and the shuffled string to the user (see Sawaf, [0009]: “the GUI includes a font menu that includes a representation of the scrambling font style”; and [0014]: “In another aspect, the subject matter described in this specification may be embodied in methods that include the actions of: providing a representation of a scrambling font feature for output on a graphical user interface (GUI) displayed on a display device”).
Sawaf does not explicitly teach the request is for sending the original string of characters.
Adams teaches a request for sending the original string of characters (see Adams, Abstract: “… a request is issued by the recipient device to transmit a full version of the original electronic message”; and [00]: “For each delimiter found in the content of the child message 15, the message server 40 could attempt to match the headers and a character string selected from the content of the replicated parent message against messages already stored in the message store for the message server 40”).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the system of Sawaf in view of Adams so that request is for sending the original string of characters. One would be motivated to do so because Sawaf teaches in paragraph [0005], “Once the document is shared, the content can be descrambled by selecting a different font style for the text. The original content is restored without any loss or alteration.”, and also teaches in paragraph [0074], “According to some implementations, the computer 602 can also include, or be communicably coupled with, an application server, an email server, a web server, a caching server, a streaming data server, or a combination of servers.”, emphasis added.
As per claims 3 and 10, which respectively depend on claims 2 and 9, Sawaf further teaches wherein generating the shuffled font comprises generating a plurality of shuffled glyphs by randomly shuffling the plurality of original glyphs, the shuffled font comprising the plurality of font characters and the plurality of shuffled glyphs, wherein an nth shuffled glyph of the plurality of shuffled glyphs represents the nth font character (see Sawaf, [0006]: “swapping the respective letterforms of the plurality of duplicate glyphs such that the respective letterforms are mismatched with the respective glyph codes”; and [0019]: “the scrambling font feature includes a plurality of glyphs, and the letterforms of the plurality of glyphs are mismatched with glyph codes of the plurality of glyphs.”).
As per claims 4 and 11, which respectively depend on claims 3 and 9, Sawaf further teaches wherein generating the shuffled string comprises replacing an ith character in the original string with the nth font character, where 1 ≤ i ≤ M and M is a length of the original string, responsive to: the ith character being equal to a jth font character of the plurality of font characters where 1 ≤ j ≤ N; and a jth original glyph of the plurality of original glyphs being equal to the nth shuffled glyph (see Sawaf, [0006]: “designating the plurality of duplicate glyphs as a scrambling font style of the font”; and [0011]: “applying the scrambling font style to the text, where the text is scrambled after the scrambling font style is applied to the text”; and [0031]: “The scrambling font style can be used to scramble the content of a secure document while preserving the document's design. Selecting the scrambling font style for a text rearranges the words and numbers of the text to appear as meaningless words and zeros.”).
As per claims 7 and 14, which respectively depend on claim 2 and 9, Sawaf teaches further comprising: extracting, utilizing the one or more processors, the text-based data from a hypertext markup language (HTML) document (see Sawaf, [0091]: “For example, the computer can send web pages to a web browser on a user's client device in response to requests received from the web browser.”; and [0093]: “Moreover, the computing system can include a front-end component, for example, a client computer having one or both of a graphical user interface or a Web browser through which a user can interact with the computer.”).
As per claims 8 and 15, which respectively depend on claim 2 and 9, Sawaf teaches further comprising: displaying the shuffled string on a display unit utilizing the shuffled font (see Sawaf, [0009]: “the GUI includes a font menu that includes a representation of the scrambling font style”; and [0014]: “In another aspect, the subject matter described in this specification may be embodied in methods that include the actions of: providing a representation of a scrambling font feature for output on a graphical user interface (GUI) displayed on a display device”).
As per claim 9, Sawaf and Adams teach a system for protection of text-based data, the text-based data comprising an original string of characters, the system comprising:
a memory having processor-readable instructions stored therein (see Sawaf, [0007]: “a computer system including a computer memory interoperably coupled with a hardware processor configured to perform the computer-implemented method or the instructions stored on the non-transitory, computer-readable medium.”); and
one or more processors configured to access the memory and execute the processor-readable instructions, which, when executed by the one or more processors configures the one or more processors to perform a method (see Sawaf, [0007]: “a computer system including a computer memory interoperably coupled with a hardware processor configured to perform the computer-implemented method or the instructions stored on the non-transitory, computer-readable medium.”), the method comprising:
receiving a request from a user for sending the original string of characters (see Claim 1 rejection above);
generating a shuffled font from an original font responsive to receiving the request from the user for sending the original string of characters, the original font comprising a plurality of font characters and a plurality of original glyphs, wherein an nth original glyph of the plurality of original glyphs represents an nth font character of the plurality of font characters where 1≤n≤N and N is a number of the plurality of font characters (see Claim 1 rejection above);
generating a shuffled string of characters from the original string of characters based on the shuffled font, the shuffled string different from the original string (see Claim 1 rejection above); and
sending the shuffled font and the shuffled string to the user (see Claim 1 rejection above).
Allowable Subject Matter
7. Claims 1 is allowable over prior art of record.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
The prior art of record does not disclose, teach, or suggest neither singly nor in combination the claimed limitation of “anti-scraping method comprising: receiving, utilizing one or more processors, a request from a user for sending the original string of characters; generating, utilizing the one or more processors, a shuffled font from an original font responsive to receiving the request from the user, the original font comprising a plurality of font characters and a plurality of original glyphs, wherein: an nth original glyph of the plurality of original glyphs represents an nth font character of the plurality of font characters where 1 ≤ n ≤ N and N is a number of the plurality of font characters, and generating the shuffled font comprises generating a plurality of shuffled glyphs by randomly shuffling the plurality of original glyphs, the shuffled font comprising the plurality of font characters and the plurality of shuffled glyphs, wherein an nth shuffled glyph of the plurality of shuffled glyphs represents the nth font character; generating, utilizing the one or more processors, a shuffled string of characters from the original string of characters by replacing an ith character in the original string with the nth font character, where 1 ≤ i ≤ M and M is a length of the original string, responsive to: the ith character being equal to a jth font character of the plurality of font characters where 1 ≤ j ≤ N; and a jth original glyph of the plurality of original glyphs being equal to the nth shuffled glyph; randomly generating, utilizing the one or more processors, a plurality of patterns; overlaying, utilizing the one or more processors, each respective pattern of the plurality of patterns on a respective shuffled glyph of the plurality of shuffled glyphs; sending, utilizing the one or more processors, the shuffled font and the shuffled string to the user; and displaying the shuffled string on a display unit utilizing the shuffled font” as recited in independent claim 1.
Claim Objections
8. Claims 5-6 and 12-13 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 prior art of record does not disclose, teach, or suggest neither singly nor in combination the claimed limitation of “randomly generating a pattern; and overlaying the pattern on a string of glyphs representing the shuffled string, each respective glyph in a string of glyphs comprising a respective shuffled glyph of the plurality of shuffled glyphs” as recited in dependent claims 5 and 12.
The prior art of record does not disclose, teach, or suggest neither singly nor in combination the claimed limitation of “randomly generating a plurality of patterns; and overlaying each respective pattern of the plurality of patterns on a respective shuffled glyph of the plurality of shuffled glyphs” as recited in dependent claims 6 and 13.
Conclusion
9. For the reasons above, claim 1 is allowable, claims 2-4, 7-11, 14 and 15 have been rejected and claims 5-6 & 12-13 have been objected to. Claims 1-15 remain pending.
10. Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
11. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHAEL Y WON whose telephone number is (571)272-3993. The examiner can normally be reached on Wk.1: M-F: 8-5 PST & Wk.2: M-Th: 8-7 PST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Nicholas R Taylor can be reached on 571-272-3889. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Michael Won/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2443