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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 April 22, 2026 has been entered.
Claims 1-4, 6-15, and 17-22 are pending. Claims 1, 3, 6, 7, 10, 13, 15, 17 and 20 are amended. Claims 5 and 16 are cancelled. Claims 21 and 22 are newly added.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the claims as amended have been considered but are moot in view of the new grounds of rejection.
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 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.
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.
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.
Claims 1-4, 6, 8, 10-15, 18 and 20-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2021/0149935 by De Boer, in view of US 2019/0034496 by Acosta et al (hereafter Acosta), in view of US 2023/0334047 by Zhang et al (hereafter Zhang), and further in view of US 2018/0341388 by Zheng et al (hereafter Zheng).
Referring to claim 1, De Boer discloses a method for retrieving data, performed at a computer system executing a first data service and having one or more processors and memory storing one or more programs configured for execution by the one or more processors, the method comprising [machine 2400, medium 2422 with instructions 2424, processor 2402, para 402, 405; machine 2400 includes an application, applet, app or program that is executed to perform functions in Fig 19-22, para 402-403, Fig 24; data intake and query system 108 comprising data source connector 1802, Fig 18, para 328]:
receiving a query from a programmatic interface of a client device, wherein the query i) is received via one or more external API calls and ii) specifies a data source and one or more data fields of the data source [user interface for search screen 800, para 238, Fig 8A; user inputs search string and can specify different sources for events and time ranges, para 238; command to perform live query against API of external source is received, the command triggers a config file that calls a script associated with data source connector customized for the external source, para 341, Fig 19, element 1902; Examiner submits that the live query against the API of an external source is a query received via one or more external API calls because it retrieves live data from the source through its API];
in accordance with receiving the query:
generating, via the first data service, a query specification according to the one or more data fields of the data source, wherein the query specification is an extended version of the one or more external API calls [data source connector 1802 takes search query comprising attributes of a native language of the native data search and formats/translates the attributes of the search query into a query language statement in a native language of the external source 1804, the data source connector corresponding to the external source to which the API call is made, para 33, formatted to ESQL statement, para 330, 340-341, 368, Fig 19, element 1908, Fig 20 and corresponding portions of specification];
transmitting, via the first data service, the query specification to a second data service that is different from the first data service, wherein transmitting the query specification to the second data service includes translating the query specification into a serialized data format to send to the second data service [data source connector 1802 formats the attributes of the query into a query language statement in a native language of the external source 1804, para 33, formatted to ESQL statement, para 330, 340-341, 368, Fig 19, element 1908; sequence of commands, para 201-204; series of consecutive commands, para 203] and causing the second data service to execute one or more database queries against a database to retrieve query results from the data source, according to the query specification [ESQL (formatted) statement sent to API of external source which causes the external source 1804 (i.e. reads on: second data service) to run the query against its live data, para 369, Fig 19, element 1910; data source connector 1802 performs query with ESQL statement, para 331];
receiving, via the first data service, the query results from the second data service [results received by data source connector 1802 from external source 1804, para 370, Fig 19, element 1912];
configuring, via the first data service, the query results to obtain configured data [results reformatted by data source connector 1802 into native system format, para 371, Fig 19, element 1914]; and
transmitting, via the first data service, the configured data to the client device for display in the programmatic interface [results displayed in tabular format at client device 404, para 374-375, Fig 20, element 2010].
Referring to claim 1, while De Boer discloses all of the above claimed subject matter and also discloses a first data service including an application, applet, app or program that is executed on machine 2400 to perform functions [Fig 19-22, para 402-403, Fig 24], it remains silent as to the first data service being a headless business intelligence (BI) service; and causing the second data service to convert the query specification to logical queries which are then passed to a query pipeline to output SQL queries that are executed.
Acosta discloses that once an input query 512 is converted into an intermediate data structure such as an abstract syntax tree (AST), the intermediate data structure is sent to runtime device 506 (second data service) that generates one or more requests based on the query 518 [para 61, Fig 5]. Acosta furthermore discloses that after generating the one or more requests, runtime 506 transmits a message containing the one or more requests 520 to API 508 that transmits the one or more generated requests to the appropriate data sources, receives data from the data sources responding to the requests and transmits the data to runtime where it can be stored in, for instance, block memory for subsequent processing [para 62].
De Boer and Acosta are analogous art because they are directed to the same field of endeavor- querying data sources. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the external source of De Boer to include the logical transformation of the query specification and forwarding taught by Acosta because it would achieve predictable results.
The ordinary skilled artisan would have been motivated to make this modification because the conversion of the SQL query into an intermediate AST structure and forwarding of results to runtime for subsequent processing in Acosta provides for further refinement of the processing of the ESQL query results of DeBoer.
Still referring to claim 1, while DeBoer/Acosta disclose all of the above claimed subject matter, and also disclose a first data service in the form of an application, applet, app or program that is executed on machine 2400 to perform functions [DeBoer, Fig 19-22, para 402-403, Fig 24] and an execution service 406 [Acosta, para 48, Fig 4], it remains silent as to the data service being a headless business intelligence service. Zheng discloses a headless execution engine DL 205 within MRTE execution model 200 that communicates with different layers within the MRTE such as the PSVL 210 layers [para 11, 46, 51, Fig 2].
De Boer, Acosta and Zheng are analogous art because they are directed to the same field of endeavor- querying data sources. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the application, applet, app or program executed on machine 2400 to perform functions of DeBoer and the execution service 406 of Acosta to include the headless execution engine DL 250 taught by Zheng because it would achieve predictable results.
The ordinary skilled artisan would have been motivated to make this modification because the headless execution engine of Zheng further refines the application, applet, app or program executed on machine 2400 to perform functions of DeBoer and the execution service 406 of Acosta.
Referring to claim 13, the limitations of the claim are similar to those of claim 1 in the form of a system [DeBoer, machine 2400, para 402, 405, Fig 24] comprising one or more processors [DeBoer, processor 2402, para 402, 405, Fig 24]; memory storing programs including instructions [DeBoer, medium 2422 with instructions 2424, para 402, 405, Fig 24; memory 2404, 2406,2402, para 409, Fig 24]. As such, claim 13 is rejected for the same reasons as claim 1.
Referring to claim 20, the limitations of the claim are similar to those of claim 1 in the form of a computer medium storing programs for execution by one or more processors [DeBoer, medium 2422 with instructions 2424, para 402, 405, Fig 24] and memory [DeBoer, memory 2404, 2406,2402, para 409, Fig 24]. As such, claim 20 is rejected for the same reasons as claim 1.
Referring to claims 2 and 14, De Boer/Acosta/Zheng discloses that the query comprises a JSON object [Acosta, para 64, Fig 6].
Referring to claims 3 and 15, De Boer/Acosta/Zheng discloses that the query specification further specifies one or more filters to apply to the query, each of the one or more filters including a data column to filter on and a filter type [DeBoer, fields-percent filter, para 211, Fig 6B, para 205].
Referring to claim 4, De Boer/Acosta/Zheng discloses that the filter type includes: a quantitative filter [DeBoer, time range, para 168], a set filter, a date filter [DeBoer, para 204], or a topN filter [DeBoer, top ten product names by price 1201, para 259, Fig 12].
Referring to claims 8 and 18, De Boer/Acosta/Zheng discloses that the query specifies a sort priority for the one or more data fields; and configuring, via the first data service, the query results to obtain configured data includes sorting the query results according to the sort priority [DeBoer, sort order, para 180].
Referring to claim 10, De Boer/Acosta/Zheng discloses that configuring, via the first data service, the query results to obtain the configured data includes formatting, by the first data service, data values of date/time fields from a priority format to a standard date format [DeBoer, filtering criteria includes a time period specific to time periods allowed by the external source 1804 (e.g. today, yesterday, week to date etc.), para 389; see query with ‘createdDate’ filter selected, Fig 23H-I].
Referring to claim 11, De Boer/Acosta/Zheng discloses that the configured data comprises an object format or an array format [DeBoer, tabular format, para 374].
Referring to claim 12, De Boer/Acosta/Zheng discloses that the configured data does not include any data visualization [DeBoer, JSON or XML format, para 335].
Referring to claim 21, De Boer/Acosta/Zheng discloses that the query specification further specifies whether to apply a densification setting or a table calculation to the query [DeBoer, fields-percent filter, para 211, Fig 6B, para 205].
Referring to claim 22, De Boer/Acosta/Zheng discloses that the query specification does not include visual layout information for rendering a data visualization, the visual layout information including at least one of an axis or a data mark [DeBoer, the external source 1804 may require a format having lower cases in the query or require use of commas instead of spaces to separate search attributes, para 330].
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2021/0149935 by De Boer, in view of Acosta, in view of Zheng, as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of US 2020/0073987 by Perumala et al (hereafter Perumala).
Referring to claim 6, while De Boer/Acosta/Zheng discloses all of the above claimed subject matter and also discloses that the query specification is converted to an ESQL formatted query with a sequence of consecutive commands [DeBoer, para 201-204], it remains silent as to the data format specifically being a protobuf data schema. Perumala discloses converting messages (e.g. HTTP) including data items to a format for storage where the messages may include any type of Internet protocol message including based on Google Protocol Buffers (Protobuf) database objects [para 47,101].
DeBoer, Acosta, Zheng and Perumala are analogous art because they are directed to the same field of endeavor- transmitting of messages between systems.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the queries of De Boer to include the HTTP protobuf messages, as in Perumala because it would achieve predictable results.
The ordinary skilled artisan would have been motivated to make this modification because it would further refine the formatting type of the query specification in De Boer.
Claims 7 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over De Boer, in view of Acosta, in view of Zheng, as applied to claims 1 and 13 above, and further in view of US 2004/0243593 by Stolte et al (hereafter Stolte).
Referring to claims 7 and 17, De Boer/Acosta/Zheng discloses all of the above claimed subject matter and also discloses converting the formatting of the input native query into a query language statement in a native language of the external source [DeBoer, para 33, 330, 340-341, 368, Fig 19, element 1908] and transmitting the query to the API of the external source [Fig 19, element 1910], however remains silent as to converting the query specification into one or more abstract queries, wherein the one or more abstract queries are lower level queries than the query specification.
Stolte discloses converting a visual specification 550 derived from user-selected (i.e. queried) operand names corresponding to each selected database 558 [para 107] into a set of one or more abstract query descriptions 554 that describe the required queries using values specified in the visual specification 550 [para 123, Fig 6, element 606]. Stolte furthermore teaches that the abstract query descriptions 554 are used to query databases [para 97]. Examiner submits that because the abstracted query descriptions are derived from the visual specification, they are lower level queries than the visual (query) specification.
DeBoer, Acosta, Zheng and Stolte are analogous art because they are directed to the same field of endeavor- querying data sources/databases. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the formatting of queries of De Boer to include conversion to a lower level abstract query from a query specification, as in Stolte because it would achieve predictable results.
The ordinary skilled artisan would have been motivated to make this modification because it would further refine the query formatting capabilities of De Boer.
Claims 9 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over De Boer, in view of Acosta, in view of Zheng, as applied to claims 1 and 13 above, and further in view of US 2002/0069193 by Beavin et al (hereafter Beavin).
Referring to claims 9 and 19, De Boer/Acosta/Zheng discloses all of the above claimed subject matter and also discloses extraction rules that include truncating a character string [para 213, 225], however remains silent as to the truncation according to a maximum number of decimal places. Beavin discloses truncation of the length of an integer to a length of a small integer [para 50, 53].
DeBoer, Acosta, Zheng and Beavin are analogous art because they are directed to the same field of endeavor- querying data sources/databases. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the extraction, specifically truncation, rules of De Boer to include decimal (integer) truncation, as in Beavin because it would achieve predictable results.
The ordinary skilled artisan would have been motivated to make this modification because it would further refine the truncation formatting rules of De Boer.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Halterman et al (US 2018/0203899) directed to: query optimization by converting each query regardless of language into an intermediate representation such as an AST tree [para 39, Fig 2A-C];
Wittmann et al (US 2010/0021071) directed to: filtering and truncating of image data according to a decimal place [para 135].
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHERYL M SHECHTMAN whose telephone number is (571)272-4018. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon-Fri: 8am-4pm.
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, Amy Ng can be reached on 571-270-1698. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
CHERYL M SHECHTMANPatent Examiner
Art Unit 2164
/C.M.S//AMY NG/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2164
Prosecution Insights