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
1. This action is responsive to: an original application filed on 24 November 2024 with acknowledgement that this application is a continuation of a 371 PCT/JP2022/022486 filed 2 June 2022.
2. Claims 1-6 are currently pending. Claims 1 and 5 are independent claims.
3. The IDS submitted on 24 November 2024 has been considered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
6. 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.
7. Claims 1-6 fail to recite statutory subject matter, as defined in 35 U.S.C. 101, because:
The claimed invention is/are directed to a judicial exception (i.e., abstract idea) without significantly more.
The independent claims 1 and 5 recite a method, device and instructions executable… perform computation while keeping input data secret…circuitry configured to… compute the number of true data items excluding a missing value by summing values of flags in the flag sequence.
These claims are methods, systems, or instructions that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind (i.e., Mathematical concepts – mathematical relationships, mathematical formulas or equations, mathematical calculations) …wherein the claim(s) recite only the idea of a solution or outcome i.e., the claim fails to recite details of how a solution to a problem is accomplished (MPEP § 2106.05 (f))… but for the recitation of generic computer component…(see also the Applicant’s specifications Fig. 16, Paragraphs 26 and 73, 19, note figure 16 as well as the computer described is nothing more than “a hardware resource include a general-purpose computer” In addition, the final result is the number of true data items. The claims as a whole are missing many elements to adequately define an “invention”.
Moreover, see the Examiner “Subject Matter Eligibility Test for products and Processes” for details:
Step 1: YES (Claim(s) is/are process, machine, manufacture or composition of the matter)
Step 2A : 2106.04 (II) (A) (Does the claim recites an Abstract idea. Law of nature or natural phenomenon? YES…
Prong One: Claims method of secure computation, the method comprising:
that performs computation while keeping input data secret, the input data including an encrypted value sequence including a missing value, the secure computation method comprising: a flag sequence generating step of generating a flag sequence that is a sequence of flags indicating a value obtained by encrypting 0, when a corresponding value is a missing value, and a value obtained by encrypting 1, when the corresponding value is not a missing value; and a true data count computing step of computing the number of true data items excluding a missing value by summing values of flags in the flag sequence.
These steps (which determine if a value is provided) can be performed in the mind. Thus, it is Abstract idea.
Moreover, it is noted MPEP 2106.04 (a) (2): The enumerated groupings of abstract ideas are defined as:
1) Mathematical concepts – mathematical relationships, mathematical formulas or equations, mathematical calculations (see MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2), subsection I);
2) Certain methods of organizing human activity – fundamental economic principles or practices (including hedging, insurance, mitigating risk); commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; legal obligations; advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations); managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions) (see MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2), subsection II);
3) Mental processes – concepts performed in the human mind (including an observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion) (see MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2), subsection III). Thus, the claim(s) recite Abstract Idea.
Prong two: (Do the claim(s) recite “additional element(s) that integrate the “Judicial Exception” into “A Practical Application” ? No The claim(s) recite the additional elements are: calculating/computing products, correction values, mean, by dividing a sum, overwrite the missing value with median, …These limitations only amount to insignificant extra-solution activity of calculation (MPEP 2106.05(g)).
Step 2B: MPEP 2106.05 (g) [Whether a Claim Amounts to Significantly More] ? [an "inventive concept" is furnished by an element or combination of elements that is recited in the claim in addition to (beyond) the judicial exception, and is sufficient to ensure that the claim amounts to significantly more than the judicial exception itself. Alice Corp., 573 U.S. at 27-18, 110 USPQ2d at 1981 (citing Mayo, 566 U.S. at 72-73, 101 USPQ2d at 1966).
The claims recite the additional elements, which are “generate correction values, overwrite the missing value by obtaining values by rounding or calculating median”; which is mere instructions to apply an exception into a practical application. Moreover, only amount to insignificant extra-solution activity of generating and using calculations (MPEP 2106.05(g)). Thus, NO, the additional element does not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. The calculations are not apply it limitations, but rather typical steps performed by a computer.
As to the dependent claim(s) 2-5, do not include elements that amount to significantly more than the abstract idea (calculating, median, overwrite values) added to a standard computer or processor. Therefore, they are also rejected under the same rational (i.e., the claims as a whole are directed to an abstract idea of generating an encryption key.
Accordingly, claims 1-6 fail to recite statutory subject matter, as defined in 35 U.S.C. 101.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
8, The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
9. Claims 1-6 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the enablement requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to enable one skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and/or use the invention. The claim state: “the secure computation device comprising: processing circuitry configured to generate a flag sequence that is a sequence of flags indicating a value obtained by encrypting 0, when a corresponding value is missing value, and a value obtained by encrypting 1, when the corresponding value is not a missing value; and compute the number of true data items excluding a missing value by summing values of flags in the flag sequence”. The Examiner notes not only is this an abstract idea. This limitation is missing so many features that it is not understandable, therefore it lacks enablement. It is strongly recommended that an interview be scheduled to explain the “invention” and coordinate appropriate amendments.
10. The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
11. Claims 1-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention. As explained above the claims lack enablement therefore, they are also indefinite because they fail to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor regards as the invention.
The Examiner notes it appears the Applicant is using secure computation devices in order to estimate a value for a missing value to aid in machine learning models, see paragraph 5. It also appears the Applicant’s solution is to determine the number of missing values as well as the number of actual values. The Applicant uses the term “flag sequence” in the claims, however this term is not well explained in the Applicant’s disclosure. The “flag sequence” appears to nothing more than counting the number of values.
In addition, the claims indicate that data/values are encrypted, however the disclosure has no indication of decryption being performed. The claimed “invention” does not make sense for “correction values” to be generated based on the count of true data items, more explanation is needed. Furthermore, as to claim 3, “the overwrite the missing value with value larger than a maximum value of values in the true data”, does not make sense. The Applicant has not provided an explanation of how a “value larger than a maximum value…” is determined with the encrypted data that is never decrypted. Dependent claim 4, has similar deficiencies. Appropriate Correction is required.
12. To expedite a complete examination of the instant application the claims rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 (nonstatutory) as well as 35 U.S.C. 112 above are further rejected as set forth below in anticipation of applicant amending these claims to overcome the above rejections.
Claim Rejections – 35 USC § 103
13. 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 of this title, 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.
14. Claims 1-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sghiouer U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2021/0200749 (hereinafter ‘749) in view of Negi et al. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2020/0327444 (hereinafter ‘444) in further view of Sathe et al. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2022/0044078 (hereinafter ’78).
As to dependent claim 1, “A secure computation device that performs computation while keeping input data secret, the input data including an encrypted value sequence including a missing value, the secure computation device comprising:” is taught in ‘749 the Abstract, paragraphs 21-22, and 50 note the encrypted data is preprocessed, including taking into account/classifying ‘missing data’;the following is not explicitly taught in ‘749:
“processing circuitry configured to generate a flag sequence that is a sequence of flags indicating a value obtained by encrypting 0, when a corresponding value is a missing value, and a value obtained by encrypting 1, when the corresponding value is not a missing value” however ‘444 teaches the use of technologies such as predictive analytics, machine learning that includes pre-processing steps that includes indicating (i.e. flagging) with aninteger type “”1” for true and “0” for false as well as unknown values with “0.0 in sequential order” in paragraphs 2, 5, 8, and 84-89;
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention of a data processing method and system for the preparation of a dataset taught in ‘749 to include a means to flag when values are missing. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to perform such a modification to use predictive analysis and machine learning to predict real-time next best actions or outcome probabilities for a customer see ‘444 paragraphs 2-3.
the following is not explicitly taught in ‘749 and ‘444:
“and compute the number of true data items excluding a missing value by summing values of flags in the flag sequence” however ‘078 teaches methods, computer program products and/or system that perform operations on training data sets (i.e. pipelines for machine learning) for use in machine learning that includes metafeatures associated with the dataset that indicate the number of missing values as well as the number of real-valued features in the Abstract, Figure 2, paragraphs 3, 51.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention of a data processing method and system for the preparation of a dataset taught in ‘749 and ‘444 to include a means to compute the number of true data items. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to perform such a modification to improve the accuracy of the machine learning see ‘078 paragraphs 1-3.
As to dependent claim 2, “The secure computation device according to claim 1, processing circuitry configured to set products of the values and corresponding flags as correction values and generate a correction value sequence; and compute a mean of the input data by dividing a sum of the correction values by the number of true data” is taught in ‘749 paragraph 114, note “Depending on the type of normalized and encrypted data, different techniques can be implemented by the data processing module 40 in order to complete the missing data. For this purpose, the data processing module 40 is configured to take into account the consistency of the normalized and encrypted data with predefined correlation tables 42, and to determine from said correlation tables 42 a processing to be applied to the normalized and encrypted data in order to complete the missing data. By way of illustrative examples, the data processing module 40 can implement techniques for replacing missing data with the mean, the median, the most frequent state”, in summary the “missing data” are replaced (i.e. corrected) with the mean.
As to dependent claim 3, “The secure computation device according to claim 1, processing circuitry configured to overwrite the missing value with a value larger than a maximum value of values in the true data; sort data including the value sequence and the flag sequence in ascending order based on the values; generate an index flag sequence which is a sequence of index flags in which a value corresponding to a first row of the data is a value obtained by encrypting 0, and a value corresponding to another row is a value obtained by encrypting a value obtained by adding 1 to a value corresponding to a previous row; compute, as a median index, a value obtained by rounding down after a decimal point of (m−1)/2, where m represents the number of true data; generate an odd flag sequence which is a sequence of odd flags indicating a value obtained by encrypting a value of 0, when values of the index flag are not equal to values of the median index, and a value obtained by encrypting a value of 1, when the values of the index flag are equal to the values of the median index; generate an even flag sequence that is a sequence of even flags in which a value corresponding to a case where values of the odd flag are 1 is 1 and which indicate a value obtained by encrypting a value of 0, when the values of the index flag are not equal to a value obtained by adding 1 to the median index, and a value obtained by encrypting a value of 1, when the values of the index flag are equal to a value obtained by adding 1 to the median index; and compute, as a median, a sum of products of the values and the odd flag, when the number of true data is an odd number, and compute, as a median, a value obtained by dividing a sum of products of the values and the even flag by 2 when the number of true data is an even number” is shown in ‘749 paragraphs 18-25, 28-37, and 59-63, note it teaches normalizing and replacing outliers in the input encrypted data streams.
As to dependent claim 4, “The secure computation device according to claim 1, processing circuitry configured to overwrite the missing value with a value larger than a maximum value of values in the true data; sort data including the value sequence and the flag sequence in ascending order based on the values; generate a boundary flag sequence which is a sequence of boundary flags in which a value corresponding to a predetermined value is a value obtained by encrypting 0, when a value of the predetermined value is equal to a value of a next value after the predetermined value, a value corresponding to the predetermined value is a value obtained by encrypting 1 when the value of the predetermined value is not equal to the value of the next value after the predetermined value, and a value corresponding to a value located in a lowermost row of the value sequence is a value obtained by encrypting 1; generate value vectors having values corresponding to a value of 1 of the boundary flag as respective elements; compute a frequency vector that is a sum of values of the flags in each group delimited based on the value of 1 of the boundary flag; and sort data including a set of individual elements of the value vector and the frequency vector in descending order by using the frequency vector as a key and output an element of a first value vector as a mode” is disclosed in ‘749 paragraphs 18-25, 28-37, and 59-63, note it teaches normalizing and replacing outliers in the input encrypted data streams.
As to independent claim 5, “A secure computation method executed by a secure computation device that performs computation while keeping input data secret, the input data including an encrypted value sequence including a missing value” is taught in ‘749 the Abstract, paragraphs 21-22, and 50 note the encrypted data is preprocessed, including taking into account/classifying ‘missing data’;the following is not explicitly taught in ‘749:
“the secure computation method comprising: a flag sequence generating step of generating a flag sequence that is a sequence of flags indicating a value obtained by encrypting 0, when a corresponding value is a missing value, and a value obtained by encrypting 1, when the corresponding value is not a missing value” however ‘444 teaches the use of technologies such as predictive analytics, machine learning that includes pre-processing steps that includes indicating (i.e. flagging) with aninteger type “”1” for true and “0” for false as well as unknown values with “0.0 in sequential order” in paragraphs 2, 5, 8, and 84-89;
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention of a data processing method and system for the preparation of a dataset taught in ‘749 to include a means to flag when values are missing. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to perform such a modification to use predictive analysis and machine learning to predict real-time next best actions or outcome probabilities for a customer see ‘444 paragraphs 2-3.
the following is not explicitly taught in ‘749 and ‘444:
“and a true data count computing step of computing the number of true data items excluding a missing value by summing values of flags in the flag sequence” however ‘078 teaches methods, computer program products and/or system that perform operations on training data sets (i.e. pipelines for machine learning) for use in machine learning that includes metafeatures associated with the dataset that indicate the number of missing values as well as the number of real-valued features in the Abstract, Figure 2, paragraphs 3, 51.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention of a data processing method and system for the preparation of a dataset taught in ‘749 and ‘444 to include a means to compute the number of true data items. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to perform such a modification to improve the accuracy of the machine learning see ‘078 paragraphs 1-3.
As to dependent claim 6, this claim is directed to a non-transitory computer readable medium storing a computer program causing a computer to function as the secure computation device according to claim 1; therefore, it is rejected along similar rationale.
Conclusion
15. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ELLEN C TRAN whose telephone number is (571) 272-3842. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone 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, Jeff Pwu can be reached at 571-272-6798. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300.
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______________________________________________________/ELLEN TRAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2433 13 February 2026