DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
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Claims 1-20 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-20 of U.S. Patent No. 12,143,532. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the limitations of the present claims are broader than that of the claims of U.S. Patent No. 12,143,532. For example:
Claim 1 of the present invention
Claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 12,143,532
A method comprising:
determining a call received from a calling party and intended for a subscriber device has an elevated likelihood of being a scam call based on a weight assigned to a parameter of the call;
when a percentage of calls being filtered by a carrier server as scam calls during a current period of time is above a call threshold percentage, retrieving call history information associated with a subscriber profile associated with the subscriber device.
A method comprising:
determining a call received from a calling party and intended for a subscriber device has an elevated likelihood of being a scam call based on a weight assigned to a parameter of the call;
when a percentage of calls being filtered by a carrier server as scam calls during a current period of time is above a call threshold percentage, retrieving call history information associated with the subscriber profile associated with the subscriber device;
identifying one or more call patterns from the call history information corresponding to the call; and determining whether to permit the received call based on the one or more call patterns.
From the above claim comparison, the limitations of claim 1 of the present invention are covered/anticipated by that of claim 1 of U.S. Patent No. 12,143,532. Independent claims 8 and 15 are counterpart of the method claim 1 and therefore rejected for the same reason addressed above. The remainder dependent claims are directly or indirectly disclose/taught by at least the dependent claims of U.S. Patent No. 12,143,532.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Rybak et al (8,781,093).
Consider claims 1, 8 and 15, Rybak et al teach a method, apparatus and non-transitory computer readable storage medium configured to store instructions that when executed cause a processor to perform comprising: determining a call received from a calling party and intended for a subscriber device has an elevated likelihood of being a scam call based on a weight assigned to a parameter of the call (col. 3 lines 54-62; “the message forwarding system 100 selectively forwards messages 125 to a subscriber's communication device 120 in response to the caller's associated reputation score. Namely, if the caller 130 was previously determined to be an unwelcomed or otherwise undesirable caller (e.g., a "spammer"), the caller 130 can be associated with a reputation score suggestive of such status. The call forwarding processor 105 can be configured to identify the reputation score and to not forward the message to the subscriber's communication device 120”; col. 4 lines 9-51; “reputation scores can be categorized, such as "spammer," "unknown," "trusted," etc. Alternatively or in addition, such reputation scores can be identified by a numeric score (e.g., a numeric value within a range of values), or other suitable identifier. In some embodiments, a reputation score indicates the likelihood that the given caller is not a spammer. For example, with such a scoring scheme, callers with low reputation scores are more likely than not to be spammers... the reputation score is stored in the form of a numeric value (e.g., on a scale of 1-10). With such scoring techniques, one end of a scoring scale (e.g., 10) generally represents less desirable callers”; col. 5 lines 6-37; “For example, the reputation scoring engine 135 can implement an algorithm to compute or otherwise determine a score (e.g., a numeric value) indicative of a message sender's likelihood to be an unwelcomed caller. Such a likelihood can be determined according to a probability based on one or more caller attributes, such as call history, caller ID, caller statistics, and the like”); when a percentage of calls being filtered by a carrier server as scam calls during a current period of time is above a call threshold percentage, retrieving call history information associated with a subscriber profile associated with the subscriber device (col. 1 lines 37-39; “A sender of the incoming message is identified and a reputation score associated with the identified sender obtained”; col. 4 lines 9-45; “Associations of reputation scores with message sender identifiers (e.g., caller IDs) can be stored in the datastore, or data storage device 115, for example, as a table of associations between caller IDs and reputation scores. The datastore 115 can be any suitable device or service capable of storing or otherwise retaining information such as reputation scores, associates of such scores with callers, call histories, statistics, and the like”; col. 9 lines 41-53; “a score, such as a binary score indicating whether a caller is a spammer or not, can be established according to a rule. An example of such a rule is setting a caller's score to be suggestive of a spammer, responsive to detecting that the caller made a number of calls to unassigned numbers exceeding some threshold value, such as 1 or perhaps 5 or 10 or more. It is conceivable, that tracking of such calls can be performed over some designated time period, such as a number of hours, a day, a week, a month, or more, such that a number of calls occurring within the designated time period exceeding the threshold results in a score indicative of a spammer”).
Consider claims 2, 9 and 16, Rybak et al teach determining the parameter from a call message associated with the call (col. 4 lines 9-51; “reputation scores can be categorized, such as "spammer," "unknown," "trusted," etc. Alternatively or in addition, such reputation scores can be identified by a numeric score (e.g., a numeric value within a range of values), or other suitable identifier. In some embodiments, a reputation score indicates the likelihood that the given caller is not a spammer. For example, with such a scoring scheme, callers with low reputation scores are more likely than not to be spammers... the reputation score is stored in the form of a numeric value (e.g., on a scale of 1-10). With such scoring techniques, one end of a scoring scale (e.g., 10) generally represents less desirable callers”; col. 5 lines 6-37; “For example, the reputation scoring engine 135 can implement an algorithm to compute or otherwise determine a score (e.g., a numeric value) indicative of a message sender's likelihood to be an unwelcomed caller. Such a likelihood can be determined according to a probability based on one or more caller attributes, such as call history, caller ID, caller statistics, and the like”).
Consider claims 3, 10 and 17, Rybak et al teach wherein the parameter comprise one or more of: Internet protocol (IP) addresses, telephone area codes, telephone numbers, or caller identification name (CNAM) data (col. 4 lines 9-51; “Associations of reputation scores with message sender identifiers (e.g., caller IDs) can be stored in the datastore, or data storage device 115, for example, as a table of associations between caller IDs and reputation scores”; “Such manner of communication includes wired communications (e.g., twisted pair, coaxial cable, wired networking), wireless (e.g., RF, microwave, wireless networking), optical (e.g., fiber optic, free-space optical, infrared), acoustic and combinations of such different manners of communication. In operation, the call forwarding processor 105 detects an incoming message directed to a target subscriber's ID (e.g., telephone number). For example, a message forwarding service provider can manage a group or pool of such IDs (e.g., telephone numbers), establishing associations between telephone numbers and subscribers of the message forwarding service. The call forwarding processor 105 receives a message sender identifier, such as obtained by caller ID for telephone calls, and queries storage to determine the availability of any reputation score for the identified message sender”).
Consider claims 4, 11 and 18, Rybak et al teach wherein the call patterns associated with the subscriber profile comprises one or more of a number of times a calling party called the subscriber device, a number of the times the subscriber device called the calling party, a frequency of calls over a period of time that the calling party called the subscriber device or the subscriber device called the calling party, and a length of time of one or more previous call sessions between the calling party and the subscriber device (col. 7 lines 20-37; “Such patterns can include a large volume of messages from a single message sender; a large volume of messages from a single message sender, that are also directed to a relatively large number of message recipients, or subscribers (e.g., more than some threshold value); the timing of such calls, including time a call is placed, its duration and time between successive calls. In at least some embodiments, such timing and volume can be accounted for or otherwise accompanied by a call rate (e.g., calls per hour). Such information as called numbers, calling frequency and/or other calling pattern features can be used by a reputation scoring engine 135 (FIG. 1) to provide or otherwise update a reputation score of an associated caller”).
Consider claims 5, 12 and 19, Rybak et al teach in response to determining that the call is permitted based on one or more call patterns, modifying the weight to create a modified call parameter; and updating a list of call parameters with the modified call parameter (col. 5 lines 20-36; “Such a likelihood can be determined according to a probability based on one or more caller attributes, such as call history, caller ID, caller statistics, and the like. The reputation scoring engine 135 updates such revised scores, updated statistics, or other indication of reputation in a reputation association also stored within storage 115. Such updated reputation scores can be used by the call forwarding processor 105 in selectively routing subsequent messages. In some embodiments, the reputation scoring engine 135 updates such revised scores each time the message sender calls any one of the subscriber IDs, regardless of whether the called subscriber ID has been designated to a particular subscriber, or remains undesignated”).
Consider claims 6, 13 and 20, Rybak et al teach identifying a call exception from the one or more call patterns; and determining a calling party number associated with the call exception matches a calling party number of the received call (col. 1 lines 17-32; “The devices and techniques described herein may be further adapted for automatically determining or otherwise updating a reputation score for the sender/initiator of the detected message, for example, in response to patterns of previously-detected calls initiated by that sender. User preferences can be provided to allow for overriding programmatically determined handling preferences, regardless of a reputation score associated with a sender/initiator of a communication”).
Consider claims 7 and 14, Rybak et al teach responsive to determining the calling party number associated with the call exception matches the calling party number of the received call, forwarding the call to the subscriber device (col. 6 lines 35-55; “After having obtained any such system-wide reputation score for the caller ID, it is determined at 270 whether the subscriber has associated an override reputation score as a welcomed caller that should be allowed at 255. In this embodiment, the call is forwarded by the call forwarding processor at 105 to the subscriber's communication device regardless of any system-wide or other such characterization or lack thereof of the caller as an unwelcomed caller… For example, if using a "whitelist," e.g., allowed callers first, then there is no need to check a "blacklist," e.g., unwelcomed callers”).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
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/Quoc D Tran/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2691
June 17, 2026
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