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Double patenting rejection were withdrawn due to approved applicant filed terminal disclaimer.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 08/10/26 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. On page 7 the applicant argued that none of the cited references discloses or makes obvious the claim feature of "detecting, by the sending device, sensitive information in the input message." Examiner respectfully disagrees. Claim require detecting sensitive information in the message. Penilla clearly discloses "detecting, by the sending device, sensitive information in the input message." in col 16 line 14-23;( In one embodiment, when the user begins to compose a message related to a specific task that has been pre-defined as confidential or highly confidential, the user will be requested to set a lifetime or recommended a lifetime for the message or conversation).
On same page the applicant further argued that none of the cited references discloses or makes obvious the claim feature of "analyzing the input message based on a sensitive messaging profile associated with the sending user account". Examiner respectfully disagrees. Claim does not elaborate how the sensitive message are analyzed. Penilla FIG 4 417-420, and associated text; Col 15 line 35-45; discloses, encrypting sensitive message based on messaging profile of end user(lifeline as profile setting : when recipient decide by analysis whether to accept or deny “lifetime” setting suggest it analyses sensitive message profile). Applicant is reminded that although during patent examination, the pending claims must be "given their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification." The Federal Circuit's en banc decision in Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 75 USPQ2d 1321 (Fed. Cir. 2005) the specification is not read into the claims and the USPTO is to employ the "broadest reasonable interpretation".
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
Claims 1-5, 7, 9-13, 15, 17-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Penilla et al (US 10708211 B2:IDS supplied ) in view of Raphael et al (US 20210064781 A1).
With regards to claim 1, Penilla discloses a method comprising: receiving, by a sending device associated with a sending user account, an input message via a communication interface (FIG 1 132 and associated text; also FIG 2-3 and associated text; Note: Steve receive email from Bob, both Steve and Bob send/receive email suggest both can be sending device);
detecting, by the sending device, sensitive information in the input message (col 16 line 14-23; In some embodiments, lifetime settings can be preset for specific communications with specific users or tasks. For example, if certain tasks are considered highly confidential, messages between users for those confidential tasks will be automatically tagged as requiring lifetime. In one embodiment, when the user begins to compose a message related to a specific task that has been pre-defined as confidential or highly confidential, the user will be requested to set a lifetime or recommended a lifetime for the message or conversation.), comprising analyze the input message based on a sensitive messaging profile associated with the sending user account (FIG 4 417-420, and associated text; Col 15 line 35-45; In operation 508, the sender 404 will compose an e-mail message 532 and also select a lifetime for the e-mail message 532. A “lifetime” is a setting of the lifetime for the e-mail message that will be communicated to the recipient or recipients of the e-mail message 532. At the server 404, the e-mail message 532 will be encrypted 510 using an encryption key. Using the login data for the encryption process enables for the e-mail message to be encrypted each time a message is composed and sent in accordance with lifetime processing; Note: when recipient decide by analysis whether to accept or deny “lifetime” setting suggest it analyses sensitive message profile);
enabling, by the sending device, the sending user account to control one or more settings of the sensitive information (FIG 4 411, 422, 424 426a-c and associated text; Col 16 line 24-30; FIG. 6 illustrates another example flow process between a sender Bob and a recipient Joe, between a sender device 602, a server 604, and a recipient device 606. In operation 608, the sender writes a message for Joe with a 10 min. lifetime setting. Note: setting 10 min lifetime as a control setting of the email ); and
transmitting, by the sending device, the sensitive information according to the one or more settings to one or more receiving devices associated with one or more receiving user accounts (FIG 4 411, 418, and associated text;).
Penilla does not exclusively but Raphael teaches, detecting, comprising using a trained machine learning (ML) algorithm to analyze the input message ([0035] Personal information sniffer 115 can be any combination of hardware and/or software that forms an artificial intelligence system capable of determining whether a type of personal information is present in a corpus of data. In some embodiments personal information sniffer 115 can use one or more neural networks (not shown) in training and processing data. In some embodiments, personal information sniffer 115 includes neural networks as part of the machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) processes. In some embodiments, personal information sniffer 115 is a recurrent neural network (RNN) such as, for example, a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) neural network.); It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to modify Penilla’s method with teaching of Raphael in order to provide data privacy, and, more specifically, to identification and transformation of sensitive data (Raphael[001]/[0062]).
With regards to claim 2, 10 Penilla further discloses, wherein the communication interface comprises a first input section to receive input messages from the sending user account (FIG 3 303 and associated text; col 2 line 20-30; In one embodiment, a system includes a client interface for enabling access to users of the electronic messaging system. Each user is provided with an inbox for electronically receiving messages and a sent box for electronically sending messages.) and a display section to display message information received by the sending user account from other user accounts (FIG 3 307 and associated text;).
With regards to claim 3, 11 Penilla in view of Raphael further discloses, retrieving the sensitive messaging profile from a communication platform server ([0062] At operation 210, personal information manager 105 anonymizes the annotations. In some embodiments, the annotations are anonymized by anonymizer 155. In some embodiments, anonymization is any technique to place/secure personal information. It can include redaction, deletion, replacement, hashing, generalization, and other similar techniques. In some embodiments, the annotations are anonymized according to policy 145. [0043] User system 130 can be a standalone computing device, a management server, a web server, a mobile computing device, or any other electronic device or computing system capable of receiving, sending, and processing data. In other embodiments, user system 130 can represent a server computing system utilizing multiple computers as a server system, such as in a cloud computing environment. In some embodiments, user system 130 represents a computing system utilizing clustered computers and components (e.g., database server computers, application server computers, etc.) that act as a single pool of seamless resources when accessed within computing environment 100. User system 130 includes learning database 135, data corpus (corpus) 140, and policy 145.). Motivation would be same as stated in claim 1.
With regards to claim 4, 12 Penilla further discloses, wherein the sensitive messaging profile comprises a set of determined user habits of the sending user account related to how a user associated with the sending user account prefers discovery of sensitive information to be handled (Col 4 line 20-48; In one embodiment, messages that are sent with a lifetime request are not viewable by a recipient until an agreement with the recipient has been reached. The agreement is an understanding of sender and recipient to treat a conversation under a lifetime condition. In other embodiments, a lifetime request can be sent after the conversation has started. In such a case, older messages in a conversation can be deleted (if the lifetime condition expired) and further messages of the conversation will adhere to the lifetime condition, per agreement of the sender and recipient. Once a lifetime agreement is established messages between sender and recipient can be exchanged and be viewable until their lifetime expires ).
With regards to claim 5, 13, 19 Penilla in view of Raphael further discloses, predicting, using the trained ML algorithm, a confidence level that the input message comprises the sensitive information (Raphael [0068-69] Also, at operation 306, in some embodiments, personal information sniffer 115 outputs a type confidence score correlated with each type of personal information. The type confidence score can represent the likelihood each type of personal information is present in the corpus. The type confidence score can be output as a percentage, as a number, or ranked relative to other types of personal information (e.g., type A most likely, type B second most likely, etc.).); and determining that the input message comprises the sensitive information based on the confidence level satisfying a confidence threshold (Raphael [0073] In some embodiments, the first set of annotators is based on policy 145. In some embodiments, the first set of annotators is based on the type confidence scores. In some embodiments, the first set of annotators includes all annotators for each type confidence score that is above a predefined threshold.). Motivation would be same as stated in claim 1.
With regards to claim 7, 15 Penilla further discloses, wherein the one or more settings comprise a first setting of an expiration time window for the sensitive information (Col 13 lin1 25-40; A conversion can also be referred to as a session. In this example, the message body, i.e., content 303 of the message 302, includes the text “Steve, I would like to sign Jake for Project 1. Have you worked with Jake before?” Additionally, the user interface provides the ability for user to select or set a lifetime 310 and also assign a duration 312 for the lifetime of the message. The duration 312 can be set by the sender, which in this case is Bob. The duration 312 can be configured to be more or less depending on the user's choice. As described above, the setting of 10 min. as set for the message 302 is only one example. ), a second setting of restricting the sensitive information from being accessible by third- party recipients (Col 4 line 58-67; n one embodiment, messages exchanged between users can be encrypted so access to the messages is limited. In one embodiment, an encryption key and a decryption key are symmetric, but in another embodiment, the encryption key and the decryption key are not symmetric. In one implementation, to support lifetime durations, decryption keys can be set to expire. For example, decryption keys can expire (or be expired) at the end of the lifetime durations. As a specific implementation, a server application might provide a one-time use decryption key or a limited time decryption key. ).
Claim 9, is A communication system (FIG 9 and associated text; ) comprising: a communications interface (FIG 9 104 connected to 906 with communication interface ); a non-transitory computer-readable medium (FIG 9 902 and associated text; ); and
one or more processors communicatively coupled to the communications interface and the non-transitory computer-readable medium, the one or more processors configured to execute processor-executable instructions stored in the non- transitory computer-readable medium to:( FIG 9 911 and associated text; ) is corresponding to similar limitations of method claim 1, also rejected from same rational.
Claim 17, is a non-transitory computer-readable medium claim, comprising processor-executable instructions configured to cause one or more processors (FIG 9; Col 5 line 30-40; The processing of logic to implement the conditions can be executed by a processor of the device executing the application and rendering the user interface, or can be executed by one or more servers that provide cloud processing for communications applications, or by hybrid processing that includes processing operations on the device of the user and also processing operations on a server, e.g., via a app having access to the Internet. Any of these different types of throttles can be used separately or in any combinations.): is corresponding to similar limitations of method claim 1, also rejected from same rational.
Claim 18 is medium claim corresponding to method claims 3 and 4 combined, also rejected accordingly.
Claims 6 ,14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Penilla et al(US 10708211 B2:IDS supplied ) in view of Raphael et al(US 20210064781 A1) and further in view of Peterson et al(US 10346634 B2).
With regards to claim 6, 14 Penilla in view of Raphael do not but Peterson teaches, determining a similarity match between the input message and one or more predefined sensitive information formats (Peterson col 6 line 1-6; After block 300 the logic proceeds to block 302 where the logic receives search parameters for searching for sensitive and/or personal information in the messaging account (e.g. contained in emails stored in and/or associated with the messaging account), such as e.g. key words to search, particular number sequences (e.g. a particular social security number which in some embodiments may include e.g. hyphens, a particular loan number, a particular bank account and/or routing number, etc.), and/or any of the other types of information disclosed herein. Also at block 302 the logic may receive search interval settings (e.g. from a user) pertaining to how often to conduct searches for the search parameters (e.g. automatically without a user providing a command to search for every search that is executed). ). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to modify Penilla in view of Raphael’s method with teaching of Peterson in order to secure personal information from identity theft (Peterson col 1 line 10-20)
Claims 8, 16, 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Penilla et al(US 10708211 B2:IDS supplied ) in view of Raphael et al(US 20210064781 A1) and further in view of Scuderi et al(US 11455424 B2).
With regards to claim 8, Penilla in view of Raphael do not but Scuderi teaches, wherein the sensitive information is represented in a container with a visual mask (Scuderi FIG 4B 460 and associated text; 62] col 11 line 5-15; At operation 210, personal information manager 105 anonymizes the annotations. In some embodiments, the annotations are anonymized by anonymizer 155. In some embodiments, anonymization is any technique to place/secure personal information. It can include redaction, deletion, replacement, hashing, generalization, and other similar techniques. In some embodiments, the annotations are anonymized according to policy 145.). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to modify Penilla in view of Raphael’s method with teaching of Scuderi in order to provide access to sensitive information in a database can be restricted to improve security (Scuderi Abstract)
Claim 20 is medium claim corresponding to method claims 7 and 8 combined, also rejected accordingly.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. US 20200267181 A1, WO 2020044218 A1.
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MOHAMMED WALIULLAH whose telephone number is (571)270-7987. The examiner can normally be reached 8.30 to 430 PM.
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, Yin-Chen Shaw can be reached on 1-571-272-8878. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MOHAMMED WALIULLAH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2498
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