DETAILED ACTION
This office action is in response to the application filed on 11/8/2024. Claim(s) 1-20 is/are pending and are examined.
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 .
Priority/Benefit
Applicant’s priority claim is hereby acknowledged of PRO 63/597,972 11/10/2023, which papers have been placed of record in the file.
Information Disclosure Statement PTO-1449
The Information Disclosure Statement(s) submitted by applicant on 2/12/2025 has/have been considered. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR § 1.97. Form PTO-1449 signed and attached hereto.
Examiner’s Note – Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 7, 14, and 20 overcome the prior art and would otherwise be allowable if incorporated into the base claim along with any intervening claims. Further, the claims must overcome the 35 USC 101 and 112(b) rejections below.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
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.
Claim(s) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
The analysis is guided by the Supreme Court's two-step framework, described in Mayo and Alice (Alice Corp. Pty Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 134 S. Ct. 2347, 2354 (2014) and Mayo Collaborative Servs. V. Prometheus Labs., Inc., 132 S. Ct. 1289, 1296-97 (2012)).Step 1: Is/Are the claim(s) directed to a process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter?Answer: Yes.Step 2A Prong 1: Is/Are the claim(s) directed to a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea, i.e., judicially recognized exceptions (both individually and as an ordered combination)?
Answer: Yes, claim(s) 1, 8, and 15 are directed to the mental process of “comparing the security level of the video transmission with a security level stored in the video receiver; and processing the video transmission as a function of the comparison of the security level of the video transmission with the security level of the video receiver” beyond the scope of § 101. Dependent claims 2-7, 9-14, and 16-20 expand on the identified abstract idea.
Step 2A Prong 2: Is/Are the claim(s) implemented into a practical application?
Answer: No, the limitations of the claim as drafted, is a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers implementation of the mental processes which can be performed by the mind using pencil and paper but for the recitation of generic computer components (i.e., “computer processor”, “memory” and a “non-transitory machine readable medium”). The claims recite extra solution activity including the ingestion of data and displaying of mathematical results by a generic computer. This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. Extra solution activity of ingesting data on a generic computer amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Therefore, the claim is directed to an abstract idea.Step 2B: Does/Do the claim(s) recite additional elements that when analyzed individually and in ordered combinations amount to significantly more than the judicial exception(s)?
Answer: No, the claim(s) (both individually and as an ordered combinations) does/do not transform the nature of the claim(s) into a patent-eligible application of the abstract idea (i.e., significantly more than the abstract idea implemented using generic computer components). The claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional elements to perform the processing steps amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept. Therefore, claims are not patent eligible.
Examiner recommends adding displaying the video transmission which in this invention would improve the security of the computer by not displaying sensitive information.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
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.
Claim(s) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112 (b), as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which applicant regards as the invention.
Regarding claim(s) 1, 8 and 15, the phrase “the security level of the video receiver” makes the claims indefinite and unclear in that it lacks antecedent basis.
In the present case, an interpretation has not been given. The previous limitation states “a security level stored in the video receiver”, but does not state that this is a security level of the video receiver. The previous limitation does not have this ambiguity.
Dependent claim(s) 2-7, 9-14, and 16-20 is/are rejected for the reasons presented above with respect to rejected claim(s) in view of their dependence thereon.
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 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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 5-6, 8-10, 12-13, 15-16, and 18-19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Reese (US 2015/0213275 A1), in view of Yarygin (US 9,769,417 B1).
Regarding claims 1, 8, and 15, Reese teaches:
“A process in a multi-level security device (Reese, ¶ 18 teaches processor, memory and medium for executing method steps) comprising: receiving a security level of a video source at a video receiver (Reese, ¶ 14, 25, 27-28 and 36 teaches MILS device receiving video information. Video information includes security realm information) the security level stored (Reese, ¶ 30 teaches storing security realm information in the video stream); comparing the security level of the video transmission with a security level stored in the video receiver (Reese, ¶ 30, 36 and 38 teaches comparing the security level associated with various security realms to the map of the pixels to be displayed); and processing the video transmission as a function of the comparison of the security level of the video transmission with the security level of the video receiver (Reese, ¶ 27-28, 30, 36, and 38 teaches deleting pixels which are blocked for security, allowing pixels that are not and multiplexing the final map onto the screen)”.
Reese does not, but in related art, Yarygin teaches:
“stored in a blanking region of a video transmission (Yarygin Col. 3 Ln. 23-37 teaches storing metadata in the blanking region of a video stream)”.
Before applicant’s earliest effective filing it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Reese and Yarygin, to modify the video security system of Reese to include the method to store information in the blanking region of the video stream as taught in Yarygin. The motivation to do so constitutes applying a known technique to known devices and/or methods ready for improvement to yield predictable results.
Regarding claims 2, and 9, Reese and Yarygin teaches:
“The process of claim 1 (Reese and Yarygin and teach the limitations of the parent claims as discussed above), wherein the security level comprises one or more of a horizontal synchronization pulse and a vertical synchronization pulse (Reese, ¶ 30 teaches storing security realm information in the video stream. Yarygin Col. 3 Ln. 23-37 teaches storing metadata in the blanking region of a video stream. Yarygin, Col. 1 Ln. 35-43 teaches the vertical and horizontal pulse information that contains the blanking zone)”.
Regarding claims 3, 10, and 16, Reese and Yarygin teaches:
“The process of claim 2 (Reese and Yarygin and teach the limitations of the parent claims as discussed above), wherein the one or more of the horizontal synchronization pulse and the vertical synchronization pulse comprise a location, a polarity and a duration (Reese, ¶ 30 teaches storing security realm information in the video stream. Yarygin Col. 3 Ln. 23-37 teaches storing metadata in the blanking region of a video stream. Yarygin, Col. 1 Ln. 35-43 teaches the vertical and horizontal pulse information that contains the blanking zone)”.
Regarding claims 5, 12, and 18, Reese and Yarygin teaches:
“The process of claim 1 (Reese and Yarygin and teach the limitations of the parent claims as discussed above), wherein the processing comprises passing the video transmission through to the video receiver (Reese, ¶ 27-28, 30, 36, and 38 teaches deleting pixels which are blocked for security, allowing pixels that are not and multiplexing the final map onto the screen)”.
Regarding claims 6, 13, and 19, Reese and Yarygin teaches:
“The process of claim 1 (Reese and Yarygin and teach the limitations of the parent claims as discussed above), wherein the processing comprises blocking the video transmission (Reese, ¶ 27-28, 30, 36, and 38 teaches deleting pixels which are blocked for security, allowing pixels that are not and multiplexing the final map onto the screen)”.
Claim(s) 4, 11, and 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Reese in view of Yarygin in view of Laslo (US 2024/0394388 A1).
Regarding claims 4, 11, 17, Reese and Yarygin teaches:
“The process of claim 1 (Reese and Yarygin and teach the limitations of the parent claims as discussed above)”.
Reese in view of Yarygin does not, but in related art Laslo teaches:
“wherein the video receiver compares the security level of the video transmission with the video security level of the video receiver at a frame level of the video transmission (Laslo, ¶ 29-30, and 54 teaches frame level security for video feed)”. Before applicant’s earliest effective filing it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Reese, Laslo, and Yarygin, to modify the video security system of Reese and Yarygin to include the method to store security information at the frame level as taught in Laslo. The motivation to do so constitutes applying a known technique to known devices and/or methods ready for improvement to yield predictable results.
Conclusion
In the case of amending the claimed invention, Applicant is respectfully requested to indicate the portion(s) of the specification which dictate(s) the structure relied on for proper interpretation and also to verify and ascertain the metes and bounds of the claimed invention.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure: See PTO-892.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Stephen T Gundry whose telephone number is (571) 270-0507. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9AM-5PM (EST).
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Amir Mehrmanesh can be reached at (571) 270-3351. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/STEPHEN T GUNDRY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2435