Prosecution Insights
Last updated: July 17, 2026
Application No. 18/946,670

DISTRIBUTED PATH GENERATION SYSTEM WITH PARALLEL LIST MANAGEMENT FOR URL SHORTENING

Non-Final OA §102§103
Filed
Nov 13, 2024
Examiner
WASEL, MOHAMED A
Art Unit
2409
Tech Center
2400 — Computer Networks
Assignee
Verizon Communications Inc.
OA Round
1 (Non-Final)
90%
Grant Probability
Favorable
1-2
OA Rounds
11m
Est. Remaining
99%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 90% — above average
90%
Career Allowance Rate
752 granted / 835 resolved
+32.1% vs TC avg
Moderate +11% lift
Without
With
+11.1%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
2y 7m
Avg Prosecution
16 currently pending
Career history
851
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
1.4%
-38.6% vs TC avg
§103
39.3%
-0.7% vs TC avg
§102
44.1%
+4.1% vs TC avg
§112
2.7%
-37.3% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 835 resolved cases

Office Action

§102 §103
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 This action is responsive to claims filed on November 13, 2024. Claims 1-20 are pending and presented for examination. Authorization for Internet Communication To expedite prosecution, filing a written authorization for internet communication is recommended. Doing so permits the USPTO to communicate using email to schedule interviews and/or discuss other aspects of the application. Without a written authorization in place, the USPTO cannot respond to email communications. The preferred method of providing authorization is by filing form PTO/SB/439, available at: https://www.uspto.gov/patent/forms/forms. See MPEP § 502.03. 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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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. Claims 1, 3-8, 10-15 and 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mason et al “Mason”, US-PGPub. No. 20130159826 in view of Yagi et al “Yagi”, US-PGPub. No. 20160381052. As per claims 1, 8 and 15, Mason teaches a method, a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium and a device (Paragraph(s) [0261])comprising: a processor (Fig. 1B – CPU 101, Paragraph(s) [0068], [0136]) configured for: initializing a first list and a second list in a memory device, the first list and the second list storing shortened uniform resource locator (URL) paths (Paragraph(s) [0029-0031]; providing a recommended list of uniform resource locators (URLs) responsive to a uniform resource locator (URL). A correlation engine may determine a number of users who clicked on each encoded URL link of the plurality of encoded URL links and also clicked on the encoded URL link. The server may, responsive to a request comprising the URL, enumerate a list of URLs. Each URL of the list of URLs may correspond to one of the plurality of encoded URL links. In further details, the prior art teaches a system 120 for shortening, sharing and tracking links. In brief overview, a linking system 120 executes on one or more server(s) 106A-N and may be accessed by a plurality of clients 102A-102N via a network 104. The linking system 120 may include a link encoder 210 that shortens a link, such as a uniform resource locator (URL) 205 to a resource on a destination server 106. The link encoder may encode (e.g., shorten) the link responsive to a request to shorten the URL 205. The client may include a link system API or application 225A-225N to interface with the linking system 120 and request to shorten the link. The request may include a cookie 255 identifying user and client information. The link encoder 210 may generate or otherwise provide an encoded URL 211 to a client. The link encoder may store in a database 230 information about the encoding of the URL and the URL 205 (Paragraph(s) [0085])); filling the first list with a first set of paths and the second list with a second set of paths (Paragraph(s) [0029], [0239]; providing a recommendation list of URLs or links given an input or URL link); distributing paths from the first list while maintaining the first list as active and the second list as inactive (Paragraph(s) [0028]; the plurality of actions of the plurality of users may include forwarding by each of the plurality of the users an encoded URL link. The plurality of actions of the plurality of users may include sharing by each of the plurality of the users an encoded URL link in one or more social networking sites. The prior art further teaches a user may click on or otherwise activate 250 the encoded URL 211 which directs the browser to the linking system 120 (Paragraph(s) [0086-0087])); monitoring a capacity threshold of the first list during path distribution (Paragraph(s) [0132], [0111]; the linking system 120, via a click tracker, may collect, track or otherwise monitor information about links or content accessed by one or more users. The prior art further teaches for each encoded URL 810, the click co-occurrence map may use any number of thresholds to determine whether or not the other encoded URLs has been clicked enough times or by enough users to be put or maintained within the map (Paragraph(s) [0246], [0252], [0260])); switching the second list to active and the first list to inactive in response to the first list reaching the capacity threshold (Paragraph(s) [0066]; one or more servers 106 provide functionality for management of dynamic data, including techniques for handling failover, data replication, and increasing the robustness of the machine farm 38. Each server 106 may communicate with a persistent store and, in some embodiments, with a dynamic store. The prior art further teaches the status of one or more machines 102, 106 in the network 104 is monitored, generally as part of network management. In one embodiment, the status of a machine may include an identification of load information (e.g., the number of processes on the machine, CPU and memory utilization), of port information (e.g., the number of available communication ports and the port addresses), or of session status (e.g., the duration and type of processes, and whether a process is active or idle). In another embodiment, this information may be identified by a plurality of metrics, and the plurality of metrics can be applied at least in part towards decisions in load distribution, network traffic management, and network failure recovery as well as any aspects of operations of the present solution described herein (Paragraph(s) [0084])); and distributing paths from the second list while refilling the first list with a third set of paths (Paragraph(s) [0028], [0085-0087]; the link encoder 210 may generate or otherwise provide an encoded URL 211 to a client. The link encoder may store in a database 230 information about the encoding of the URL and the URL 205. The user tracker 215 may track information about the user, such as via the cookie 255 and store the information in the database 230). Mason fails to explicitly teach initializing a first list and a second list. However, Yagi teaches generating URL lists (Paragraph(s) [0048-0050]; the information collection distribution server 30 extracts predetermined numbers of URLs from respective URL groups identified by analyzing the traffic log by techniques in different categories, and generates a URL list. Further, the information collection distribution server 30 distributes the URL list generated as destination URLs, an access of which should be filtered. Further, the information collection distribution server 30 requests an information confirmation server 31 to evaluate the generated URL list. Yagi further teaches the information confirmation server 31 evaluates the URL list generated by the information collection distribution server 30). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the applicants' invention to combine the teaching/features of Mason and Yagi because it provides an efficient way of tracking and managing a plurality of URL groups/lists as well as evaluating the URL list generated in the information collection distribution server in order to provide better security by detecting potential malicious sites. As per claims 3, 10 and 17, Mason teaches: determining a factorial-based partition of a path space across multiple data centers (Paragraph(s) [0147]); and validating each generated path using modular arithmetic to determine that a given path falls within an assigned partition for a current data center (Paragraph(s) [0104], [0120]). As per claims 4, 11 and 18, Mason teaches: maintaining a backup path bank in persistent storage (Paragraph(s) [0066], [0084]); monitoring Virtual Machine (VM) health metrics during path distribution (Paragraph(s) [0065], [0084]); detecting a VM health issue based on the VM health metrics (Paragraph(s) [0066], [0084]); and switching to path distribution from the backup path bank during the VM health issue (Paragraph(s) [0084]). As per claims 5, 12 and 19, Mason teaches wherein filling the first list and the second list comprises: tracking an attempts counter and a cycle iterations counter for path generation (Paragraph(s) [0085-0086], [0149]); validating each generated path based on a modular relationship between the attempts counter and the cycle iterations counter (Paragraph(s) [0032]); and skipping paths that fail the modular relationship (Paragraph(s) [0066]). As per claims 6, 13 and 20, Mason teaches: transforming each path using a substitution permutation network prior to distribution (Paragraph(s) [0090-0091]); and validating the path against brute force attack patterns (Paragraph(s) [0064], [0111]). As per claims 7, and , Mason teaches: receiving a bulk path request exceeding a threshold number of paths (Paragraph(s) [0029-0031]); switching to a streaming mode for path generation (Paragraph(s) [0066], [0084]); and implementing flow control mechanisms during streaming to prevent system overload (Paragraph(s) [0064], [0084]). Allowable Subject Matter Claims 2, 9 and 16 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims. No rejection under 35 USC §§ 102 or 103 has been applied to said objected to claims. Said objected to claims recite novel features of generating paths using a linear feedback shift register (LFSR) generator implementing a polynomial-based algorithm, applying a substitution-permutation network transformation to each generated path prior to adding a given path to either the first list or the second list and validating each transformed path against a pattern database in which prior art of record fails to teach or suggest. Conclusion The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Please refer to form PTO-892 (Notice of Reference Cited) for a list of relevant prior art. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MOHAMED A WASEL whose telephone number is (571) 272-2669. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri (8:00 am – 4:30 pm). If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Glenton Burgess can be reached on (571)272-3949. 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. /MOHAMED A. WASEL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2454
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Prosecution Timeline

Nov 13, 2024
Application Filed
Jun 03, 2026
Non-Final Rejection mailed — §102, §103 (current)

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Study what changed to get past this examiner. Based on 5 most recent grants.

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Prosecution Projections

1-2
Expected OA Rounds
90%
Grant Probability
99%
With Interview (+11.1%)
2y 7m (~11m remaining)
Median Time to Grant
Low
PTA Risk
Based on 835 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allowance rate.

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