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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
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.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
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 of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Claim 1 recites the limitation: “analyze characteristics of data units within an input data set to determine if the input data set meets configurable criteria for accuracy”. The term: “configurable criteria for accuracy” is not present in the specification. The words “configurable”, “criteria” and “accuracy” are not in the specification individually, either. It is unclear what the scope of this term is.
Claim 4 has the same issues as claim 1 above and the remaining claims are rejected by virtue of their dependence on a rejected base claim.
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.
Claim 1 recites the limitation: “analyze characteristics of data units within an input data set to determine if the input data set meets configurable criteria for accuracy”. The scope of the term: “configurable criteria for accuracy” is unclear. The accuracy of what and what criteria is being used to determine the accuracy?
Claim 4 has the same issues as claim 1 above and the remaining claims are rejected by virtue of their dependence on a rejected base claim.
Claim 1 recites the limitation "the data unit" in line 13. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Since all previous references to this term are in the plural form (data units), it is unclear whether this term should be “a data unit” or “the data units”. Therefore, it is unclear if the deviation of statistical properties is being determined on one data unit or the plurality of data units.
Claim 4 has the same issues as claim 1 above and the remaining claims are rejected by virtue of their dependence on a rejected base claim.
Claim 1 recites the limitations “generate a conditioned data stream and an auxiliary data stream by performing operations on data units within the input data set, comprising: if a statistical property of the data unit deviates from a target value by more than a configurable threshold; applying one or more conditioning rules to the data unit; perform at least one bitwise operation on the data unit; appending the output of the bitwise operation to the auxiliary data stream; and send the conditioned data stream and the auxiliary data stream as output.”. The “generate” limitation states that a conditioned data stream and auxiliary data stream are both positively generated. Further, the “if” limitation does not actually describe what happens if the condition is true. None of the “applying, perform, appending or send” limitations are dependent on the outcome of the “if” limitation (the semi-colon should be a colon and the remaining limitations should be indented). Further, even if the “if” limitation did cause the remainder of the claim to be implemented if the required condition was true, what happens when the condition is not true, since the claims require the two data streams to be generated either way. It appears as though the “if” limitation should have been before the “generate” limitation.
Claim 4 has the same issues as claim 1 above and the remaining claims are rejected by virtue of their dependence on a rejected base claim.
Claim 1 recites the limitations “generate a conditioned data stream and an auxiliary data stream by performing operations on data units within the input data set, comprising: if a statistical property of the data unit deviates from a target value by more than a configurable threshold; applying one or more conditioning rules to the data unit; perform at least one bitwise operation on the data unit; appending the output of the bitwise operation to the auxiliary data stream; and send the conditioned data stream and the auxiliary data stream as output.”. All of the limitations after the “generate” limitation are the operations that cause the generation of the conditioned and auxiliary data streams, but these limitations don’t describe how the auxiliary data stream is generated, the “appending” limitation just states that the output of the bitwise operation is appended to the already generated auxiliary data stream. It is unclear what the auxiliary data stream is or how it is generated.
Claim 4 has the same issues as claim 1 above and the remaining claims are rejected by virtue of their dependence on a rejected base claim.
Conclusion
The examiner has performed a prior art search of the concepts in the specification. That prior art is made of record and is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHAEL ALSIP whose telephone number is (571)270-1182. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9-5.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Reginald G. Bragdon can be reached at (571)272-4204. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MICHAEL ALSIP/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2139