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
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant’s submission filed on 10/21/2025 has been entered.
This Office Action is in response to the amendment filed on 10/21/2025; claim 1 has been amended; claim 1 is independent claim. Claims 3 and 5 have been canceled. Claims 1, 2, and 4 have been examined and are pending. This Action is made Non-FINAL.
Response to Arguments
Applicants’ arguments with amended limitations under 35 U.S.C. § 101 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
a. Applicant argues that the amended limitation “ranking distributed edge nodes that have passed the trusted verification based on computed S values from highest to lowest; selecting a top 50% of ranked distributed edge nodes to participate in a model aggregation process” define a specific, quantifiable, and non-conventional rule for post-computation node selection that materially improves network security and efficiency (Applicant's Remarks/Arguments, pages 6-8).
The Examiner respectfully disagrees.
One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that “ranking distributed edge nodes… ” and “electing a top 50% of ranked distributed edge nodes to participate in a model aggregation process” are mental processes as said operations could be performed in the human mind. These limitations fail to integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. Therefore, the claim is directed to non-statutory subject matter
b. Applicant argues that the amended limitation “wherein an amount of added noise is inversely related to the correlation” define the core of a specific, adaptive control algorithm. This transforms the generic concept of "adding noise" into a dynamic technical process for intelligently managing the privacy-utility trade-off, a specific problem in federated learning. This is a technical implementation of differential privacy, not a mere recitation of the concept (Applicant's Remarks/Arguments, pages 6-8).
The Examiner respectfully disagrees.
The "inversely related" limitation recites a mathematical relationship. Specifying that noise amount varies inversely with correlation (i.e., noise ∝ 1/correlation) is a mathematical concept - a functional relationship between two variables. This falls squarely within the category of abstract ideas identified in MPEP 2106.04(a)(2) (mathematical concepts and relationships). The limitation does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. Applicant characterizes the inverse relationship as "intelligently managing the privacy-utility trade-off," but achieving a desired result through a mathematical relationship does not confer patent eligibility. The claim lacks additional active steps integrating the mathematical relationship into a practical application. The claim does not recite specific actions that transform the abstract mathematical concept into a concrete technological solution. Therefore, the amended limitations do not overcome the § 101 rejection.
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.
Claims 1, 2, and 4 are rejected under 35 USC 101 as being directed to an abstract idea without being integrated into a practical application or being significantly more.
Regarding claim 1, the claim is directed to an abstract idea as reciting the limitations “computing a local module reputation evaluation S, expressed as: S=|F-E|;” “calculating correlation scores…;” “performing Softmax normalization on the correlation scores…;” “calculating a correlation between upload and download parameters ...;” “ranking distributed edge nodes that … selecting a top 50% of ranked distributed edge nodes ...” and “adding noise by Gaussian noise; wherein an amount of added noise is inversely related to the correlation” which are mathematical concepts/calculations and/or mental processes. Therefore, the claims recite an abstract idea.
Said abstract idea and/or judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application as the claim do not recite any other active steps that could be considered that the abstract idea is being integrated into a practical application. It’s noted that the claims recite the steps of “providing a federated learning framework ..;” “providing a multiple authentication mechanism …;” “obtaining a final self-attention representation;” and “providing an adaptive perturbation mechanism …;”
However, the aforementioned steps are not sufficient to consider that the abstract idea is being integrated into a practical application as said steps are recited at a high leave of generality in data gathering/processing, which are in a form of insignificant extra-solution activity.
It's also noted that the claims recite additional elements/limitations (i.e., learning framework, memory, processor, etc.,). However, said additional elements/limitations are recited at a high-level of generality (i.e., as a generic computing device performing generic computing functions) such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply exception or abstract idea using generic computing components. Accordingly, these additional elements/limitations do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application as they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea.
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional elements when considered both individually and as an ordered combination do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. As mentioned above, although the claims recite additional elements, said elements taken individually or as a combination, do not result in the claim amounting to significantly more than the abstract idea because as the additional elements perform generic computer content distributing functions routinely used in information technology field. Therefore, the claim is directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Regarding claims 2 and 4; claims 2 and 4 are also rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter for the same reasons addressed above as the claims recite an abstract idea and the claims do not positively recite any other operations that could be considered as the abstract idea is being integrated into a practical application or significantly more. It’s noted that claim 2 recites the limitations: ”it is judged whether the number of local edge nodes …;” ; “if so, a node selection verification is performed; otherwise ..”; and ; Claim 4 recites the limitations: “ classifying the dataset …” etc., Said steps are either directed to mathematical concepts/calculations and/or mental processes and/or in a form of insignificant extra-solution activities. Therefore, claims 2-4 are also rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Conclusion
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/Canh Le/
Examiner, Art Unit 2439
November 12th, 2025
/LUU T PHAM/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2439