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
Currently pending claim is 1.
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 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without being integrated into a practical application or significantly more.
With regard to claim 1, the claim is recited as being directed to a method claim.
The claim is directed to an abstract idea as it recites the limitations “determining, a model that represents interactions between multiple users and multiple shared files …”, “generating, one or more clusters for the model …, “receiving interactions between at least some of the multiple users and at least some of the multiple shared files …”, and “determining respective scores for the interactions …”. Broadly interpreted, the aforementioned steps are directed to mental processes as said steps could be performed in the human mind. Therefore, the claim recites an abstract idea.
Said abstract idea and/or judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application as the claim does not recite any other active steps that utilize determination result into a practical application. It's noted that the claim recites additional elements (i.e., “a model”, a “user-to-file graph”, “one or more clusters”, and etc.), said additional elements are recited at a high-level of generality such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception or abstract idea using a generic computing technologies (i.e. a model as a tool). Accordingly, the additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea and appear to merely add the use of generic computing technologies which are merely executing the abstract idea within a generic computer device (terminal). (See MPEP 2106.05(b))
The claim does 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 claim recites 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 / sharing functions routinely used in information technology field. In turn, these additional elements invoke computers or other machinery merely as a tool being used in their ordinary capacity similar to TLI Communications (See MPEP 2106.05(f)(2)). As discussed above, the additional elements recited at a high-level of generality such that they amount no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component without providing sufficient details of how these additional elements are achieved (See MPEP 2106.05(a)) such as how to construct the model and how to determine the score using the constructed model. Therefore, the claim is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory (or provisional) double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the "right to exclude" granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. See In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); and In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969). A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on a nonstatutory double patenting ground provided the conflicting application or patent is shown to be commonly owned with this application. See 37 CFR 1.130(b).
Effective January 1, 1994, a registered attorney or agent of record may sign a terminal disclaimer. A terminal disclaimer signed by the assignee must fully comply with 37 CFR 3.73(b).
Claim 1 is rejected under the judicially created doctrine of (or provisional) obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claim 1 – 18 of U.S. Patent No. 12,309,124. Although the conflicting claims are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other – accordingly, because the listed claims of U.S. Patent virtually contain(s) every element of the listed claims of the instant application and thus anticipate the claim(s) of the instant application. Claim(s) of the instant application therefore is/are not patently distinct from the earlier patent claim(s) and as such is/are unpatentable over obvious-type double patenting. A later patent claim is not patentably distinct from an earlier patent claim if the later claim is obvious over, or anticipated by, the earlier claim. In re Longi, 759 F.2d at 896, 225 USPQ at 651 (affirming a holding of obviousness-type double patenting because the claims at issue were obvious over claims in four prior art patents); In re Berg, 140 F.3d at 1437, 46 USPQ2d at 1233 (Fed. Cir. 1998) (affirming a holding of obviousness type double patenting where a patent application claim to a genus is anticipated by a patent claim to a species within that genus). “ELI LILLY AND COMPANY v BARR LABORATORIES, INC., United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, ON PETITION FOR REHEARING EN BANC (DECIDED: May 30, 2001)”.
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 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.
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 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ganesh et al. (U.S. Patent 10,296,520), in view of Sakaki et al. (U.S. Patent 7,176,791).
As per claim 1, Ganesh teaches a method of predicting user-file interactions comprising:
determining a model that represents interactions between multiple users and multiple shared files that are commonly accessible among the multiple users in a collaboration environment at least by converting a user-to-file graph into a converted graph (Ganesh: Figure 5 / E-520 & Col. 5 Line 21 – 30: (a) an analysis model analyzes the relationships of a plurality pairs of users associated with user-to-file activities in a collaboration environment where each user has accessed a common set of files and (b) represents the analysis result as a collaborated graph (i.e. a user-to-user graph (Ganesh: Figure 5 / E-520)) upon translating corresponding pair(s) of user-to-file relationship(s) (see Sakaki below: user-to-file graph) based on an (overlapped) intersection of a common set of file(s) being accessed by a respective pair of users).
However, even though Ganesh teaches to establish a user-to-user graph, Ganesh does not disclose expressly a user-to-file graph such that a corresponding pair of user-to-file(s) relationship can be represented as a user-to-file graph.
Sakaki (& Ganesh) teaches a corresponding pair of user-to-file(s) relationship can be represented as a user-to-file graph (Sakaki: Figure 22 & Col. 2 Line 26 – 37, Col. 11 Line 24 – 28 and Col. 28 Line 63 – 66: correlating a plurality of vulnerabilities by identifying user-to-file interactions and representing respective user-to-file relationship(s) with a user-to-file graph (Sakaki: FIG. 22) for determining collaboration information associated with the interactions of files (e.g. a file transfer) being accessed by users and securely detecting improper data movement due to malicious attacks).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to propose the modification that a corresponding pair of user-to-file(s) relationship can be represented as a user-to-file graph because (a) Ganesh teaches securely provides an analysis model that analyzes the relationships of a plurality pairs of users associated with user-to-file activities in a collaboration environment where each user has accessed a common set of files and represents the analysis result as a collaborated graph upon translating corresponding pair(s) of user-to-file relationship(s) based on an (overlapped) intersection of a common set of file(s) being accessed by a respective pair of users (see above) and (b) Sakaki teaches effectively providing a graph-based security verification system by correlating a plurality of vulnerabilities based on identifying user-to-file interactions and representing user-to-file(s) relationship(s) with a user-to-file graph for determining collaboration information associated with the interactions of files (e.g. a file transfer) being accessed by users and detecting improper data movement due to malicious attacks in lack of sufficient permissions / privileges (see above)).
at least a file node of multiple file nodes is removed from the user-to-file graph in determining the model (Ganesh || Sakak: see above: representing the analysis result by translating corresponding pair(s) of user-to-file(s) relationship(s) (i.e. user-to-file graph (Sakaki: FIG. 22)) into a collaborated graph (i.e. user-to-user graph (Ganesh: Figure 5 / E-520)) based on removing of the (overlapped) intersection of the common set of files being accessed by a corresponding pair of users), and
the user-to-file graph comprises multiple user nodes respectively connected to the multiple file nodes respectively representing the multiple shared files with one or more corresponding edges that represent the interactions between the multiple user nodes and the multiple file nodes (Sakaki: see above & Figure 22 & Col. 2 Line 26 – 37, Col. 11 Line 24 – 28 and Col. 28 Line 63 – 66: (a) providing a graph-based security verification system, wherein the graph is represented with a user node along with an edge directed to a file node (Sakaki: FIG. 22) for identifying user-to-file interactions for determining a file transfer / access by users and accordingly, and (b) a verification (algorithm-based) model is established for security verification to detect improper data movement due to malicious attacks in lack of sufficient permissions / privileges) || (Ganesh: see above);
generating one or more clusters for the model from the converted graph (Ganesh: see above & Col. 2 Line 33 – 36, Col. 4 Line 56 – 59 and Col. 3 Line 63 – 65: (a) a cluster can be further established from the translated collaborated graph (i.e. a user-to-user graph (Ganesh: Figure 5 / E-520)) based on the user attributes of the user(s) that includes (e.g.) business unit affiliation (e.g. engineering department), wherein (b) employees in an engineering department collaborates with each other by working on the same or common / similar files (in the same file folder));
receiving interactions between at least some of the multiple users and at least some of the multiple shared files in the collaboration system (see above); and
determining respective scores for the interactions using the model (Ganesh: see above & Figure 3 & Col. 5 Line 38 – 65 / Line 21 – 30 and Col. 6 Line 16 – 18,: (a) a weighting calculation mechanism that constitutes a scoring function to perform behavioral analysis based on the characteristics of interactions regarding file access(es) by user(s) using the merit(s) of weight(s) factors, wherein (b) each link of an activity graph has two different attributes representing as (i) a relationship attribute between two users (w.r.t accessing a same / common / similar file), i.e. user-to-user activity, as well as (& at a same context) (ii) a file access association attribute between a user and an accessed target file, i.e. user-to-file activity, such that a node can represent not only a user node but also a data object (file) node in view of different aspects of link attributes (Ganesh: Col. 5 Line 23 – 30) and as such, (c) an associated user-to-file activity graph is created between users which is created to represent each user of pairs of users has accessed a same file or a different file within a file folder using a hierarchical clustering technique based on calculated weight value (Ganesh: FIG. 3 / E-340, FIG. 5 & FIG.
6)).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LONGBIT CHAI whose telephone number is (571)272-3788. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 9:00am-5:00pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Lynn D. Feild can be reached at 571-272-2092. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Longbit Chai/
Longbit Chai E.E. Ph.D.
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2431
No. #2596 – 2026 ---------------------------------------------------
Prosecution Insights