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 .
The amendments were received on 4/21/2026. Claims 1-20 are pending where claims 1-20 were previously presented.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 8/12/2026 has been entered.
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 1-4, 6-11, 13-18, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wideman [US 2015/086701 A1] in view of Blom et al [US 2013/0326578 A1], Upadhyay et al [US 2022/0043836 A1], and Mutreja et al [US 2018/0352034 A1].
With regard to claim 1, Wideman teaches a system comprising: a processor; and a memory comprising computer program code, the memory and the computer program code configured to cause the processor to (see Figure 8):
maintain stored associations between data entities and associated data handling contracts of data entities (see paragraphs [0025] and [0033]; the system can have stored/created data handling contracts/policies that are associated with data entities/file types);
receive a data entity via an interface from a data entity source (see paragraphs [0003] “An application or client may provide data to an object store” and [0018]; the client or data entity source can provide the data to the system, “An application or client that provides data 100 to data classifier 110 may not need to be aware of the policies, namespaces, or buckets available in the object store 120.”);
determine whether the received data entity conforms with a previously stored association in the maintained stored associations between the data entities and the associated data handling contracts of the data entities (see paragraphs [0024] and [0035]; the system has means to determine that the received data, i.e. new data, does not map or associated with an existing storage policy or data handling contract;
“For example, a new type of data that requires encryption may be encountered and no buckets may currently be providing encryption”, paragraph [0035];
“In one embodiment, an application may determine that some data it is providing to object store 320 ought to be protected with a different level of protection than object store 320 is currently providing. Therefore the application may ask or direct object store 320 to produce a new policy and namespace.”, paragraph [0024]);
and process the received data entity by: responsive to determining that the received data entity conforms with the previously stored association, process the received data entity based on an associated data handling contract of the previously stored association without requesting consent from the data entity source to use the data handling contract of the previously stored association (see paragraph [0018]; the system can process the received data based on an analysis of the parameters/features of the data entity/file and can automatically store the data entity based on its association with a data handling contract/policy);
and responsive to determining that the received data entity does not conform with the previously stored association: extract data entity features from the received data entity (see (see paragraphs [0024] and [0035] and [0018]; the system can produce a new policy/data handling contract including means to extract or identify parameters/features based on the file content or metadata; “The data classifier 110 may identify the start or end of files, may identify the start or end of metadata associated with files, may examine the contents of files, or may take other actions. The data classifier 110 may then identify one or more parameters for a file based on the metadata, file content, or other file attributes (e.g., size).”);
determine a data entity class for the received data entity using the extracted data entity features as input to
determine a data handling contract associated with the determined data entity class of the received data entity,
“Method 600 also includes, at 630, selecting a data storage policy associated with a member of the two or more data destinations. Which storage policy is selected may be based, at least in part, on the value of the attribute. For example, a first policy may be selected for data that is of a first file type and above a first file size, a second policy may be selected for data that is of a certain age, and a third policy may be selected for data that is being produced above a threshold rate.”, para 33;
“The apparatus 800 may also include a second logic 834 that selects a bucket from the two or more buckets. Which bucket is selected may be based, at least in part, on the classification of the item. For example, an item of a first type (e.g., word processing file) may be stored in a first bucket while an item of a second type (e.g., movie file) may be stored in a second bucket. In one embodiment, the second logic 834 selects the bucket by matching the classification to storage parameters associated with members of the two or more buckets.”, para 50);
Wideman does not appear to explicitly teach:
wherein the received data entity includes an indicator attached to the received data entity by the data entity source, the indicator specifying a manner in which the received data entity is to be handled;
determine a data entity class for the received data entity using the extracted data entity features as input to a trained machine learning (ML) model and based on the indicator;
determine a data handling contract associated with the determined data entity class of the received data entity, and based on the indicator,
wherein the determined data handling contract specifies a data handling operation corresponding to the manner in which the indicator specifies that the received data entity is to be handled;
request consent from the data entity source to use the determined data handling contract;
receive a consent response consenting to use of the determined data handling contract from the data entity source;
store an association among the received data entity, the indicator, and the determined data handling contract for use with the received data entity and future data entities that conform with the stored association;
and process the received data entity based on the received consent response and using the determined data handling contract, wherein processing the received data entity using the determined data handling contract comprises performing the data handling operation specified by the determined data handling contract.
Mutreja teaches wherein the received data entity includes an indicator attached to the received data entity by the data entity source, the indicator specifying a manner in which the received data entity is to be handled (see Figure 4 and paragraphs [0047]-[0050] and [0035]-[0037]; file objects or data entities can be tagged with an indicator can be transmitted from a device and received by the system).
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify the data classification aware object storage system of Wideman by including means to have users provide tags/indicators about their files/content and be able to transmit those tags/indicators with any transmitted files as taught by Mutreja in order to allow the system to leverage the user’s knowledge of the data entity/file and be able to tag the file as appropriate about any particular parameters the user(s) want with the file including determining whether the file/entity is confidential and how long it should be stored thus helping the receiving system to be able to automatically determine what policies/rules should apply to the received data entity/file.
Wideman in view of Mutreja do not appear to explicitly teach:
determine a data entity class for the received data entity using the extracted data entity features as input to a trained machine learning (ML) model and based on the indicator;
determine a data handling contract associated with the determined data entity class of the received data entity, and based on the indicator,
wherein the determined data handling contract specifies a data handling operation corresponding to the manner in which the indicator specifies that the received data entity is to be handled;
request consent from the data entity source to use the determined data handling contract;
receive a consent response consenting to use of the determined data handling contract from the data entity source;
store an association among the received data entity, the indicator, and the determined data handling contract for use with the received data entity and future data entities that conform with the stored association;
and process the received data entity based on the received consent response and using the determined data handling contract, wherein processing the received data entity using the determined data handling contract comprises performing the data handling operation specified by the determined data handling contract.
Blom teaches request consent from the data entity source to use the determined data handling contract; receive a consent response consenting to use of the determined data handling contract from the data entity source (see paragraphs [0042]-[0044] and [0091]; the system can request confirmation or consent to use a particular policy/contract; “In one embodiment, the user may confirm a presented privacy and/or security policy, for example, for applying to an instance of data and/or value, or for storing at a device and/or at a service provider.”, para 42).
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify the data classification aware object storage system of Wideman in further view of Mutreja by including means to request approval from a user on the expected/determined policy/contract as taught by Blom in order to provide the users’ of the system greater control over how their data is utilized by the storage system so that the user can agree to using a particular data handling contract/policy versus a black box system that is performing various actions without the user knowing for sure how their data is being handled.
Wideman in view of Mutreja and Blom do not appear to explicitly teach:
determine a data entity class for the received data entity using the extracted data entity features as input to a trained machine learning (ML) model and based on the indicator;
determine a data handling contract associated with the determined data entity class of the received data entity, and based on the indicator,
wherein the determined data handling contract specifies a data handling operation corresponding to the manner in which the indicator specifies that the received data entity is to be handled;
store an association among the received data entity, the indicator, and the determined data handling contract for use with the received data entity and future data entities that conform with the stored association;
and process the received data entity based on the received consent response and using the determined data handling contract, wherein processing the received data entity using the determined data handling contract comprises performing the data handling operation specified by the determined data handling contract.
Upadhyay teaches determine a data entity class for the received data entity using the extracted data entity features as input to a trained machine learning (ML) model and based on the indicator (see paragraphs [0008], [0038], [0323], [0317], [0326], and [0330]; the system has means to train a machine learning model to create a trained machine learning model that can be used to classify/determine a class or classification for the data based on the characteristics/features of the data including based on the received indicator/tag;
“Thus, the information management system can, on-demand, train an artificial intelligence model to classify data files as being or not being a user-defined classification (e.g., a classification derived from common characteristics of the data files selected to be assigned the custom tag)”, para 38;
“For example, the selected data file(s) may have been previously tagged with one or more tags, where each tag corresponds to a keyword, alphanumeric character, and/or other entity present in the content of the data file or otherwise associated with the data file.”, para 326).
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify the data classification aware object storage system of Wideman in view of Mutreja and Blom by having means to train the classifier as taught by Upadhyay in order to allow for greater versatility of the classifier by being able to be customized/trained and updated accordingly for various custom classifications as needed by the system thereby helping the system improve accuracy and performance of its classification for later/future users.
Wideman in view of Mutreja, Blom, and Upadhyay determine a data handling contract associated with the determined data entity class of the received data entity, and based on the indicator, wherein the determined data handling contract specifies a data handling operation corresponding to the manner in which the indicator specifies that the received data entity is to be handled (see Upadhyay, paragraphs [0008], [0038], [0323], [0317], [0326], and [0330]; see Mutreja, paragraphs [0047]-[0050], [0066], and [0035]-[0037]; see Wideman, paragraphs [0033] and [0049]-[0050]; the system can determine a data handling contract or data storage policy based on the attributes or classification of the data including some operation that applied to the data entity/file such as how long to store it before migrating to a different data store or even compression);
store an association among the received data entity, the indicator, and the determined data handling contract for use with the received data entity and future data entities that conform with the stored association (see Upadhyay, paragraph [0220]; see Wideman, paragraphs [0024] [0033], and [0035]; the system can associate the respective data with the policy/classification, “Data associated with a storage policy can be logically organized into subclients, which may represent primary data 112 and/or secondary copies 116. A subclient may represent static or dynamic associations of portions of a data volume. Subclients may represent mutually exclusive portions. Thus, in certain embodiments, a portion of data may be given a label and the association is stored as a static entity in an index, database or other storage location.”);
and process the received data entity based on the received consent response and using the determined data handling contract, wherein processing the received data entity using the determined data handling contract comprises performing the data handling operation specified by the determined data handling contract (see Blom, paragraph [0042]; see Wideman, paragraph [0047]; based on the respective policies the storage system has means to process the received data accordingly including whether to encrypt or compress data; “In one embodiment, the set 830 of logics operate to allow an object store to selectively compress data... In one embodiment, the set 830 of logics operate to allow an object store to selectively encrypt data.”, Wideman, para 47 ).
With regard to claim 2, Wideman in view of Mutreja, Blom, and Upadhyay teach wherein the determined data handling contract includes at least one of a data encryption indicator, a storage location indicator, or a user access rule indicator (see Wideman, paragraph [0026]; the system can include various information/indicators as part of the data handling contract/storage policy including encryption types/indicators).
With regard to claim 3, Wideman in view of Mutreja, Blom, and Upadhyay teach wherein the extracted data entity features include at least one of a data pattern in the data entity, an image pattern in an image file of the data entity, an audio pattern in an audio file of the data entity, a video pattern in a video file of the data entity, or an identifier of the data entity source (see Wideman, paragraph [0031]; the extracted features/attributes can include data entity size or file size as well as identifier of the data entity source).
With regard to claim 4, Wideman in view of Mutreja, Blom, and Upadhyay teach wherein determining the data entity class of the received data entity includes determining that the received data entity is of a confidential data entity class; and wherein determining the data handling contract associated with the determined data entity class of the received data entity includes determining the data handling contract associated with the confidential data entity class that includes a data entity encryption operation and a data entity user access rule (see Blom, paragraph [0095]; see Upadhyay, paragraph [0225]; the system can have a privacy/security policy associated with confidential/private data that has rules for what entities or users can access/view the data).
With regard to claim 6, Wideman in view of Mutreja, Blom, and Upadhyay teach wherein receiving the data entity from the data entity source includes storing the data entity in a secure data store; and wherein the memory and the computer program code are configured to further cause the processor to: retrieve the stored data entity from the secure data store based on receiving the consent response; and process the retrieved data entity using the determined data handling contract (see Wideman, paragraph [0020] and Figure 2; the system can receive the data at a data store and be able to perform the necessary analysis/classification to determine how to process the data including where to store it).
With regard to claim 7, Wideman in view of Mutreja, Blom, and Upadhyay teach wherein the memory and the computer program code are configured to further cause the processor to: receive a second data entity via the interface from the data entity source; determine the received second data entity conforms with the stored association between the received data entity and the determined data handling contract and process the received second data entity using the determined data handling contract (Wideman, paragraphs [0003], [0018], and [0020]; the system allows users to transmit additional files that can be evaluated and determined to match with existing policies/contracts and can be associated/steered to that policy).
With regard to claim 8, this claim is substantially similar to claim 1 and is rejected for similar reasons as discussed above.
With regard to claims 9-11, 13, and 14, these claims are substantially similar to claims 2-4, 6, and 7 respectively and are rejected for similar reasons as discussed above.
With regard to claim 15, this claim is substantially similar to claim 1 and is rejected for similar reasons as discussed above.
With regard to claims 16-18 and 20, these claims are substantially similar to claims 2-4 and 6 respectively and are rejected for similar reasons as discussed above.
Claims 5, 12, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wideman [US 2015/086701 A1] in view of Blom et al [US 2013/0326578 A1], Upadhyay et al [US 2022/0043836 A1], and Mutreja et al [US 2018/0352034 A1] in further view of Chatley et al [US 2009/0132543 A1].
With regard to claim 5, Wideman in view of Mutreja, Blom, and Upadhyay teach all the claim limitations of claim 1 as discussed above.
Wideman in view of Mutreja, Blom, and Upadhyay teach wherein receiving the data entity from the data entity source includes receiving a Universally Unique Identifier (UUID) associated with the received data entity (see Wideman, paragraph [0019]; global unique identifier is associated with the data/files).
Wideman in view of Mutreja, Blom, and Upadhyay teach associations of the files/data entities with the policies in an index (see Wideman, paragraph [0033];; Upadhyay paragraph [0220]; the buckets/storage are associated with files/data entities and data entities can be associated with policies) but do not appear to explicitly teach:
wherein the UUID associates a data entity type with a specific one or more data handling contracts;
wherein determining whether the received data entity conforms with a previously stored association in the maintained stored associations between the data entities and the associated data handling contracts includes:
comparing the received UUID associated with the received data entity to UUIDs of data entities of the stored associations between the data entities and the associated data handling contracts;
and determining whether or not the received UUID associated with the received data entity is present in the UUIDs of the data entities of the maintained stored associations between the data entities and the associated data handling contracts.
Chatley teaches comparing the received UUID associated with the received data entity to UUIDs of data entities of the stored associations between the data entities
It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to modify the data classification aware object storage system of Wideman in view of Mutreja, Blom, and Upadhyay by having means to allow for comparisons of unique identifiers to determine if identical or duplicate files/data entities are already in the storage system as taught by Chatley in order to allow for deduplication of files/data entities by saving storage space by not storing and protecting newly received files that are already in the system whenever the files are received thus helping to ensure that the storage system does not get overburdened or overutilized by applying the various policies or data handling contracts to multiple instances of the same file.
Wideman in view of Mutreja, Blom, and Upadhyay in further view of Chatley teach wherein the UUID associates a data entity type with a specific one or more data handling contracts; wherein determining whether the received data entity conforms with a previously stored association in the maintained stored associations between the data entities and the associated data handling contracts includes: comparing the received UUID associated with the received data entity to UUIDs of data entities of the stored associations between the data entities and the associated data handling contracts; and determining whether or not the received UUID associated with the received data entity is present in the UUIDs of the data entities of the maintained stored associations between the data entities and the associated data handling contracts (see Chatley, paragraphs [0080], [0096], and [0097]; see Wideman, [0019], [0020], [0025], [0032], and [0034]; see Upadhyay, paragraphs [0091] [0220]; the system can utilize buckets to store the various data entities which the ability to know what data entities are already stored in each bucket and respective data handling contract/policy with means to do comparisons of files to avoid storing duplicate files and applying the contract multiple times to the same data file).
With regard to claims 12 and 19, these claims are substantially similar to claim 5 and are rejected for similar reasons as discussed above.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments (see the last paragraph on page 10 through the last paragraph on page 12) with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) under 35 USC 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Mutreja. The applicant amended the claims to incorporate new claim limitations that required further search and consideration of the prior art. As discussed above, the updated search resulted in a new reference being found that, when combined, would appear to teach or fairly suggest the claim limitations as amended.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MARC S SOMERS whose telephone number is (571)270-3567. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 11-8 EST.
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/MARC S SOMERS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2159 8/21/2026
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