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 .
This communication is in response to the application filed on 03/05/2025.
Claims 1-20 are pending and are rejected.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 05/30/2025, 09/29/2025, and 07/23/2026 were filed. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over McCown (US 10511493 B1) in view of Cardone (US 20070260693 A1).
Regarding claims 1, 12, and 20, McCown teaches a method, comprising:
maintaining a set of virtual email addresses for a user, wherein each virtual email address is mapped to a respective set of information related to the user (col.5, lines 11-17, in the case of a main Digital Identity of john.doe@sudomail.com, then some of the many role-based emails that could be created are: jdoe@sudomail.com or jd@sudomail.com, john007@sudomail.com (calculated), or even a hobby-based email (e.g., john007_amazon@sudomail.com));
detecting a trigger event corresponding to the user accessing a resource (col. 4, lines 49-51, fig. 1, the Digital Identity App (DIA) 102 submits a request to the Digital Identity Manager Server (DIMS) 104 to create a new role (a trigger event));
in response to detecting the trigger event, updating a user interface of a client device of the user to present the set of virtual email addresses (col. 4, lines 58-65, once the new role is created, the DIA 102 requests a new email address for the new role. The DIMS 104 synchronizes the account changes with DIA client 102);
detecting, at the user interface, a selection of a particular virtual email address (col. 5, lines 49-55, FIG. 2 illustrates a menu 200 supplied by the Digital Identity App 102, which allows a user to select a digital identity. After selecting a digital identity, a menu 201 allows a user to select a role for the selected digital identity when accessing a web site 112);
McCown does not explicitly teach
obtaining the respective set of information mapped to the particular virtual email address; and
providing the particular virtual email address and the respective set of information for the particular virtual email address to an entity associated with the resource.
Cardone teaches
obtaining the respective set of information mapped to the particular virtual email address ([0042] virtual addresses are mapped to exactly one actual address, but different virtual addresses can be mapped to the same actual address); and
providing the particular virtual email address and the respective set of information for the particular virtual email address to an entity associated with the resource ([0048], fig. 5, once the network location of the resolution server 670 is known, the plug-in code issues a virtual address resolution request to the resolution server 670).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the claimed invention made to include in the McCown disclosure, mapping information virtual email addresses, as taught by Cardone. One would be motivated to do so to enable the portability of email addresses on the Internet to improve security.
Regarding claims 2 and 13, McCown and Cardone teach all limitations of parent claims 1 and 12, wherein McCown further teaches the user interface enables the user to indicate which information is shared with each virtual email address (col. 2, lines 7-12, sending/receiving of email, purchasing, newsletter subscriptions, web researching, personal medical research).
Regarding claims 3 and 14, McCown and Cardone tach all limitations of parent claims 1 and 12, wherein McCown further teaches the user interface enables the user to edit each virtual email address (col. 2, lines 32-35, user could change the digital identity's email address or even delete the digital identity in order to block the tracking or spamming activities).
Regarding claims 4 and 15, McCown and Cardone teach all limitations of parent claims 1 and 12, wherein McCown further teaches detecting the trigger event corresponding to the user accessing the resource comprises detecting that the user accessed a resource that requested credentials from the user (col. 4, lines 52-53, the DIMS 104 receives the request and creates the new role as directed and assigns it to the DI's account).
Regarding claims 5 and 16, McCown and Cardone teach all limitations of parent claims 1 and 12, wherein McCown further teaches updating the user interface of the client device of the user to present the set of virtual email addresses comprises presenting a particular view of the user interface based on the trigger event (col. 6, lines 51-55, FIG. 2 illustrates a menu 200 supplied by the Digital Identity App 102, which allows a user to select a digital identity. After selecting a digital identity, a menu 201 allows a user to select a role for the selected digital identity when accessing a web site).
Regarding claims 6 and 17, McCown and Cardone teach all limitations of parent claims 1 and 12, wherein McCown further teaches the user interface presents the respective set of information mapped to at least one of the virtual email addresses (Col. 5-6, lines66-67 and 1-2, Creating a new email address is different from normal methods where a user chooses a memorable name that they can easily remember in that the DIAM process creates a machine generated email address).
Regarding claims 7 and 18, McCown and Cardone teach all limitations of parent claims 1 and 12, wherein McCown further teaches a view of the user interface presents a history of the use of at least one virtual email address as an identifier for the user (col. 2, lines 25-28 and 38-42, re-connect the new information to each of the legitimate activities, websites, and/or people previously connected to the original digital identity. This could disrupt user activities, because, once given out, an email address cannot readily be replaced without a lot of effort).
Regarding claims 8 and 19, McCown and Cardone teach the method of claims 7 and 18, wherein McCown further teaches the history of the use of the at least one virtual email address comprises information indicating at least one of resources, destinations, or requesting entities that have access to the at least one virtual email address as the identifier for the user (co. 2, lines 26-27, the digital identity's email address to someone that they previously did not know was a spammer or otherwise engaged in online usage tracking activities).
Regarding claim 9, McCown and Cardone teach the method of claim 1, further comprising:
detecting an additional trigger event for deleting a given virtual email address; and deleting the given virtual email address in response to detecting the additional trigger event (col. 5, lines 58-65, FIG. 3 depicts how various machine generated email addresses are correlated within the DIAM server 104, the Email Server 108, and the Digital identity's email inbox 102. With this mapping process, all of the machine generated email addresses corresponding to the various roles within a digital identity may be independently used, but then the incoming emails are processed according to the mapped role and are then collected within the digital identity's email inbox).
Regarding claim 10, McCown and Cardone teach the method of claim 1, further comprising:
detecting an additional trigger event for creating a new virtual email address; and updating the user interface to present a particular view that enables the user to use the new virtual email address (col. 2, lines 1-3, using such applications, users may create a new digital identity to isolate one set of their online activities from another set of online activities).
Regarding claim 11, McCown and Cardone teach the method of claim 10, further comprising automatically generating the new virtual email address, wherein the particular view enables the user to modify attributes of the new virtual email address (col. 5, lines 34-36, if the randomized email address just created is in use, then loop to Step 1 until a unique ‘local-part’ is generated).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Almeida (US 20120317222 A1) and Kurian (US 20210097534 A1).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANH NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)270-0657. The examiner can normally be reached M-F.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Umar Cheema can be reached at 5712703037. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ANH NGUYEN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2458
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