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 .
Status of Claims
Claims 2-21 remain pending and are ready for examination.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 08/28/2025, was 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.
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejections are 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. A nonstatutory double patenting rejections are appropriate where the claims at issue are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); 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) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on a nonstatutory double patenting ground provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with this application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP §§ 706.02(1)(1) - 706.02(1)(3) for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The USPTO Internet website contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit www.uspto.gov/forms/. The filing date of the application in which the form is filed determines what form (e.g., PTO/SB/25, PTO/SB/26, PTO/AIA '25, or PTO/AIA '26) should be used. A web-based eTerminal Disclaimer may be filled out completely online using web-screens. An eTerminal Disclaimer that meets all requirements is auto-processed and approved immediately upon submission. For more information about eTerminal Disclaimers, refer to
http://www.uspto.gov/patents/process/fil e/efs/g uid ance/e TD-info-1.jsp.
Claims 2-21 non-provisionally rejected on the ground of non-statutory non-obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-22 of US. Patent No. 10795926. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because instant claims include all the features in the Patent claims.
Claims 2-21 non-provisionally rejected on the ground of non-statutory non-obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-9 of US. Patent No. 11741150. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because instant claims include all the features in the Patent claims.
Claims 2-21 non-provisionally rejected on the ground of non-statutory non-obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-18 of US. Patent No. 12271416. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because instant claims include all the features in the Patent claims.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 2, 6-9, 11-12, 16-19 and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang et al., U.S. Patent No: US 8078625 B1 (Hereinafter “Zhang”) in view of Wu et al., U.S. Pub No: US 20100198837 A1 (Hereinafter “Wu”).
Regarding claim 2, Zhang discloses A system comprising:
a processor (see fig.1); and
a memory communicably coupled to the processor and storing instructions that, when executed by the processor (see fig.1), cause the system to:
obtain a plurality of search results in response to receiving a search query (see col.3 line [35-59], wherein Even if there is little web page content to be used in automatically categorizing a web page, the URL associated with an objectionable web page, especially pornographic web pages, may include information that is helpful in identifying a category for the web page. For example, additional information, such as search terms, may be stored as a part of a URL to be passed to the web server (e.g., “amateur and “sex” in the example Google image search above). Such terms may indicate the human user's intent. Therefore, even when there is little information available from the content of a web page, the URL may still provide valuable information about the category of the content. In addition to relevant information embedded in URLs,),
determine a resource, identified by a search result of the plurality of search results, includes non-consensually produced, objectionable content (see col.2 line [58-67] and col.9 line [35-50], wherein the system contain first classifier and second classifier. Wherein for example the first classifier corresponds to objectionable content and the second classifier corresponds to personally objectionable content. See also col.3 line [1-7] and col.9 line [35-50], wherein the content blocking program may analyze available information to determine whether the content of the web page belongs in an objectionable category, Such as pornography. If the content blocking program determines that the content belongs in an objectionable category, access to the web page may be blocked by the content blocking program. See also col.4 line [16-23], wherein a separate classifier may be used for each objectionable category to be detected. For example, there may be a binary categorization engine for pornography and a binary categorization engine for violence. The representation of a URL of a given web page of unknown category may then be input into each classifier to determine the likelihood that the web page belongs to the category of pornography and/or violence.),
in response to determining that the resource includes non-consensually produced, objectionable content, determine that the resource includes personally objectionable content (Zhang, see col.3 line [1-7] and col.9 line [35-50], wherein the content blocking program may analyze available information to determine whether the content of the web page belongs in an objectionable category, Such as pornography. If the content blocking program determines that the content belongs in an objectionable category, access to the web page may be blocked by the content blocking program. See also col.4 line [16-23], wherein a separate classifier may be used for each objectionable category to be detected. For example, there may be a binary categorization engine for pornography and a binary categorization engine for violence. The representation of a URL of a given web page of unknown category may then be input into each classifier to determine the likelihood that the web page belongs to the category of pornography and/or violence)
in response to the resource including personally objectionable content, generate filtered search results by filtering the search result from the plurality of search results (see col.3 line [1-7] and col.4 line [16-23], wherein when an individual attempts to access a web page, the content blocking program may analyze available information to determine whether the content of the web page belongs in an objectionable category, Such as pornography. If the content blocking program determines that the content belongs in an objectionable category, access to the web page may be blocked by the content blocking program), and
provide the filtered search results in response to receiving the search query (see col.3 line [1-7] and col.4 line [16-23], wherein when an individual attempts to access a web page, the content blocking program may analyze available information to determine whether the content of the web page belongs in an objectionable category, Such as pornography. If the content blocking program determines that the content belongs in an objectionable category, access to the web page may be blocked by the content blocking program).
Zhang fails to explicitly discloses in response to determining that the resource includes non-consensually produced, objectionable content, determine that the resource includes personally objectionable content based on a number of times the search query has been received relative to other queries and a threshold value.
Wu, discloses in response to determining that the resource includes non-consensually produced, objectionable content, determine that the resource includes personally objectionable content based on a number of times the search query has been received relative to other queries and a threshold value (Wu, see paragraph [077-0078, 0081-0082], wherein the popularity score can be based on the frequency with which the query super-string appears in the user search histories, for example, by taking the total number of times the super-string appears in the search histories and dividing that by the total number of query super-strings in the user search history plus the total number of times that a query for the entity appears in the user search histories).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the system of Zhang to include the missing limitation, as taught by Wu, because the system would improve search results and user experience (Wu; paragraphs [0004-0005]).
Regarding claim 6, Zhang in view of Wu further disclose wherein determining that the resource includes personally objectionable content is further based determining that the search query includes term associated with personally objectionable content (Zhang, see col. 3 line 14-31, wherein an analysis of about 1500 attempts by teenagers to access pornographic web pages indicated that more than half of the access attempts were image and keyword searches, and about 4% involved access to web pages with little text information. In such situations, content-based filters (i.e., those based on the content of the web page) alone may have difficulty in correctly categorizing these access attempts.
Accordingly, in one implementation, the content blocking program uses the uniform resource locators (URLs) of web pages, either by themselves or in combination with the content of the web pages, to perform the categorization. URLs are used on the World-Wide Web and other environments to identify and locate content segments and files. A URL has a structure including an Internet protocol identifier, a server hostname, and a file path. The path is transparent to the client and the client is free to encode any client request such as search keywords in the path).
Regarding claim 7, Zhang in view of Wu further disclose wherein the instructions further cause the system to, in response to determining that the resource including personally objectionable content, designate the resource as having personally objectionable content (Zhang, see col.2 line [58-67] and col.9 line [35-50], wherein the system contain first classifier and second classifier. Wherein for example the first classifier corresponds to objectionable content and the second classifier corresponds to personally objectionable content. See also col.3 line [1-7] and col.9 line [35-50], wherein the content blocking program may analyze available information to determine whether the content of the web page belongs in an objectionable category, Such as pornography. If the content blocking program determines that the content belongs in an objectionable category, access to the web page may be blocked by the content blocking program. See also col.4 line [16-23], wherein a separate classifier may be used for each objectionable category to be detected. For example, there may be a binary categorization engine for pornography and a binary categorization engine for violence. The representation of a URL of a given web page of unknown category may then be input into each classifier to determine the likelihood that the web page belongs to the category of pornography and/or violence).
Regarding claim 8, Zhang in view of Wu further disclose wherein the instructions further cause the system to determine the resource includes non-consensually produced, objectionable content using a classifier that is trained to determine whether content is professionally produced (Zhang, see col.2 line [58-67] and col.9 line [35-50], wherein the system contain first classifier and second classifier. Wherein for example the first classifier corresponds to objectionable content and the second classifier corresponds to personally objectionable content. See also col.3 line [1-7] and col.9 line [35-50], wherein the content blocking program may analyze available information to determine whether the content of the web page belongs in an objectionable category, Such as pornography. If the content blocking program determines that the content belongs in an objectionable category, access to the web page may be blocked by the content blocking program. See also col.4 line [16-23], wherein a separate classifier may be used for each objectionable category to be detected. For example, there may be a binary categorization engine for pornography and a binary categorization engine for violence. The representation of a URL of a given web page of unknown category may then be input into each classifier to determine the likelihood that the web page belongs to the category of pornography and/or violence).
Regarding claim 9, Zhang in view of Wu further disclose wherein the instructions further cause the system to determine the resource includes objectionable content by determining that the resource is designated as having objectionable content (Zhang, see col.2 line [58-67] and col.9 line [35-50], wherein the system contain first classifier and second classifier. Wherein for example the first classifier corresponds to objectionable content and the second classifier corresponds to personally objectionable content. See also col.3 line [1-7] and col.9 line [35-50], wherein the content blocking program may analyze available information to determine whether the content of the web page belongs in an objectionable category, Such as pornography. If the content blocking program determines that the content belongs in an objectionable category, access to the web page may be blocked by the content blocking program. See also col.4 line [16-23], wherein a separate classifier may be used for each objectionable category to be detected. For example, there may be a binary categorization engine for pornography and a binary categorization engine for violence. The representation of a URL of a given web page of unknown category may then be input into each classifier to determine the likelihood that the web page belongs to the category of pornography and/or violence).
Regarding claim 11, Zhang in view of Wu further disclose wherein the instructions further cause the system to, in response to the resource including personally objectionable content, designate the resource as having personally objectionable content by adding the resource to a list of resources filtered from search results (Zhang, see col.3 line [1-7] and col.9 line [35-50], wherein the content blocking program may analyze available information to determine whether the content of the web page belongs in an objectionable category, Such as pornography. If the content blocking program determines that the content belongs in an objectionable category, access to the web page may be blocked by the content blocking program. See also col.4 line [16-23], wherein a separate classifier may be used for each objectionable category to be detected. For example, there may be a binary categorization engine for pornography and a binary categorization engine for violence. The representation of a URL of a given web page of unknown category may then be input into each classifier to determine the likelihood that the web page belongs to the category of pornography and/or violence).
Claim 12 is rejected under the same rationale as claim 2.
Claim 16 is rejected under the same rationale as claim 2.
Claim 17-19 and 21 are rejected under the same rationale as claim 7-9 and 11.
Claims 3, 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang in view of Wu and further in view of Cummins et al., U.S. Pub No: US 20130054572 A1 (Hereinafter “Cummins”).
Regarding claim 3, Zhang in view of Wu fail to explicitly disclose the limitations below.
Cummins discloses wherein determining that the resource includes personally objectionable content is further based on determining that the search query includes a name of a person (Cummins in paragraph [0046, 0050], wherein in the specific example referenced previously, where the content limitation settings are directed to sexual, or pornographic, content, the classifier can assign a score to the query that was received at step 310 quantifying the degree to which that query has a sexual, or pornographic, aspect. To illustrate, a query comprising the name of a pornographic actress may be assigned one score to quantify the degree to which that query has a sexual aspect).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Zhang in view of Wu to incorporate the missing limitations, as disclosed by Cummins, since doing so would have achieved the desirable result of avoiding potential embarrassment, or other unintended consequences, to the user, or to accommodate for user search queries to which certain, potentially objectionable, content can be responsive, but which may not have been intended by the user (see Cummins, paragraph [0006)).
Claim 13 is rejected under the same rationale as claim 13.
Claims 4-5, 14-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang in view of Wu and further in view of Glover et al., U.S. Pub No: US 20070239735 A1 (Hereinafter “Glover”).
Regarding claim 4, Zhang in view of Wu fail to explicitly disclose the limitations below.
Glover discloses wherein determining that the resource includes personally objectionable content is further based on determining that the search query includes a name or alias of a person that does not occur in a collection of names of famous people (Glover, see paragraph [0041], wherein the classifier 56 to determine whether the input is a famous name, non-famous name or not a name).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Zhang in view of Wu, Armitage to incorporate determining that the search query includes a name of a person that does not occur in a collection of names of famous people, as disclosed by Glover, since doing so would have achieved the desirable result of improving the search engine and provide more accurately locate information on the Internet (see Glover, paragraph 0002-0003).
Regarding claim 5, Zhang in view of Wu fail to explicitly disclose the limitations below.
Glover discloses wherein determining that the resource includes personally objectionable content is further based on determining that the search query includes a name of a person that occurs in a collection of names or an alias of known victim (Glover, see paragraph [0041], wherein the classifier 56 to determine whether the input is a famous name, non-famous name or not a name).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Zhang in view of Wu, Armitage to incorporate determining that the search query includes a name of a person that does not occur in a collection of names of famous people, as disclosed by Glover, since doing so would have achieved the desirable result of improving the search engine and provide more accurately locate information on the Internet (see Glover, paragraph 0002-0003).
Claims 14-15 are rejected under the same rationale as claims 4-5.
Claims 10 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang in view of Wu and further in view of Armitage et al., U.S. Pub No: US 20070133947 A1 (Hereinafter “Armitage”).
Regarding claim 10, Zhang in view of Wu fail to explicitly disclose the limitations below.
Armitage discloses wherein the resource is a first resource, and the instructions further cause the system to: determine, by an image search engine, images that are a duplicate image or a near- duplicate image of image content in the first resource that is classified as objectionable (Armitage, see paragraph [0054], wherein a database of known pornographic images is used as a starting point. A web spider inspecting each new web site (second resource) examines each image on the site. When it finds an image that is present in the known pornographic image database, or is a close enough match to be associated with a known porn image, the entire site, or a subset thereof, is classified as being pornographic);
determine a second resource that includes the duplicate image or the near- duplicate image and that is not already designated as having objectionable content (Armitage, see paragraph [0054], wherein a database of known pornographic images is used as a starting point. A web spider inspecting each new web site (second resource) examines each image on the site. When it finds an image that is present in the known pornographic image database, or is a close enough match to be associated with a known porn image, the entire site, or a subset thereof, is classified as being pornographic); and
designate the second resource as having objectionable content (Armitage, see paragraph [0054], wherein a database of known pornographic images is used as a starting point. A web spider inspecting each new web site (second resource) examines each image on the site. When it finds an image that is present in the known pornographic image database, or is a close enough match to be associated with a known porn image, the entire site, or a subset thereof, is classified as being pornographic).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Zhang in view of Wu to incorporate the missing limitations, as disclosed by Armitage, doing so would have achieved the desirable of quickly and easily access and/or categorize the ever-expanding number of computer images (See Armitage paragraph [0004]).
Claim 20 is rejected under the same rationale as claim 10.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MAHER N ALGIBHAH whose telephone number is (571)272-0718. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Thursday.
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/MAHER N ALGIBHAH/Examiner, Art Unit 2165