DETAILED ACTION
This office action is in response to the application filed on 8/29/2025. Claim(s) 21-40 is/are pending and are examined.
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 .
Priority/Benefit
Applicant’s priority claim is hereby acknowledged of CON of 18/048,953 10/24/2022 PAT 12,393,724, which papers have been placed of record in the file.
Claim Objections
Claim(s) 40 is/are objected to because of the following informalities: The examiner suggests the following corrections:Claim 40:
Applicant is advised that should claim 21 be found allowable, claim 40 will be objected to under 37 CFR 1.75 as being a substantial duplicate thereof. When two claims in an application are duplicates or else are so close in content that they both cover the same thing, despite a slight difference in wording, it is proper after allowing one claim to object to the other as being a substantial duplicate of the allowed claim. See MPEP § 608.01(m).
Examiner’s Note – Distinct Subject Matter
The instant claims, while similar, are patentably distinct from the parent claims. Hence, a double patenting rejection is not warranted.
Examiner’s Note – Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 26, 28-30, 32-33, and 36-39 overcome the prior art and would otherwise be allowable if incorporated into the base claim along with any intervening claims.
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(s) 21-25, 27, 34, and 40 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Malhortra (US 2022/0229856 A1), in view of Mcallister (US 2020/0082094 A1).
Regarding claims 21, 34, and 40, Malhortra teaches:
“A system comprising: a processor (Malhortra, ¶ 48-51 teaches a processor and a memory to execute method steps); and a memory storing instructions that, when executed, perform operations (Malhortra, ¶ 48-51 teaches a processor and a memory to execute method steps)comprising: providing, to a user interface, source code and a notification associated with privacy-relevant data in the source code, wherein the notification indicates at least one line of the source code enabling exposure of the privacy-relevant data (Malhortra, ¶ 190 and 196-197 teaches source code analyzer creating a popup screen for the developer showing the code segment and the detected privacy related code segment); receiving, via the user interface, a selection provided by the notification, wherein the action relates to exposure of the privacy-relevant data (Malhortra, ¶ 190 and 196-197 user responds to the notification with information about the privacy issue and how the information will impact exposure across countries); in response to receiving the selection of the action, the source code with respect to the exposure of the privacy-relevant data (Malhortra, ¶ 189-190 and 196-197 the code is annotated with information which can be used to protect privacy related data from being accessed through future remediation)”.
Malhortra does not, but in related art, Mcallister teaches:
“in response to receiving the selection of the action, modifying the source code (Mcallister, ¶ 117 teaches user being alerted of the security vulnerability and selecting the fix to modify the source code and fix the vulnerability)”.
Before applicant’s earliest effective filing it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Malhortra and Mcallister, to modify the source code privacy detection system of Malhortra to include the mitigation mechanism as taught by Mcallister. The motivation to do so constitutes applying a known technique to known devices and/or methods ready for improvement to yield predictable results.
Regarding claim 22, Malhortra and Mcallister teaches:
“The system of claim 21 (Malhortra and Mcallister teaches the limitations of the parent claims as discussed above), wherein the user interface is associated with a code editor of an interactive development environment for developing the source code (Mcallister, ¶ 118 and 124 teaches a user interface within the IDE environment for modifying the source code)”.
Regarding claim 23, Malhortra and Mcallister teaches:
“The system of claim 21 (Malhortra and Mcallister teaches the limitations of the parent claims as discussed above), wherein the source code includes a datatype that includes the privacy-relevant data (Malhortra, ¶ 192 teaches that the data type is included with the information for the privacy related data)”.
Regarding claim 24, Malhortra and Mcallister teaches:
“The system of claim 23 (Malhortra and Mcallister teaches the limitations of the parent claims as discussed above), wherein the datatype is defined to include a set of annotations indicating parts of the datatype that are privacy-relevant (Malhortra, ¶ 192 teaches that the data type is included with the information for the privacy related data)”.
Regarding claim 25, Malhortra and Mcallister teaches:
“The system of claim 24 (Malhortra and Mcallister teaches the limitations of the parent claims as discussed above), wherein each annotation of the set of annotations describes a type of the privacy-relevant data that is different from other types of the privacy- relevant data (Malhortra, ¶ 192 teaches that the data type is included with the information for the privacy related data)”.
Regarding claim 27, Malhortra and Mcallister teaches:
“The system of claim 24 (Malhortra and Mcallister teaches the limitations of the parent claims as discussed above), wherein the set of annotations are added to the source code via manual user input (Malhortra, ¶ 192 teaches that the data type is included with the information for the privacy related data where the user annotates the information)”.
Claim(s) 31 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Malhortra in view of Mcallister in view of Loman (US 2022/0321540 A1).
Regarding claim 31, Malhortra and Mcallister teaches:
“The system of claim 21 (Malhortra and Mcallister teaches the limitations of the parent claims as discussed above)”.
Malhortra in view of Mcallister does not, but in related art, Loman teaches:
“wherein the action comprises marking a portion of the source code associated with the privacy-relevant data for special privacy review (Loman, ¶ 222 teaches manual review for remedial action for a heightened problem)”.
Before applicant’s earliest effective filing it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Malhortra, Loman, and Mcallister, to modify the source code privacy detection system of Malhortra and Mcallister to include the mitigation mechanism as taught by Loman. The motivation to do so constitutes applying a known technique to known devices and/or methods ready for improvement to yield predictable results.
Claim(s) 35 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Malhortra in view of Mcallister in view of Erlingsson (US 11,973,784 B1).
Regarding claim 35, Malhortra and Mcallister teaches:
“The method of claim 34 (Malhortra and Mcallister teaches the limitations of the parent claims as discussed above)”.
Malhortra and Mcallister does not, but in related art, Erlingsson teaches:
“wherein the action comprises suppressing the notification (Erlingsson Col. 25 Ln. 49-59 teaches alert generator which can suppress various notifications based on threshold scores)”.
Before applicant’s earliest effective filing it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Malhortra, Erlingsson, and Mcallister, to modify the source code privacy detection system of Malhortra and Mcallister to include the alerting system as taught by Erlingsson. The motivation to do so constitutes applying a known technique to known devices and/or methods ready for improvement to yield predictable results.
Conclusion
In the case of amending the claimed invention, Applicant is respectfully requested to indicate the portion(s) of the specification which dictate(s) the structure relied on for proper interpretation and also to verify and ascertain the metes and bounds of the claimed invention.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure: See PTO-892.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Stephen T Gundry whose telephone number is (571) 270-0507. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9AM-5PM (EST).
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Amir Mehrmanesh can be reached at (571) 270-3351. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/STEPHEN T GUNDRY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2435
