DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
01. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Priority
02. Applicant’s claim for domestic priority under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) is acknowledged.
Drawings
03. The drawings were received on 10/01/2025. These drawings are accepted.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
04. 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.
05. Claims 1 – 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter.
As per claims 1 – 8, the claims recite a system comprising a pipeline that comprises four stages, namely a first stage, and block processing stage, a query stage, and a decomposition stage. Both the pipeline, and the stages that make up the pipeline, are not defined, either in the claims or specification, to be anything physical. More specifically, a “stage” is generally understood to be some type or process or method, as is the case with a pipeline, as a pipeline would also be understood to be some type of methodology. As a result, the claims lack the necessary physical articles or objects to constitute a machine or a manufacture within the meaning of 35 USC 101, and are understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to be software per se. They are clearly not a series of steps or acts to be a process nor are they a combination of chemical compounds to be a composition of matter. As such, they fail to fall within a statutory category. They are, at best, functional descriptive material per se. Examiner suggests changing the claims to recite hardware for the system, for example by including hardware processors and/or memories, in the body of the claim, in order to make it clear that the system comprises the necessary physical articles or objects so that the system could be interpreted as a machine or manufacture.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
06. 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.
07. The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
08. Claims 1, 4 – 6, 9, 12 – 14, 17, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Madan et al. (US Patent 12,222,898), hereinafter “Madan”.
Consider claim 1, Madan discloses a system comprising a pipeline comprising:
a first stage configured to create a plurality of BSON documents from input data (column 3 lines 13 – 32, column 3 lines 33 – 67, a system is utilized that manages documents, including BSON documents);
a block processing stage configured to format the plurality of BSON documents into one or more blocks and to provide an access interface to the one or more blocks (column 3 lines 33 – 67, column 4 lines 30 – 52, documents are broken down into a simpler format, such as by converting a BSON document into a JSON document, or by creating an index that maps to document identifiers);
a query stage configured to execute a query to the one or more blocks using the access interface to generate an output array responsive to the query (column 8 lines 25 – 49, column 9 lines 29 – 38, column 10 line 41 – column 11 line 4, a query is performed, which can be done on the formatted documents, which can include determining a response for the query that includes data that can be in a particular format, such as what an array would look like, as in multiple pieces of data representing a particular result or all the results);
a decomposition stage configured to transform the output array into one or more slots of scalar data values (column 8 lines 25 – 49, column 9 lines 29 – 38, column 10 line 41 – column 11 line 4, the results can be processed in order to modify or break them down. Examiner notes that an array, by definition, can simply be a grouping of multiple scalar data values, so this limitation does not appear to add anything significantly more to the claims).
Consider claim 4, and as applied to claim 1 above, Madan discloses a system comprising:
the query stage is further configured to traverse a vectorized path through the one or more blocks (column 3 line 53 – column 4 line 12, column 5 line 63 – column 6 line 6, a vectorization process is performed that includes generating vector embeddings that allow for the query processing to be performed).
Consider claim 5, and as applied to claim 1 above, Madan discloses a system comprising:
the one or more blocks comprises metadata and the query is executed in accordance with the metadata (column 5 line 20 – column 6 line 6, metadata is generated and is used in the query process).
Consider claim 6, and as applied to claim 1 above, Madan discloses a system comprising:
the query is executed in accordance with one or more block properties (column 7 lines 3 – 34, properties of the document sections are determined and utilized during the querying process).
Claims 9, 12 – 14, 17, and 20 are rejected under the same rational as that provided with respect to claims 1 and 4 – 6. The only difference is that either a system, method, or medium is claimed, but the claim limitations are otherwise the same.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
09. 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.
10. 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.
11. Claims 2, 3, 10, 11, 18, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Madan et al. (US Patent 12,222,898), hereinafter “Madan”, in view of Bosch et al. (US PGPub 2023/0367801), hereinafter “Bosch”.
Consider claim 2, and as applied to claim 1 above, Madan discloses the claimed invention except that time series data is used.
In the same field of endeavor, Bosch discloses a system comprising:
the input data comprises time series data (paragraphs [0026], [0058], timeseries data is used, which can be stored in a NoSQL format).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the time series data taught by Bosch into the processing of queries on documents taught by Madan for the purpose of allowing additional types of data that would allow for boosting of performance by allowing computations to be performed without needing to decompress the data.
Consider claim 3, and as applied to claim 1 above, Madan discloses the claimed invention except that type and value pairs are used.
In the same field of endeavor, Bosch discloses a system comprising:
the one or more blocks comprises a plurality of type and value pairs (paragraph [0058], the data comprises key-value pairs).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the key-value pairs taught by Bosch into the processing of queries on documents taught by Madan for the purpose of allowing differently formatted data to be processed in order to take advantage of increase querying capacity of the data.
Claims 10, 11, 18, and 19 are rejected under the same rational as that provided with respect to claims 2 and 3. The only difference is that either a system, method, or medium is claimed, but the claim limitations are otherwise the same.
12. Claims 7 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Madan et al. (US Patent 12,222,898), hereinafter “Madan”, in view of Liu et al. (US PGPub 2020/0210398), hereinafter “Liu”.
Consider claim 7, Madan discloses the claimed invention except that the blocks comprise cells that correspond to a single path.
In the same field of endeavor, Liu discloses a system comprising:
the one or more blocks comprises cells, wherein a single cell corresponds to a single path within the BSON document (paragraphs [0080], [0081] [0087], cells are used that represent paths within a document, such as a JSON or binary equivalent document).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the cells and paths taught by Liu into the processing of queries on documents taught by Madan for the purpose of allowing the specifying of different types of data from documents to be used in the querying process in order to allow more advanced types of querying that could be performed faster and return better results.
Claim 15 is rejected under the same rational as that provided with respect to claim 7. The only difference is that either a system or method is claimed, but the claim limitations are otherwise the same.
13. Claims 8 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Madan et al. (US Patent 12,222,898), hereinafter “Madan”, in view of Merriman et al. (US PGPub 2014/0032579), hereinafter “Merriman”.
Consider claim 8, Madan discloses the claimed invention except for unwinding blocks.
In the same field of endeavor, Merriman discloses a system comprising:
the query stage is further configured to unwind blocks (paragraphs [0005], [0061], the query processing includes the unwinding of data).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the unwinding of blocks taught by Merriman into the processing of queries on documents taught by Madan for the purpose of allowing operations to be performed on the document without needing complex queries to be performed, which would lead to quicker and faster query execution.
Claim 16 is rejected under the same rational as that provided with respect to claim 7. The only difference is that either a system or method is claimed, but the claim limitations are otherwise the same.
Relevant Prior Art Directed to State of Art
14. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
a) Whitaker et al. (US Patent 12, 093,276) discloses a method of performing operations on a relational database by emulating a non-relational database. Documents can be interacted with, including JSONB type documents, and allows for query operations to be performed with respect to the documents.
Conclusion
15. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the Examiner should be directed to Christopher Raab whose telephone number is (571) 270-1090. The Examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday from 9:00am to 5:00pm.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the Examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the Examiner’s supervisor, Ajay Bhatia can be reached on (571) 272-3906. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300.
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/CHRISTOPHER J RAAB/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2156
June 26, 2026
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