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 .
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.
Response to Amendment
The Amendment filed on 01/15/2026 has been entered.
The rejection of claims 1-19 under 35 U.S.C 112 (a) and 112 (b) is withdrawn in view of the amendment.
Claims 1, 15 and 18 are amended.
Claims 3, 7, 17 and 20 are cancelled.
Claims 1-2, 4-6, 8-16 and 18-19 are pending of which claims 1, 15 and 18 are independent claims.
Response to Arguments
The applicant's arguments filed on 01/15/2026 have been fully considered but the arguments are essentially directed towards the newly introduced limitations, and they are addressed in this Office Action, below.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-19 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Regarding claim 1, Key limitations, "a first data blob of the set of data blobs is encrypted by a password in a second data blob of the set of data blobs" is presented purely as functional labels with no objective boundaries, leaving readers unable to determine where infringement begins or ends. The structure and relationship between the first set and second data blob of the set of data blobs is not specified in the claim. It’s not clear how the password in the second blob is obtained and how the encryption is applied to the first data blob. Further, “password” is presented purely as functional labels with no objective boundaries, leaving readers unable to determine where infringement begins or ends. Because a person having ordinary skill in the art could not ascertain the claim scope with reasonable certainty, the claims are indefinite under 35 U.S.C § 112(b).
Independent 14 and 20 are also rejected for the same rational as claim 1.
Dependent claims 2-13, 25-29 are also rejected for inheriting the deficiencies of the independent claims from which they depend on.
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.
Claims 1-2, 4-6, 8-16 and 18-19 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bhosale et al. (Pub. No.: US 2020/0050769, hereinafter Bhosale) in view of Chitrak Gupta et al. (Pub. No.: US 2020/0320226, hereinafter Chitrak Gupta).
Regarding claim 1: Bhosale discloses A method comprising:
detecting a pending data migration, wherein the pending data migration is related to a set of one or more data blobs (Bhosale - [0028]: determining a vulnerability level of a first storage system at which the instance of data is currently located, and conditionally migrating the instance of data from the first storage system to a second storage system. See also Fig. 6), and wherein the set of data blobs is stored on a source cloud object data store (Bhosale - [0079]: the instance of data is stored within a storage cluster. For example, the instance of data may be stored within an individual storage system that is part of a storage cluster);
in response to the detecting (Bhosale - Fig. 6):
determining, based on the security requirement, a set of one or more potential target cloud object data stores from a set of additional cloud object data stores (Bhosale - [0108]: where a storage system of the storage cluster is determined to store the instance of data, based on the classification associated with the instance of data and a vulnerability level of the storage system. In one embodiment, the classification associated with the instance of data may be compared to a policy within the storage cluster. In another embodiment, the policy may indicate that only storage systems having a predetermined vulnerability level may store the instance of data); and
assigning, in response to the determining and based on the security requirement, the set of data blobs to a first potential target cloud object data store of the set of potential target cloud object data stores (Bhosale - [0114]: an instance of data is conditionally migrated from the first storage system to a second storage system within the storage cluster, based on a classification associated with the instance of data and the updated vulnerability level of the first storage system).
However, Bhosale doesn’t explicitly teach but Agarwal discloses: identifying, a security requirement for the set of data blobs, wherein the identifying the security requirement is based on determining that data in a first data blob of the set of data blobs is encrypted by a password in a second data blob of the set of data blobs (Chitrak Gupta - [0056]: The set of criteria may be determined by various factors such as security requirements of data, size of data, the capacity of the storage device, ease of securely encrypting the data, etc. The set of criteria may include the following: … whether the encryption mode provide perform multi-band support, [0073]: A contiguous LBA (Logical block addressing) range is called a band. Each band does not overlap and may be secured with an encryption key and an authentication key).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method of Bhosale with Chitrak Gupta so that a security rule is determined based on data encryption stored in the database. The modification would have allowed the system to be more secure.
Regarding claim 2: Bhosale as modified discloses wherein:
the pending data migration is detected by the source cloud object data store (Bhosale - [0098]: if the vulnerability level of the first storage system is above the second predetermined threshold (e.g., indicating that the first storage system has a high vulnerability and/or is not secure, etc.), the instance of data may be migrated to the second storage system), and
the determining the set of potential target cloud object data stores is performed by the source cloud object data store (Bhosale - [0096]: a policy implemented within the storage cluster indicates that instances of data having a predetermined classification are to be stored on storage systems having a vulnerability level below a predetermined threshold).
Regarding claim 4: Bhosale as modified discloses wherein the identifying includes performing a natural language processing on the set of data blobs (Bhosale - [0138]: based on natural language classification as well as Watson APIs such as speech to text, visual recognition, etc. These techniques help in capturing metadata information about the data on storage subsystem).
Regarding claim 5: Bhosale as modified discloses wherein the identifying includes performing a machine learning operation on the set of data blobs (Bhosale - [0138]: Watson deep data inspection techniques. Note: Watson utilizes machine learning algorithms to identify patterns and anomalies within large datasets, enabling more accurate predictions and insights).
Regarding claim 6: Bhosale as modified discloses wherein the identifying the security requirement comprises:
classifying, based on a regulation requirement, the set of data blobs, wherein the regulation requirement is related to a regulation body (Bhosale - [0140]: IBM StoredIQ may be utilized to identify compliance data such as personal information required for general data protection regulation (GDPR) like compliance, which may also be used for identifying and tagging the data with a security level).
Regarding claim 8: Bhosale as modified discloses wherein the identifying the security requirement comprises:
identifying an encryption technique used to encrypt the set of data blobs in the source cloud object data store (Bhosale - [0140]: Other techniques such as header extraction may also be used in place of Watson APIs to derive insight about the content of the candidate data for encryption).
Regarding claim 9: Bhosale as modified discloses wherein the assigning the set of data blobs comprises:
labeling, based on the security requirement, the pending data migration with a classification label (Bhosale - [0090]: the vulnerability level may include a label (e.g., “vulnerable,” “secure,” etc.) determined based on the comparing).
Regarding claim 10: Bhosale as modified discloses wherein the classification label identifies the first potential target cloud object data store (Bhosale - [0095]: a policy implemented within the storage cluster may indicate that instances of data having a classification above a predetermined threshold are to be stored on storage systems having a vulnerability level below a predetermined threshold).
Regarding claim 11: Bhosale as modified discloses wherein the classification label identifies a first subset of potential target cloud object data stores that includes the first potential target cloud object data store (Bhosale - [0096]: instances of data having a predetermined classification are to be stored on storage systems having a vulnerability level below a predetermined threshold).
Regarding claim 12: Bhosale as modified discloses wherein the classification label includes the security requirement (Bhosale - [0084]: the classification may be determined according to a predetermined scale. For example, the classification may be determined from a scale of values one to five, where a value of one indicates a low sensitivity that merits a low level of security, and sensitivity/security levels increase to a value of five, which indicates a high sensitivity that merits a high level of security).
Regarding claim 13: Bhosale as modified discloses wherein the method further comprises:
migrating the set of data blobs to the first potential target cloud object data store (Bhosale - [0114]: an instance of data is conditionally migrated from the first storage system to a second storage system within the storage cluster, based on a classification associated with the instance of data and the updated vulnerability level of the first storage system).
Regarding claim 14: Bhosale as modified discloses wherein the assigning the set of data blobs includes:
assigning the set of data blobs to a first worker node of a set of worker nodes of the first potential target cloud object data store (Bhosale - [0075]: logic configured to move each associated portion of the requested data set to a higher storage tier 402 of the tiered data storage system 400. [0056]: Fig. 1, cloud computing node 10 is capable of being implemented and/or performing any of the functionality set forth hereinabove).
Regarding claims 15-16: Claims are directed to system claims and do not teach or further define over the limitations recited in claims 1-2. Therefore, claims 15-16 are also rejected for similar reasons set forth in claims 1-2. Furthermore, Bhosale in paragraph [0059], Fig. 1 discloses one or more processors or processing units 16 and a system memory 28.
Regarding claims 18-19: Claims are directed to method/computer readable medium claims and do not teach or further define over the limitations recited in claims 1-2. Therefore, claims 18-19 are also rejected for similar reasons set forth in claims 1-2. Furthermore, Bhosale in paragraph [0061] discloses computer readable storage media.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Anglin et al. (Patent No.: US 8,769,269) - Cloud Data Management
Frank (Patent No.: US 9,648,134) - Object Migration Between Cloud Environments
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MENG LI whose telephone number is (571)272-8729. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:30-5:30.
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/MENG LI/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2437
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