DETAILED ACTION
This non-final rejection is responsive to the Request for Continued Examination (RCE) filed March 11, 2026. Claims 1, 11, and 20 are currently amended. Claims 1-20 are pending in this application.
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, 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 Crofton et al. (US 2021/0342342 A1) (‘Crofton’) in view of Kim et al. (US 2014/0164449 A1) (‘Kim’), and further in view of Seetharaman et al. (US 2022/0114163 A1) (‘Seetharaman’).
With respect to claim 1, Crofton teaches a system comprising:
a processor (paragraph 207),
a non-transitory memory storing instructions that, when executed, cause the processor to: (paragraphs 206);
create an aggregated metadata database by aggregating data of a plurality of cloud database systems (cloud providers) (paragraphs 135) including at least a first cloud database system (i.e. 110A) and a second cloud database system (i.e. 110B) (paragraphs 33 and 134), wherein each of the plurality of cloud database systems includes one or more virtual machines configured to execute applications (paragraph 73);
receive identically named metadata (e.g. file 106A, file 106F) originating from the first cloud database system and the second cloud database system (the same files may be stored in multiple monitored subfolders)(Fig. 1A; paragraph 34);
create at least a first namespace that uniquely identifies the first cloud database system and a second namespace that uniquely identifies the second cloud database system within the aggregated metadata database (address 610 in metadata table includes a directory/namespace for each provider such as Provider A/addr.) (Fig. 6B; paragraph 135);
store, to the first namespace, a first set of metadata (paragraphs 92, 96, and 135);
store, to the second namespace, a second set of metadata (paragraphs 92, 96, and 135);
associate a first set of one or more attributes to the first set of metadata and a second set of one or more attributes to the second set of metadata using the metadata aggregated from the plurality of cloud database systems (paragraph 69); and
query the aggregated metadata database for metadata of at least one virtual machine associated with at least one of the first cloud database system or the second cloud database system (paragraphs 98-99 and 110).
Although it is obvious that Crofton’s metadata mapping table may be created by aggregating metadata of a plurality of cloud database systems, Crofton does not explicitly recite create an aggregated metadata database by aggregating metadata of a plurality of cloud database systems; or querying based on the first namespace and the second namespace.
Kim teaches create an aggregated metadata database by aggregating metadata of a plurality of cloud database systems (paragraphs 55 and 61); and
querying, based on the first namespace and the second namespace, the aggregated metadata database for metadata of at least one virtual machine associated with at least one of the first cloud database system or the second cloud database system (paragraphs 63-64).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing data of the invention to have modified the metadata database of Crofton to explicitly aggregate metadata from multiple cloud systems and query based on namespace as taught by Kim to enable an integrated virtual file system which can provide an integrated virtual file system environment by integrating multiple cloud storages and can analyze access patterns of users for each file type, monitor performances of cloud storages integrated, and select an optimal cloud storage automatically based on a user request and the analyzed and monitored result (Kim, paragraphs 13 and 107). Further, a person having ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the modification because it would only entail swapping the data in the metadata mapping table of Crofton with metadata of metadata database of Kim.
Further with respect to claim 1, although Crofton teaches storing metadata of the identically named metadata originating from the first and second cloud database systems and may obviously store entire sets on each cloud provider, Crofton does not appear to store a first/second set of the identically named metadata because he teaches that files may be fragmented. Therefore, Crofton in view of Kim does not explicitly teach wherein the metadata include metadata schema information about a structure or organization of the first cloud database system and the second cloud database system; storing, to the first namespace and second namespace, a first set and second set of metadata of the identically named metadata originating from the first and second cloud database systems, respectively; or generating a specified view of the aggregated metadata database using the metadata aggregated from the plurality of cloud database systems; or querying the specified view.
Seetharaman teaches wherein the metadata include metadata schema information about a structure or organization of the first cloud database system and the second cloud database system (paragraphs 19, 28, 36, 38, and 41);
storing, to the first namespace, a first set of metadata of the identically named metadata originating from the first cloud database system (Fig. 1, paragraphs 25 and 36);
storing, to the second namespace, a second set of metadata of the identically named metadata originating from the second cloud database system (Fig. 1, paragraphs 25 and 36);
generating a specified view of the aggregated metadata database using the metadata aggregated from the plurality of cloud database systems (paragraphs 18 and 30); and
querying the specified view (paragraphs 23 and 30).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the invention to have modified Crofton to store identically named metadata in different namespaces as taught by Seetharaman to avoid name collisions between multiple data objects that share the same name (Seetharaman, paragraph 36).
With respect to claims 2 and 12, Crofton in view of Kim and Seetharaman teaches wherein the processor associates the first set of one or more attributes to the first set of metadata and the second set of one or more attributes to the second set of metadata, while the one or more processors obtain and store the first set of metadata into the first namespace and the second set of metadata into the second namespace (Crofton, paragraphs 69, 92, 96, and 135).
With respect to claims 3 and 13, Crofton in view of Kim and Seetharaman teaches, wherein the processor executes the instructions further to: query the aggregated metadata database for metadata of one or more virtual machines associated with at least the first cloud database system (Crofton, paragraphs 98-99 and 110); and
obtain, from the aggregated metadata database, a search result dataset associated with the query (Crofton, paragraphs 100 and 110).
With respect to claims 4 and 14, Crofton in view of Kim and Seetharaman teaches, wherein each of the plurality of cloud database systems includes one or more hypervisors (Crofton, paragraphs 45 and 73), and the processor executes the instructions further to:
query, based on the first namespace and the second namespace, the aggregated metadata database for metadata of at least one hypervisor associated with at least one of the first cloud database system or the second cloud database system (Crofton, paragraphs 45, 73, 98-99; Kim, paragraphs 63-64).
With respect to claims 5 and 15, Crofton in view of Kim and Seetharaman teaches wherein the processor executes the instructions further to: based on the search result dataset, generate a database object associated with the query (Crofton ,paragraphs 42, 94, and 136); and
transmit, to a cache database system, the database object (Crofton, paragraphs 60 and 94).
With respect to claims 6 and 16, Crofton in view of Kim and Seetharaman teaches wherein the database object may include one or more records (i.e. add an entry to a database or table) (Crofton, paragraph 94).
With respect to claims 7 and 17, Crofton in view of Kim and Seetharaman teaches wherein the first cloud database system is a private cloud database system (Seetharaman, paragraphs 56, 60 and 73).
With respect to claims 8 and 18, Crofton in view of Kim and Seetharaman teaches wherein the first cloud database system is a public cloud database system (Crofton, paragraph 33).
With respect to claim 9, Crofton in view of Kim and Seetharaman teaches wherein the metadata includes metadata schema (i.e. directory tree/structure of data or fragmentation of the file in Crofton, Figs. 1A and 1B; paragraphs 33, 37, and 69; schema in Seetharaman – paragraphs 19, 28, 36, 38 , and 41).
With respect to claims 10 and 19, Crofton in view of Kim and Seetharaman teaches wherein the metadata is in tabular format (Crofton, paragraph 69) and wherein the processor executes the instructions further to:
for each row, add a string representation column, the string representation column including values of each column within the corresponding row (Crofton, paragraph 159).
With respect to claim 11, Crofton teaches a computer-implemented method comprising:
creating an aggregated metadata database by aggregating data of a plurality of cloud database systems (cloud providers) (paragraphs 135) including at least a first cloud database system (i.e. 110A) and a second cloud database system (i.e. 110B) (paragraphs 33 and 134), wherein each of the plurality of cloud database systems includes one or more virtual machines configured to execute applications (paragraph 73);
receiving identically named metadata (e.g. file 106A, file 106F) originating from the first cloud database system and the second cloud database system (the same files may be stored in multiple monitored subfolders)(Fig. 1A; paragraph 34);
creating at least a first namespace that uniquely identifies the first cloud database system and a second namespace that uniquely identifies the second cloud database system within the aggregated metadata database (address 610 in metadata table includes a directory/namespace for each provider such as Provider A/addr.) (Fig. 6B; paragraph 135);
storing, to the first namespace, a first set of metadata (paragraphs 92, 96, and 135);
storing, to the second namespace, a second set of metadata (paragraphs 92, 96, and 135);
associating a first set of one or more attributes to the first set of metadata and a second set of one or more attributes to the second set of metadata using the metadata aggregated from the plurality of cloud database systems (paragraph 69), and wherein the first set of one or more attributes includes an identifier of the first namespace that the first set of metadata is being stored or placed into (address 610 in metadata table includes a directory/namespace for each provider such as Provider A/addr.) (Fig. 6B; paragraph 135) and information related to a geographic location (paragraphs 184 and 198); and
querying the aggregated metadata database for metadata of at least one virtual machine associated with at least one of the first cloud database system or the second cloud database system (paragraphs 98-99 and 110).
Although it is obvious that Crofton’s metadata mapping table may be created by aggregating metadata of a plurality of cloud database systems, Crofton does not explicitly recite create an aggregated metadata database by aggregating metadata of a plurality of cloud database systems; or querying based on the first namespace and the second namespace.
Kim teaches create an aggregated metadata database by aggregating metadata of a plurality of cloud database systems (paragraphs 55 and 61); and
querying, based on the first namespace and the second namespace, the aggregated metadata database for metadata of at least one virtual machine associated with at least one of the first cloud database system or the second cloud database system (paragraphs 63-64).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing data of the invention to have modified the metadata database of Crofton to explicitly aggregate metadata from multiple cloud systems and query based on namespace as taught by Kim to enable an integrated virtual file system which can provide an integrated virtual file system environment by integrating multiple cloud storages and can analyze access patterns of users for each file type, monitor performances of cloud storages integrated, and select an optimal cloud storage automatically based on a user request and the analyzed and monitored result (Kim, paragraphs 13 and 107). Further, a person having ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the modification because it would only entail swapping the data in the metadata mapping table of Crofton with metadata of metadata database of Kim.
Further with respect to claim 11, although Crofton teaches storing metadata of the identically named metadata originating from the first and second cloud database systems and may obviously store entire sets on each cloud provider, Crofton does not appear to store a first/second set of the identically named metadata because he teaches that files may be fragmented. Therefore, Crofton in view of Kim does not explicitly teach wherein the metadata include metadata schema information about a structure or organization of the first cloud database system and the second cloud database system; storing, to the first namespace and second namespace, a first set and second set of metadata of the identically named metadata originating from the first and second cloud database systems, respectively; or generating a specified view of the aggregated metadata database, wherein the first set of one or more attributes includes information related to a geographic location of hardware that supports or maintains the first cloud database system; or querying the specified view.
Seetharaman teaches wherein the metadata include metadata schema information about a structure or organization of the first cloud database system and the second cloud database system (paragraphs 19, 28, 36, 38, and 41);
storing, to the first namespace, a first set of metadata of the identically named metadata originating from the first cloud database system (Fig. 1, paragraphs 25 and 36);
storing, to the second namespace, a second set of metadata of the identically named metadata originating from the second cloud database system (Fig. 1, paragraphs 25 and 36);
generating a specified view of the aggregated metadata database (paragraphs 18 and 30), wherein the first set of one or more attributes includes an identifier of the first namespace that the first set of metadata is being stored or placed into (paragraphs 34 and 36) and information related to a geographic location (i.e. region) of hardware that supports or maintains the first cloud database system (paragraphs 34, 43, and 82); and
querying the specified view (paragraphs 23 and 30).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the invention to have modified Crofton to store identically named metadata in different namespaces as taught by Seetharaman to avoid name collisions between multiple data objects that share the same name (Seetharaman, paragraph 36).
With respect to claim 20, Crofton teaches a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions, that when executed by one or more processors, causes a computing system to:
create an aggregated metadata database by aggregating data of a plurality of cloud database systems (cloud providers) (paragraphs 135) including at least a first cloud database system (i.e. 110A) and a second cloud database system (i.e. 110B) (paragraphs 33 and 134), wherein each of the plurality of cloud database systems includes one or more virtual machines configured to execute applications (paragraph 73);
receive identically named metadata (e.g. file 106A, file 106F) originating from the first cloud database system and the second cloud database system (the same files may be stored in multiple monitored subfolders)(Fig. 1A; paragraph 34);
create at least a first namespace that uniquely identifies the first cloud database system and a second namespace that uniquely identifies the second cloud database system within the aggregated metadata database (address 610 in metadata table includes a directory/namespace for each provider such as Provider A/addr.) (Fig. 6B; paragraph 135);
store, to the first namespace, a first set of metadata (paragraphs 92, 96, and 135);
store, to the second namespace, a second set of metadata (paragraphs 92, 96, and 135);
associate a first set of one or more attributes to the first set of metadata and a second set of one or more attributes to the second set of metadata using the metadata aggregated from the plurality of cloud database systems (paragraph 69), wherein the first set of metadata is stored in a tabular format (Crofton, paragraph 69) and includes one or more of a unique identifier of the first cloud database system (Crofton, paragraphs 92 and 134), a time and/or date of creation or latest update of metadata in the first set of metadata (Crofton, paragraphs 53, 69 and 105), a power state, or one or more names of a hypervisor that supports or maintains the first cloud database system; and
query the aggregated metadata database for metadata of at least one virtual machine associated with at least one of the first cloud database system or the second cloud database system (paragraphs 98-99 and 110).
Although it is obvious that Crofton’s metadata mapping table may be created by aggregating metadata of a plurality of cloud database systems, Crofton does not explicitly recite create an aggregated metadata database by aggregating metadata of a plurality of cloud database systems; or querying based on the first namespace and the second namespace.
Kim teaches create an aggregated metadata database by aggregating metadata of a plurality of cloud database systems (paragraphs 55 and 61); and
querying, based on the first namespace and the second namespace, the aggregated metadata database for metadata of at least one virtual machine associated with at least one of the first cloud database system or the second cloud database system (paragraphs 63-64).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing data of the invention to have modified the metadata database of Crofton to explicitly aggregate metadata from multiple cloud systems and query based on namespace as taught by Kim to enable an integrated virtual file system which can provide an integrated virtual file system environment by integrating multiple cloud storages and can analyze access patterns of users for each file type, monitor performances of cloud storages integrated, and select an optimal cloud storage automatically based on a user request and the analyzed and monitored result (Kim, paragraphs 13 and 107). Further, a person having ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the modification because it would only entail swapping the data in the metadata mapping table of Crofton with metadata of metadata database of Kim.
Further with respect to claim 20, although Crofton teaches storing metadata of the identically named metadata originating from the first and second cloud database systems and may obviously store entire sets on each cloud provider, Crofton does not appear to store a first/second set of the identically named metadata because he teaches that files may be fragmented. Therefore, Crofton in view of Kim does not explicitly teach wherein the metadata include metadata schema information about a structure or organization of the first cloud database system and the second cloud database system; storing, to the first namespace and second namespace, a first set and second set of metadata of the identically named metadata originating from the first and second cloud database systems, respectively; or generating a specified view of the aggregated metadata database; or querying the specified view.
Seetharaman teaches wherein the metadata include metadata schema information about a structure or organization of the first cloud database system and the second cloud database system (paragraphs 19, 28, 36, 38, and 41);
storing, to the first namespace, a first set of metadata of the identically named metadata originating from the first cloud database system (Fig. 1, paragraphs 25 and 36);
storing, to the second namespace, a second set of metadata of the identically named metadata originating from the second cloud database system (Fig. 1, paragraphs 25 and 36);
generating a specified view of the aggregated metadata database (paragraphs 18 and 30); and
querying the specified view (paragraphs 23 and 30).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the invention to have modified Crofton to store identically named metadata in different namespaces as taught by Seetharaman to avoid name collisions between multiple data objects that share the same name (Seetharaman, paragraph 36).
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed March 11, 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant argues that Seetharaman fails to teach a metadata schema about a structure or organization of the first and second cloud database systems. The examiner disagrees.
Seetharaman teaches that metadata harvesting involves collecting metadata about data stored in multiple data sources and that as part of the harvesting process, a data catalog system identifies the data format, structure, or schema of a data source (paragraph 19). He further teaches that harvested metadata may include, for instance, information that describes the structure of the data asset, configuration parameters associated with the data asset and information that describes the structure of data objects associated within the data asset (paragraph 28). Seetharaman teaches that for a “database” data asset, a “schema” folder type may be used to map the database to data objects (e.g., tables, views, external tables, functions, stored procedures) within the database (paragraph 36). He also teaches that a schema is a data object attribute that uniquely identifies the data object (i.e., table T1) in the database (paragraphs 38 and 41). Seetharaman also teaches cloud providers (paragraphs 25 and 54). Therefore, it is clear that Seetharaman teaches metadata schema that is about a structure or organization of the first and second cloud database systems. The metadata in Seetharaman includes schema information and/or information describing structure.
Applicant further argues that Seetharaman is silent about identically named metadata from the first and second cloud database systems. Crofton teaches identically named metadata from the the first and second cloud database systems (paragraph 34). Seetharaman also teaches storing identically named metadata (i.e. data objects such as files sharing the same name) originating from first and second cloud database systems (i.e. external systems that may be cloud providers).
Applicant also argues that the prior art fails to teach new limitations in claims 11 and 20, which include “wherein the first set of one or more attributes includes an identifier of the first namespace that the first set of metadata is being stored or placed into and information related to a geographic location of hardware that supports or maintains the first cloud database system” and “wherein the first set of metadata is stored in a tabular format and includes one or more of a unique identifier of the first cloud database system, a time and/or date of creation or latest update of metadata in the first set of metadata, a power state, or one or more names of a hypervisor that supports or maintains the first cloud database system.” The examiner disagrees. Crofton teaches wherein the first set of one or more attributes includes an identifier of the first namespace that the first set of metadata is being stored or placed into (address 610 in metadata table includes a directory/namespace for each provider such as Provider A/addr.) (Fig. 6B; paragraph 135) and Seetharaman teaches information related to a geographic location (i.e. region) of hardware that supports or maintains the first cloud database system (paragraphs 34, 43, and 82). Crofton also teaches wherein the first set of metadata is stored in a tabular format (Crofton, paragraph 69) and includes one or more of a unique identifier of the first cloud database system (Crofton, paragraphs 92 and 134), a time and/or date of creation or latest update of metadata in the first set of metadata (Crofton, paragraphs 53, 69 and 105), a power state, or one or more names of a hypervisor that supports or maintains the first cloud database system.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ALICIA M WILLOUGHBY whose telephone number is (571)272-5599. The examiner can normally be reached 9-5:30, EST, M-F.
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/ALICIA M WILLOUGHBY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2156 April 1, 2026