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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This action is responsive to amendment filed January 23, 2026.
Status of Claims
Applicant amended the claims. Claims 1,3,6,7,9,12,13,15,18 remain pending.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 1/23/26 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
On page 9 of remarks, Applicant argues that the Willson reference does not teach the claimed removing of a “management component” and “troubleshooting component”.
In reply, Applicant is reminded that the claims are given their broadest reasonable interpretation. The references are applied to these broad limitations in a reasonable manner. Furthermore, although the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are not read into the claims unless the specification provides explicit and non-broad definitions of said limitations. See In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 26 USPQ2d 1057 (Fed. Cir. 1993). In this case, the claim limitations fail to give any functional or contextual details of “management” and “troubleshooting” which therefore make the components generic types of components. The claims do not contain sufficient detail that demonstrate how the limitations are functionally different than the debug components of Willson, and as shown in Willson column 12 lines 20-35.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
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 1,3,7,9,13,15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Blum et al (US Publication 20180329788) in view of Radev et al (US Publication 20230130553) in further view of Willson et al (US Patent 10114637) in further view of Ling et al (US Publication 20070074208) in further view of Alteneder et al (US Publication 20170329700).
In reference to claim 1, Blum teaches an information handling system comprising: at least one processor; and a memory; wherein the information system is configured to:
receive a request to create a plurality of virtual computing nodes; (see at least ¶ 17 lines 8-11 and ¶ 19 lines 1-3, which teaches receiving a request to create and install virtual machines)
build a plurality of parent virtual computing nodes based on an image, wherein the plurality of parent virtual computing nodes are each configured on one of a plurality of separate physical information handling system (see at least ¶ 18 lines 1-7, ¶ 19 lines 3-10, and ¶ 25, which teach building VMs based on user submitted images of VM configurations; also see at least ¶ 20 lines 1-18 and ¶s 27-28, which teaches that the VMs are each configured to run and test separately, and are also configured to be processed on a system comprising physical hardware and processors),
wherein building the plurality of parent virtual computing nodes comprises removing a component from the image prior to building the plurality of parent virtual computing nodes; (see at least ¶s 19, 24 which teaches a user configuring the image components prior to building the submitted VMs)
create a plurality of clone virtual computing nodes by copying the plurality of parent virtual computing nodes; (see at least ¶ 20 lines 1-10 and ¶ 30, which teaches creating multiple clones of the virtual machines)
for each of the plurality of clone virtual computing nodes, reconfigure at least one setting of the clone virtual computing node to create a reconfigured clone virtual computing node; (see at least ¶ 20 lines 11-20, which teaches testing the clones under different configurations) and
run the plurality of reconfigured clone virtual computing nodes (see at least ¶s 17,21 and ¶ 25 lines 5-16, which teaches running and testing the virtual machines).
Blum fails to explicitly teach the system is a hyper converged infrastructure HCI system, and a plurality of separate physical information handling system slots including a first slot from a first HCI cluster of the HCI system and a second slot from a second HCI cluster of the HCI system. However, Radev teaches a high availability infrastructure environment (see Radev, at least Abstract), and discloses managing physical resources as part of an HCI which include resource slots including a first slot of the HCI system and a second slot of the HCI system (see Radev, at least ¶s 22,23,40-42). It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Blum based on the teachings of Radev for the purpose of efficiently managing the resource infrastructure for high availability.
Blum teaches, as shown above, that a user configures the VM prior to provisioning the VM (see Blum, at least ¶s 19,29). But Blum fails to explicitly teach wherein building the at least parent computing node comprises removing a management component and a troubleshooting component from the image prior to building the at least on parent computing node. However, Willson teaches a development platform for building scripts/software components (see Willson, at least Abstract & Background), and discloses when building a script, removing a debug/troubleshooting component and other debug/management components from the script (see Willson, at least column 12 lines 20-35). It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Blum based on the teachings of Willson for the purpose of improving the efficiency of testing replicated scripts and software components.
Blum teaches, as shown above, that VMs are self-contained operating systems (see Blum, at least ¶ 18). But Blum fails to explicitly teach the image is an operating system image. However, Ling teaches virtual machine management and discloses cloning virtual machines based on an operating system image (see Ling, at least Background and ¶ 29). It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Blum based on the teachings of Ling for the purpose of efficiently replicating virtual machine software and resources.
Blum teaches, as shown above, varying the test input of each cloned VM using different testing techniques which makes the clones different (see Blum, at least ¶ 20). But Blum fails to explicitly teach for each of the plurality of clone virtual computing nodes, reconfigure at least one setting of the clone virtual computing node, such that none of the reconfigured clone virtual computing nodes are identical to one another. However, Alteneder teaches testing different versions of an application for the purpose of increasing the certainty of results when evaluating and testing an application (see Alteneder, at least Abstract and ¶ 18). It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Blum based on the teachings of Alteneder for the purpose of increasing the certainty of results when evaluating and testing an application.
In addition to Blum teaching wherein the plurality of parent virtual computing nodes are each configured on a separate physical information handling system; Alteneder also teaches this limitation where Alteneder teaches testing on different physical machines (see Alteneder, at least ¶s 18-19).
In reference to claim 3, this is taught by Alteneder, at least ¶s 23,33, which teaches reconfiguring the virtual nodes for testing. One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to modify Blum based on the teachings of Alteneder in accordance to the rationale given for claim 1.
Claims 7,9,13,15 are slight variations of claims 1,3 above, and are therefore rejected based upon the same rationale.
Claims 6,12,18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Blum et al (US Publication 20180329788) in view of Radev et al (US Publication 20230130553) in further view of Wilson et al (US Patent 10114637) in further view of Ling et al (US Publication 20070074208) in further view of Alteneder et al (US Publication 20170329700) in further view of Cobb et al (US Publication 20160132421).
In reference to claim 6, Blum fails to explicitly teach the clone virtual computing nodes are edge computing nodes. However, Cobb teaches testing scripts in a network environment which includes edge servers (See Cobb, at least Abstract and ¶s 3,65). One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to modify Blum based on the teachings of Cobb for the purpose of implementing the testing on various platforms thus increasing predictability of the scripts.
Claims 12,18 are slight variations of claim 6 above, and are therefore rejected based upon the same rationale.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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.
For any subsequent response that contains new/amended claims, Applicant is required to cite its corresponding support in the specification. (See MPEP chapter 2163.03 section (I.) and chapter 2163.04 section (I.) and chapter 2163.06) Applicant may not introduce any new matter to the claims or to the specification.
For any subsequent response that contains new/amended claims, Applicant is required to cite its corresponding support in the specification. (See MPEP chapter 2163.03 section (I.) and chapter 2163.04 section (I.) and chapter 2163.06) Applicant may not introduce any new matter to the claims or to the specification.
In formulating a response/amendment, Applicant is encouraged to take into consideration the prior art made of record but not relied upon, as it is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See previous attached Forms 892.
Contact & Status
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RAMY M OSMAN whose telephone number is (571)272-4008. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon-Fri, 9AM-5PM.
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, Ario Etienne can be reached at 571-272-4001. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users.
To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov.
Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and
https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format.
For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/Ramy M Osman/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2457
March 16, 2026