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
Claims 1-20 are pending.
Examiner Notes
Examiner cites particular paragraphs and/or columns and lines in the references as applied to Applicant’s claims for the convenience of the Applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings in the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested that, in preparing responses, the Applicant fully consider the references in entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the examiner. The prompt development of a clear issue requires that the replies of the Applicant meet the objections to and rejections of the claims. Applicant should also specifically point out the support for any amendments made to the disclosure. See MPEP § 2163.06.
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.
Authorization for Internet Communications in a Patent Application
Applicant is encouraged to file an Authorization for Internet Communications in a Patent Application form (http://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/sb0439.pdf) along with the response to this office action to facilitate and expedite future communication between Applicant and the examiner. If the form is submitted then Applicant is requested to provide a contact email address in the signature block at the conclusion of the official reply.
Claim Objections
As per claim 1, it is objected to because in ll. 21, “reserving the stored descriptions” should be “reserving stored descriptions”. Appropriate correction is required.
As per claim 11, it has similar limitations as claim 1 and is therefore objected to using the same rationale.
As per claim 9, “the project data” should be “project data”.
As per claim 19, it has similar limitations as claim 9 and is therefore objected to using the same rationale.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
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.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (an abstract idea) without significantly more.
Step 1: The claim is a process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter:
Claim 1. A cloud-infrastructure-management service comprising:
Step 2A Prong One: The claim recites an abstract idea because it includes limitations that can be considered mental processes (concepts performed in the human mind including an observation, evaluation, judgment, and/or opinion). If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the human mind or via pen and paper, then it falls within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea:
ordering the multiple cloud templates by priorities associated with the cloud templates into an ordered set of cloud templates (abstract idea mental process), and
for each cloud template, selected in descending priority order from the ordered set of cloud templates (abstract idea mental process),
selecting a cloud-computing facility of a cloud provider to which to deploy the cloud infrastructure by matching computational-resource requirements and constraints specified in the cloud template to capabilities and characteristics of computational resources represented in stored representations of computational resources available in the cloud-computing facility, including capabilities and characteristics of networks and network address ranges (abstract idea mental process),
Step 2A Prong Two: The abstract idea is not integrated into a practical application because the abstract idea is recited but for generically recited additional computer elements (i.e. data storage, processor, memory, computer readable medium, etc.) which do not add meaningful limitations to the abstract idea amounting to simply implementing the abstract idea on a generic computer using generic computing hardware and/or software (e.g. generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (see MPEP 2106.05(h)). Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept. The generic computing components are recited at a high-level of generality such that they amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using the recited generic computer components. Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea:
one or more computer systems, each containing one or more processors, one or more memories, and one or more data-storage devices (generic computing components); and
processor instructions, stored in one or more of the one or more memories that, when executed by one or more of the one or more processors, control the one or more computer systems to implement the cloud-infrastructure-management service, the cloud-infrastructure- management service deploying cloud infrastructure specified in multiple cloud templates to cloud-provider cloud-computing facilities by (generic computing components)
receiving multiple cloud templates associated with a cloud-infrastructure-deployment request,
reserving the stored descriptions,
allocating computational resources based on the reserved stored descriptions, and
provisioning the allocated computational resources by accessing a cloud-provider management interface.
Step 2B: The claim includes limitations which can be considered extra-solution activity (see MPEP 2106.05(g)) insufficient to amount to significantly more than the abstract idea because the additional limitations only perform at least one of collecting, gathering, displaying, generating, modifying, updating, storing, retrieving, sending, and receiving data/information data which are well-understood, routine, conventional computer functions as recognized by the court decisions listed in MPEP § 2106.05(d)II. The claim further includes limitations that do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application because they merely recite the words "apply it" (or an equivalent) with the judicial exception, or merely including instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely using a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea, as discussed in MPEP § 2106.05(f). Therefore, the claim, and its limitations when considered separately and in combination, is directed to patent ineligible subject matter:
one or more computer systems, each containing one or more processors, one or more memories, and one or more data-storage devices; and
processor instructions, stored in one or more of the one or more memories that, when executed by one or more of the one or more processors, control the one or more computer systems to implement the cloud-infrastructure-management service, the cloud-infrastructure- management service deploying cloud infrastructure specified in multiple cloud templates to cloud-provider cloud-computing facilities by
receiving multiple cloud templates associated with a cloud-infrastructure-deployment request (extra-solution activity of receiving data/information),
reserving the stored descriptions (extra-solution activity of saving/storing/recording data/information),
allocating computational resources based on the reserved stored descriptions (merely reciting the words "apply it" or an equivalent with the judicial exception, or merely including instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely using the computer as a tool to perform the abstract idea), and
provisioning the allocated computational resources by accessing a cloud-provider management interface (merely reciting the words "apply it" or an equivalent with the judicial exception, or merely including instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely using the computer as a tool to perform the abstract idea).
Claim 2. The cloud-infrastructure-management service of claim 1 wherein the stored descriptions of the computational resources available in the cloud-computing facility include:
project data structures that each stores data that represents projects associated with cloud-infrastructure deployments, the project data structures including project properties, tags, and deployment policies (extra-solution activity of saving/storing/recording data/information);
cloud-zone data structures that each stores representations of computational resources available on a cloud-computing facility, the cloud-zone data structures including cloud-zone properties, tags, and deployment policies and the representations of computational resources each associates with properties and tags (extra-solution activity of saving/storing/recording data/information); and
network-policy data structures that each stores representations of network resources available on a cloud-computing facility, the network-policy data structures including network- policy properties, tags, and policies and the representations of network resources available on a cloud-computing facility including network properties, tags, and one or more network address ranges, each network address range representing one or more network addresses and including address-range properties and tags (extra-solution activity of saving/storing/recording data/information).
Claim 3. The cloud-infrastructure-management service of claim 2 wherein
a policy data structure may reference one or more cloud-zone data structures and one or more network-policy data structures (extra-solution activity of saving/storing/recording data/information);
a cloud-zone data structure is associated with a particular cloud provider and cloud- provider region comprising a cloud-computing facility or virtual data center (extra-solution activity of saving/storing/recording data/information); and
a network-profile data structure is associated with a particular cloud provider and cloud- provider region comprising a cloud-computing facility or virtual data center (extra-solution activity of saving/storing/recording data/information).
Claim 4. The cloud-infrastructure-management service of claim 3 wherein a cloud template includes:
a name and/or identifier (extra-solution activity of saving/storing/recording data/information);
a reference to a project data structure (extra-solution activity of saving/storing/recording data/information); and
representations of computational and network resources that need to be provisioned from a cloud-computing facility or virtual data center, each representation of a computational resource and each representation of a network resource including one or more properties and/or tags (extra-solution activity of saving/storing/recording data/information).
Claim 5. The cloud-infrastructure-management service of claim 4 wherein the cloud- infrastructure management service selects a cloud-computing facility of a cloud provider to which to deploy the cloud infrastructure by selecting network resources from a network-profile data structure that references the cloud-computing facility or virtual data center and by selecting computational resources from the cloud-zone data structure that also references the cloud-computing facility or virtual data center (abstract idea mental process).
Claim 6. The cloud-infrastructure-management service of claim 5 wherein the cloud- infrastructure management service selects network resources from the network-profile data structure by:
matching the properties and/or tags of each network resource specified in the cloud template to properties and/or tags of a network-profile data structure (abstract idea mental process);
matching the properties and/or tags of each network resource specified in the cloud template to properties and/or tags of one or more network representations within the network- profile data structure (abstract idea mental process); and
matching the properties and/or tags of each network resource specified in the cloud template to properties and/or tags of one or more address ranges in the one or more network representations (abstract idea mental process).
Claim 7. The cloud-infrastructure-management service of claim 5 wherein the cloud- infrastructure management service selects computational resources from the cloud-zone data structure by:
matching the properties and/or tags of each computational resource specified in the cloud template to properties and/or tags of the cloud-zone data structure (abstract idea mental process); and
by matching the properties and/or tags of each computational resource specified in the cloud template to properties and/or tags of a computational-resource representation in the cloud-zone data structure (abstract idea mental process).
Claim 8. The cloud-infrastructure-management service of claim 5 wherein the cloud- infrastructure management service selects the network-profile data structure and the cloud-zone data structure by determining that the cloud-infrastructure deployment specified in the cloud template is compatible with any deployment policies contained in the network-profile data structure and the cloud-zone data structure (abstract idea mental process).
Claim 9. The cloud-infrastructure-management service of claim 1 wherein the priority associated with a cloud template is stored in the project data structures referenced by the cloud template (extra-solution activity of saving/storing/recording data/information).
Claim 10. The cloud-infrastructure-management service of claim 1 wherein the cloud- infrastructure-management service returns a success response to a cloud-infrastructure- deployment request for each cloud template specifying cloud infrastructure successfully provisioned within a cloud-computing facility or virtual data center and returns a failure response to the cloud-infrastructure-deployment request for each cloud template specifying cloud infrastructure that was not provisioned within a cloud-computing facility or virtual data center as a result of a failure to select a network-profile data structure and cloud-zone data structure compatible with the cloud infrastructure specified by the cloud template (extra-solution activity of sending/receiving data/information).
As per claim 11, it has similar limitations as claim 1 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
As per claim 12, it has similar limitations as claim 2 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
As per claim 13, it has similar limitations as claim 3 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
As per claim 14, it has similar limitations as claim 4 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
As per claim 15, it has similar limitations as claim 5 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
As per claim 16, it has similar limitations as claim 6 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
As per claim 17, it has similar limitations as claim 7 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
As per claim 18, it has similar limitations as claim 8 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
As per claim 19, it has similar limitations as claim 9 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
As per claim 20, it has similar limitations as claim 1 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
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, 4, 7, 9, 10-12, 14, 17, and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lawson et al. (US 2013/0212129) (hereinafter Lawson) in view of Boychev et al. (US 2021/0216567) (hereinafter Boychev).
As per claim 1, Lawson primarily teaches the claimed invention including a cloud-infrastructure-management service ([0008] cloud-based services environment) comprising:
one or more computer systems, each containing one or more processors (fig. 19, block 1914), one or more memories (fig. 19, block 1916), and one or more data-storage devices (fig. 19, block 1924); and
processor instructions, stored in one or more of the one or more memories that, when executed by one or more of the one or more processors, control the one or more computer systems to implement the cloud-infrastructure-management service ([0008] cloud-based services environment), the cloud-infrastructure-management service deploying cloud infrastructure specified in multiple cloud templates to cloud-provider cloud-computing facilities by ([0089] deployment of cloud-based system and [0104] cloud template library)
receiving multiple cloud templates associated with a cloud-infrastructure-deployment request ([0051] retrieve cloud templates from library),
ordering the multiple cloud templates by priorities associated with the cloud templates into an ordered set of cloud templates (fig. 7, block 726 cloud templates library; [0068] user can select cloud templates from library via user interface i.e., in any order/priority; [0073] hierarchical tiering of cloud templates i.e., priority), and
for each cloud template, selected in descending priority order from the ordered set of cloud templates ([0063]-[0064] classify cloud templates within library storage hierarchy selectable by a user via a user interface i.e., in any order),
network address ranges ([0095] identify address of cloud platform),
reserving the stored descriptions (fig. 5 cloud templates are developed and published to a cloud template repository),
allocating computational resources based on the reserved stored descriptions ([0069]-[0071] allocate and provision cloud resources based on cloud templates), and
provisioning the allocated computational resources by accessing a cloud-provider management interface (abstract and [0064] provision cloud resources using GUI).
Lawson does not explicitly teach selecting a cloud-computing facility of a cloud provider to which to deploy the cloud infrastructure by matching computational-resource requirements and constraints specified in the cloud template to capabilities and characteristics of computational resources represented in stored representations of computational resources available in the cloud-computing facility, including capabilities and characteristics of networks.
However, Boychev teaches selecting a cloud-computing facility of a cloud provider to which to deploy the cloud infrastructure by matching computational-resource requirements and constraints specified in the cloud template to capabilities and characteristics of computational resources represented in stored representations of computational resources available in the cloud-computing facility ([0032] select a suitable cloud endpoint that satisfies all of the policies, rules, constraints, and requirements included in a cloud blueprint i.e., template; and [0054]-[0055] and [0064] determine which cloud environment on which to deploy a virtual resource based on comparing blueprint requirements to cloud provider parameters such as available capacity), including capabilities and characteristics of networks ([0046] and [0049] blueprint includes definition of network policies and network settings and [0111] network profile).
Boychev and Lawson are both concerned with cloud templates/blueprints and are therefore combinable/modifiable. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Lawson in view of Boychev because it would provide for a cloud manager to improve visibility during a provisioning lifecycle of virtual resources to a cloud computing environment by generating provisioning visualizations that are graphical representations of a decision-making process executed by a policy-based provisioning engine. The provisioning visualizations are graphical displays (e.g., user interfaces) that include one or more graphical display sections (e.g., dialog boxes, window panes, etc., that can include one or more buttons (e.g., radio buttons), graphics, icons, etc., or any other graphical control element) that can include information associated with a cloud provider and/or, more generally, a cloud computing environment managed and/or otherwise hosted by the cloud provider. The provisioning visualizations correspond to user-interface models that can expose and/or otherwise provide the reasoning, rationale, etc., associated with the determination of which one(s) of requested provisioning requirement(s) are satisfied and which one(s) are not satisfied. Advantageously, the example cloud manager can generate the provisioning visualizations to improve the compatibility between a cloud endpoint and requested provisioning requirements and, thus, improve operation of a deployed cloud computing environment to execute application(s) or computing workloads.
As per claim 4, Lawson further teaches wherein a cloud template includes: a name and/or identifier ([0059] cloud template has a unique digital certificate); a reference to a project data structure ([0056] cloud template provisioning system and software project locations); and representations of computational and network resources that need to be provisioned from a cloud-computing facility or virtual data center, each representation of a computational resource and each representation of a network resource including one or more properties and/or tags ([0063] and [0066] cloud template metadata tags).
As per claim 7, Boychev teaches wherein the cloud-infrastructure management service selects computational resources from the cloud-zone data structure by: matching the properties and/or tags of each computational resource specified in the cloud template to properties and/or tags of the cloud-zone data structure ([0128] compare parameters of cloud zone to blueprint requirements); and by matching the properties and/or tags of each computational resource specified in the cloud template to properties and/or tags of a computational-resource representation in the cloud-zone data structure (fig. 1, block 136 cloud blueprint; fig. 2, block 230 requirement comparator; fig. 9 user interface for comparing resource properties and cloud zone properties).
As per claim 9, Lawson further teaches wherein the priority associated with a cloud template is stored in the project data structures referenced by the cloud template ([0057] hierarchical cataloging schema for cloud templates i.e., priority).
As per claim 10, Boychev teaches wherein the cloud-infrastructure-management service returns a success response to a cloud-infrastructure- deployment request for each cloud template specifying cloud infrastructure successfully provisioned within a cloud-computing facility or virtual data center and returns a failure response to the cloud-infrastructure-deployment request for each cloud template specifying cloud infrastructure that was not provisioned within a cloud-computing facility or virtual data center as a result of a failure to select a network-profile data structure and cloud-zone data structure compatible with the cloud infrastructure specified by the cloud template ([0067]-[0069]; and [0108] in response to the requirement comparator determining that the provisioning requirement satisfies the cloud provider parameter of the visualization layer, the requirement comparator can identify the visualization layer as a compatible, incompatible, compliant, non-compliant, satisfactory, etc. and generate an alert).
As per claim 11, it has similar limitations as claim 1 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
As per claim 14, it has similar limitations as claim 4 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
As per claim 17, it has similar limitations as claim 7 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
As per claim 19, it has similar limitations as claim 9 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
As per claim 20, it has similar limitations as claim 10 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
Claims 2 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lawson in view of Boychev in view of Goodman et al. (US 10,880,232) (hereinafter Goodman).
As per claim 2, Lawson further teaches the stored descriptions of the computational resources available in the cloud-computing facility include: project data structures that each stores data that represents projects associated with cloud-infrastructure deployments, the project data structures including project properties, tags, and deployment policies ([0056] software developers working on a common software project may publish software fixes and new code blocks, template upgrades, bug fixes, extension packs etc. and [0058] different types of control projects)
Lawson in view of Boychev does not explicitly teach:
cloud-zone data structures that each stores representations of computational resources available on a cloud-computing facility, the cloud-zone data structures including cloud-zone properties, tags, and deployment policies and the representations of computational resources each associates with properties and tags; and
network-policy data structures that each stores representations of network resources available on a cloud-computing facility, the network-policy data structures including network- policy properties, tags, and policies and the representations of network resources available on a cloud-computing facility including network properties, tags, and one or more network address ranges, each network address range representing one or more network addresses and including address-range properties and tags.
However, Goodman teaches:
cloud-zone data structures that each stores representations of computational resources available on a cloud-computing facility, the cloud-zone data structures including cloud-zone properties, tags, and deployment policies and the representations of computational resources each associates with properties and tags (col. 17, ll. 38-62 cloud provider regions having resource availability zones with different properties such as power, networking, cooling configurations); and
network-policy data structures that each stores representations of network resources available on a cloud-computing facility, the network-policy data structures including network- policy properties, tags, and policies and the representations of network resources available on a cloud-computing facility including network properties, tags, and one or more network address ranges, each network address range representing one or more network addresses and including address-range properties and tags (col. 24, ll. 46-61 compute instances in availability zones at different regions and allocate pools of network addresses to an availability group to be assigned to pools of resources deployed into the availability group).
Goodman and Lawson are both concerned with cloud computing environments and are therefore combinable/modifiable. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Lawson in view of Boychev in view of Goodman because it would provide substrate extensions that form an availability group which can offer a subset of the services provided generally by the cloud provider network with which they are associated. Among other benefits, the extension of the cloud provider network brings these cloud provider services such as, for example, hardware virtualization services, storage services, etc., closer to end users, providing such users with low latency access to the applications running locally. Furthermore, these availability groups may be connected to data centers within a region of the cloud provider network via redundant and high bandwidth private network backbones, giving applications running in the availability groups fast, secure, and seamless access to other cloud provider services. The availability zones and provider substrate extensions within an availability group may each be equipped with independent power, cooling, and physical security, and are connected to other provider substrate extensions within the group via low latency network connections.
As per claim 12, it has similar limitations as claim 2 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
Claims 3 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lawson in view of Boychev in view of Cho (US 2023/0353462).
As per claim 3, Lawson in view of Boychev does not explicitly teach wherein a policy data structure may reference one or more cloud-zone data structures and one or more network-policy data structures; a cloud-zone data structure is associated with a particular cloud provider and cloud- provider region comprising a cloud-computing facility or virtual data center; and a network-profile data structure is associated with a particular cloud provider and cloud- provider region comprising a cloud-computing facility or virtual data center.
However, Cho teaches wherein a policy data structure may reference one or more cloud-zone data structures and one or more network-policy data structures ([0009] collect cloud service provider and network information through an API); a cloud-zone data structure is associated with a particular cloud provider and cloud-provider region comprising a cloud-computing facility or virtual data center ([0023] virtual network devices and [0026] virtual private cloud and availability zone information is collected from cloud service provider); and a network-profile data structure is associated with a particular cloud provider and cloud-provider region comprising a cloud-computing facility or virtual data center ([0060] collect network information and availability zone information from cloud service provider).
Cho and Lawson are both concerned with cloud computing environments and are therefore combinable/modifiable. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Lawson in view of Boychev in view of Cho because it would provide a way of greatly reducing operation time and security responding time as well as enhancing convenience in operation by providing a topology (arrangement) with clear indication of the cloud environment status. This would allow a user obtain precise configuration information and the connection information of the cloud and the internal status information of the cloud server by collecting the overall information on the cloud system through an API and collecting additional information through a separate agent. This can provide information with respect to objects, network (gateway, router, VPC, and subnet), cloud firewall (network ACL, security group) policy, cloud server, availability zones, autoscaling, and the like used in the cloud. Displaying autoscaling group information to precisely represent the corresponding group even with a scale up/down in real time can enable clear policy making through the policy edit functions while minimizing user errors.
As per claim 13, it has similar limitations as claim 3 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
Claims 5 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lawson in view of Boychev in view of Maes (US 10,284,427).
As per claim 5, Lawson in view of Boychev does not explicitly teach wherein the cloud- infrastructure management service selects a cloud-computing facility of a cloud provider to which to deploy the cloud infrastructure by selecting network resources from a network-profile data structure that references the cloud-computing facility or virtual data center and by selecting computational resources from the cloud-zone data structure that also references the cloud-computing facility or virtual data center.
However, Maes teaches wherein the cloud-infrastructure management service selects a cloud-computing facility of a cloud provider to which to deploy the cloud infrastructure by selecting network resources from a network-profile data structure that references the cloud-computing facility or virtual data center and by selecting computational resources from the cloud-zone data structure that also references the cloud-computing facility or virtual data center (col. 22, ll. 41-61 service providers may be selected and resource offerings are selected for resources in a secure facility as well as nodes of a network).
Maes and Lawson are both concerned with cloud computing environments and are therefore combinable/modifiable. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Lawson in view of Boychev in view of Maes because it would provide for provisioning policies which may help to optimize the instantiation of a cloud service. The provisioning policies may provide workload management at provisioning by allowing a user, or an algorithm, to select a cloud service based on the workload and to facilitate the management of the existing cloud service. For example, the user may select a cloud service to ensure that no additional workload is placed on the cloud service or that the load of the system is always below a certain threshold, such that the cloud service may not become overloaded. As a result, when updating a number of services on a cloud service, the provisioning policies may provide the cloud service with the best process for updating the cloud service.
As per claim 15, it has similar limitations as claim 5 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
Claims 6 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lawson in view of Boychev in view of Maes in view of Farchmin et al. (US 2005/0204061) (hereinafter Farchmin).
As per claim 6, Lawson in view of Boychev in view of Maes does not explicitly teach wherein the cloud-infrastructure management service selects network resources from the network-profile data structure by: matching the properties and/or tags of each network resource specified in the cloud template to properties and/or tags of a network-profile data structure; matching the properties and/or tags of each network resource specified in the cloud template to properties and/or tags of one or more network representations within the network- profile data structure; and matching the properties and/or tags of each network resource specified in the cloud template to properties and/or tags of one or more address ranges in the one or more network representations.
However, Farchmin teaches wherein the cloud-infrastructure management service selects network resources from the network-profile data structure by: matching the properties and/or tags of each network resource specified in the cloud template to properties and/or tags of a network-profile data structure ([0157] identify tag from database which matches the device position label and assign network address to the device); matching the properties and/or tags of each network resource specified in the cloud template to properties and/or tags of one or more network representations within the network-profile data structure ([0154] compare device position labels with tags and when a match is identified then assign a network address to the device); and matching the properties and/or tags of each network resource specified in the cloud template to properties and/or tags of one or more address ranges in the one or more network representations ([0035] each resource is referenceable on the network by a network address, including tags useable to identify tag specified positions of resources, associating network addresses of the resources with program tags and comparing resources and the tag specified positions and when a resource indicates a tag specified position associated with a tag, associating the network address of the resource and the tag).
Farchmin and Lawson are both concerned with computer networking environments and are therefore combinable/modifiable. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Lawson in view of Boychev in view of Maes in view of Farchmin because it would provide a way to quickly and easily implement cloud-based solutions for industrial automation. To this end, a suite of pre-verified cloud templates can be provided that can be incorporated in a variety of devices, including but not limited to industrial controllers, I/O devices, motors and motor drives, pumps, business servers, data historians, personal client devices, and other such equipment. Some cloud templates can implement cloud-capability in the hosting device, providing the device with the means to communicatively couple to and exchange data with cloud-based services residing on a cloud platform. Other templates can be configured to render administrative control panels that allow authorized users to control various aspects of a cloud-based solution (e.g., resource allocation, billing, user management, device management, etc.), or to render dashboards that provide views of selected portions of a cloud-based industrial solution. Virtual machine management templates are also provided that facilitate creation, deployment, and control of cloud-based virtual machines used to monitor or control portions of an automation system via the cloud platform.
As per claim 16, it has similar limitations as claim 6 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
Claims 8 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lawson in view of Boychev in view of Maes in view of Sree Prakash et al. (US 2023/0401051) (hereinafter Sree).
As per claim 8, Lawson in view of Boychev in view of Maes does not explicitly teach wherein the cloud-infrastructure management service selects the network-profile data structure and the cloud- zone data structure by determining that the cloud-infrastructure deployment specified in the cloud template is compatible with any deployment policies contained in the network-profile data structure and the cloud-zone data structure.
However, Sree teaches wherein the cloud-infrastructure management service selects the network-profile data structure and the cloud-zone data structure by determining that the cloud-infrastructure deployment specified in the cloud template is compatible with any deployment policies contained in the network-profile data structure and the cloud-zone data structure ([0053] determine whether compatible image can be deployed in cloud computing environment but does not violate any policy rules).
Sree and Lawson are both concerned with cloud computing and are therefore combinable/modifiable. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Lawson in view of Boychev in view of Maes in view of Sree because it would provide a way for determining a similar image stored in image catalog to an input image based on a comparison of embeddings for the input image to embeddings for images stored in image catalog. A container importer can then select the closest image stored in image catalog to the input image, the closest image in the vector space being considered the most similar. The closest image is then deployed as compliant image in a cloud computing environment. If no image is within a certain distance of the feature space for the embeddings of input image, then the container importer can generate an alert stating no similar image in image catalog can be found. The closest compliant layer within the vector space to that of the non-compliant embeddings is selected as the best candidate from replacement of the layer in non-compliant image.
As per claim 18, it has similar limitations as claim 8 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
Citation of Relevant Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to Applicant's disclosure:
Bregman et al. (US 2021/0176122) disclose determining whether a cloud computing environment has sufficient available computing resources matching a set of hardware specifications requested.
Allen (US 2022/0100573) discloses matching SLA requirements for cloud consumers to compute resources.
Subrahamaniam et al. (US 2023/0082903) disclose matching available cloud resources with service level objectives.
Findlan et al. (US 2014/0279353) disclose matching a request for a specific resource to a list of available resources in a cloud environment.
Doyle et al. (US 2011/0154350) disclose matching available resources to a highest priority task in a cloud environment.
Patil et al. (US 2020/0162318) disclose determining successful, pending, and faulty migration conditions in a cloud computing environment.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Adam Lee whose telephone number is (571)270-3369. The examiner can normally be reached on M-TH 8AM-5PM.
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/Adam Lee/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2198 December 1, 2025