DETAILED ACTION
Amendments submitted on October 28, 2025 for Application No. 18/330789 are presented for examination by the examiner.
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.
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 .
Internet Communications
Applicant is encouraged to submit a written authorization for Internet communications (PTO/SB/439, found at http:/www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/sb0439.pdf) in the instant patent application to authorize the examiner to communicate with the applicant via email. The authorization will allow the examiner to better practice compact prosecution. The written authorization can be submitted via one of the following methods only: (1) Central Fax, which can be found in the Conclusion section of this Office action; (2) regular postal mail; (3) EFS WEB; or (4) the service window on the Alexandria campus. EFS web is the recommended way to submit the form since this allows the form to be entered into the file wrapper within the same day (system dependent). Written authorization submitted via other methods, such as direct fax to the examiner or email, will not be accepted. See MPEP § 502.03.
Applicant is also encouraged to contact the Examiner for an Interview, should the Applicant determine that clarifying and further illustrating the distinguishing features of the instant application may further the prosecution.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed October 28, 2025 have been considered but they are not persuasive. In the remarks applicant argues:
On pages 6-8, Applicant argues that the cited prior art does not teach the newly amended claims reciting that the steps are performed by a “processor-based vault proxy service”.
Applicant’s arguments are considered moot based on the new grounds of rejection as set forth below.
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 may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ishii (US 2015/0309929) in view of Ylonen (US 2015/0222604) and further in view of Dulkin (US 2015/0304292).
As per claims 1, 8, and 15, Ishii discloses A method, comprising:
obtaining data to be stored (Ishii, paragraph 36, teaches storing data.);
selecting one of a plurality of [storage devices] (Ishii, paragraph 36, teaches first storing the data in the upper-hierarchy storage.); and
storing .. the data in the selected [storage devices] (Ishii, paragraph 36, teaches first storing the data in the upper-hierarchy storage.),
wherein a different one of the plurality of [storage devices] is selected using a rotation policy in response to one or more rotation criteria being satisfied and wherein the data is moved … to the selected different [storage devices] (Ishii, paragraph 36, teaches moving the data from the upper-hierarchy storage to the lower-hierarchy storage based on a policy such as access frequency of the data or elapsed time.),
wherein one or more workloads request data stored in one or more of the plurality of [storage devices] … (Ishii, paragraphs 34 and 54, teaches a request for data and the response is returned.);
wherein the method is performed by at least one processing device comprising a processor coupled to a memory (Ishii, paragraphs 52-53, 81, and 104, teaches performing the steps using a CPU and memory.)
However, Ishii does not specifically teach a digital vault.
Ylonen discloses digital vault (Ylonen, paragraph 472, teaches a secure digital vault to securely store passwords.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to have combined the teachings of Ylonen with the teachings of Ishii. Ishii teaches moving data from one storage device to another storage device based on a policy. Ylonen teaches a particular type of storage device such as a secure digital vault to store secure data. Therefore, it would have been obvious to use the secure digital vault (of Ylonen) as the storage devices (of Ishii) as this would have been a simple substitution of one known form of storage for another to yield the predictable results of storing the data and moving the data from one storage device to another.
However, Ishii in view of Ylonen does not specifically teach the steps being performed by a “processor-based vault proxy service”.
Dulkin discloses the steps being performed by a “processor-based vault proxy service” (Dulkin, paragraph 6, teaches that only authorized proxies can access services.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to have combined the teachings of Dulkin with the teachings of Ishii in view of Ylonen. Ishii in view of Ylonen teaches moving secure data, such as passwords, from one storage device to another storage device based on a policy. Dulkin teaches that only particular devices, such as authorized proxies, can access the services. Therefore, it would have been obvious to have improved upon the teachings of Ishii in view of Ylonen by adding the teachings of Dulkin to allow only certain devices, such as authorized proxies, to access the secure data in order to prevent the secure data from being accessed by an unauthorized user/device.
Claim 8 recites the additional limitations of “An apparatus comprising: at least one processing device comprising a processor coupled to a memory; the at least one processing device being configured to implement the following steps…” (Ishii, paragraphs 52-53, 81, and 104, teaches performing the steps using a CPU and memory. Ylonen, paragraph 387, also teaches a processor executing program steps.)
Claim 15 recites the additional limitations of “A non-transitory processor-readable storage medium having stored therein program code of one or more software programs, wherein the program code when executed by at least one processing device causes the at least one processing device to perform the following steps…” (Ishii, claim 11, teaches a recording medium storing a program. Ishii, paragraphs 52-53, 81, and 104, teaches performing the steps using a CPU and memory. Ylonen, paragraph 387, also teaches a processor executing program steps.)
As per claims 2, 9, and 16, Ishii in view of Ylonen and Dulkin discloses further comprising identifying an active one of the plurality of digital vaults using the rotation policy in response to a request for at least a portion of the data (Ishii, Figure 1 and associated texts and paragraphs 34-37, teaches receiving a search request and searching for the data based on the search request.)
As per claims 3, 10, and 17, Ishii in view of Ylonen and Dulkin discloses further comprising retrieving the at least a portion of the data from the active digital vault and providing the at least a portion of the data to a requester associated with the request (Ishii, Figure 1 and associated texts and paragraphs 34-37, teaches receiving a search request and searching for the data based on the search request.)
As per claims 4, 11, and 18, Ishii in view of Ylonen and Dulkin discloses wherein the plurality of digital vaults comprises one or more of a plurality of digital vaults having different memory spaces of a given device and a plurality of digital vaults on different devices (Ishii, paragraph 36, teaches having upper-hierarchy storage and lower-hierarchy storage.)
As per claims 5, 12, and 19, Ishii in view of Ylonen and Dulkin discloses wherein the plurality of digital vaults only respond to the at least one processor-based vault proxy service (Dulkin, paragraph 6, teaches that only authorized proxies can access services.)
As per claims 6, 13, and 20, Ishii in view of Ylonen and Dulkin discloses The method of claim 5, wherein only the at least one processor-based vault proxy service has direct access to one or more of the plurality of digital vaults and other devices access the one or more of the plurality of digital vaults using at least one of the one or more designated vault proxy services (Dulkin, paragraph 6, teaches that a user can only access the server by going through an authorized proxy.)
As per claims 7 and 14, Ishii in view of Ylonen and Dulkin discloses wherein the data comprises one or more of a secret, a key, a certificate and designated data (Ylonen, paragraph 472, teaches a secure digital vault to securely store passwords.)
Related Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure includes:
Freikorn (US 2010/0169541) – teaches moving data from a higher endurance storage to a lower endurance storage after a threshold is met based on a policy.
Norman (US 2019/0286718) – teaches a rotation policy for selecting bloom filters for filing data into a data structure.
JP 7311981 – teaches a rotation policy to move data in and out of GPU memory based on the next GPU computation to be performed.
Lane (US 2016/0234225) – teaches a secure password manager and digital vault.
Denton (US 2016/0330244) – teaches that a digital vault can be referred to as a vault, a secret sharing vault, a secure storage vault, or a distributed storage vault.
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOHN B KING whose telephone number is (571)270-7310. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday 10AM-6PM EST.
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/John B King/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2498