DETAILED ACTION
This office action is in response to the correspondence filed on 07/15/2026. This application is a continuation or CIP of various applications that have provisional applications with earliest filing date of 05/15/2014. Claims 6, 20, 25-26, 30-40, 43, and 60-68 are pending and are examined.
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 .
Priority
Applicant's claim for the benefit of a prior-filed application under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) or under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121, 365(c), or 386(c) is acknowledged.
Response to Arguments
The amendments and/or arguments submitted by Applicants for the objection(s)/rejection(s)) listed below have been considered and are persuasive; thus, they have been withdrawn:
Claim Objection(s)
35 U.S.C. §112 Rejection(s)
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claim 68 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Regarding claim 68, this claim is essentially previously presented claim 60 with a broaden breadth of the claim limitations. To comply with the written description requirement of 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, first paragraph, or to be entitled to an earlier priority date or filing date under 35 U.S.C. 119, 120, or 365(c), each claim limitation must be expressly, implicitly, or inherently supported in the originally filed disclosure. Per MPEP § 2163.05, a claim that omits an element which applicant describes as an essential or critical feature of the invention originally disclosed does not comply with the written description requirement. A claim which omits matter disclosed to be essential to the invention as described in the specification or in other statements of record may be subject to rejection under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, first paragraph, as not enabling, or under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, second paragraph. See In re Mayhew, 527 F.2d 1229, 188 USPQ 356 (CCPA 1976); In re Venezia, 530 F.2d 956, 189 USPQ 149 (CCPA 1976); and In re Collier, 397 F.2d 1003, 158 USPQ 266 (CCPA 1968). See also MPEP § 2172.01.
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.
Claim 68 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Day et al. (US Pub No. “Hardware Virtualization puts a new spin on secure System” per IDS submitted on 02/25/2022, referred to as Day), in view of Osiseket al. (US Patent No. 5,555,385, referred to as Osiseket), further in view of Dalal et al. (US Patent No. US 9792431 B1, referred to as Dalal).
Regarding claim 68, Day discloses,
68 (new) A method for processing information securely, the method comprising:
partitioning hardware platform resources via a separation kernel hypervisor into a plurality of guest operating system virtual machine protection domains; (See Day, page 3; leveraging Multicore Processors; Software virtualization can be used across single-core processors, but when running larger desktop operating system that are used to having full control of a processor, multicore parts that often also have hardware virtualization support are the best way to maintain near-native performance of all of the secure domains. See also fig 1; separation kernel technology)
isolating the domains in time and/or space from each other; (See Day, page 1-2; separation kernel technology and fig 1: the separate kernel a technology that provides an underlying real-time platform with multiple secure domains housing software applications that cannot interfere with each other)
Day does not explicitly disclose, however Osiseket teaches,
sharing a list of memory locations of an authorized guest to another guest; (Osiseket: P. 22; Summary of the Invention; a virtual machine computer system which permits more than one guest/virtual machine to share a single address space (memory locations) and each control access by its applications to the shared address space. The computer system comprises a host operating system for creating first (authorized guest) and second (another guest) virtual machine guests.)
hosting a mechanism to control access to …from the another guest; and hosting a mechanism to control access to specified locations and/or pages from the another guest. (Osiseket: P. 22; Summary of the Invention; the first guest responds to a request from a first application executing in the first guest to allocate an address space, by determining at least in part a storage region for the address space. The first guest also responds to a request from the first application to grant shared access by a second application executing in the second guest to the address space, by notifying the host operating system that the second guest or the second application is authorized to access the address space (a mechanism to control access).)
It would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement the teachings of Osiseket into the teachings of Day with a motivation to provide an address space allocation process within a virtual machine environment which permits more than one guest/virtual machine to share a single address space and each central access by its applications to the shared address space by using a request mechanism between two guests (Osiseket: Coln. 2, l. 66 - Coln. 3, l. 3).
The combination of Day and Osiseket does not explicitly disclose; however, Dalal teaches,
…application programming interfaces (Dalal: Coln. 5; ls. 36-39; access to the virtual storage configuration of a virtual machine through an Application Programming Interface (API).)
processing an attempted access of an application programming interface by detecting the attempted access via a detection mechanism. (Dalal: Coln. 5; ls. 49-64; interception module 106 may be running as a process of computing device 202 with an elevated privilege level, equal to or greater than the virtual machine, and thereby have the ability to intercept read operations directed to the physical storage device containing the file representing the virtual storage device. Interception module 106 (detection mechanism) may use the virtual storage configuration obtained in step 302 to determine (detecting) whether the virtual machine process is attempting to read data on a virtual storage device containing protected data. In one embodiment, the process executing outside the virtual machine is a module of a hypervisor that provides the ability to intercept attempts to read data from the virtual storage device via an API.)
It would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement the teachings of Dalal into the combination of Day and Osiseket with a motivation to protect data from being accessed by those who are not authorized to access it by detecting unauthorized data access in virtual storage devices (Dalal abstract and Coln. 1, ls. 7-21).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6, 20, 25-26, 30-40, 43, and 60-67 are allowed.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance: prior art rejections are already resolved in a previous office action.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
CORRIE; Benjamin J. US-PGPUB US 20130160011 A1 Hibernate mechanism for virtualized java virtual machines
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 extension fee 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 KA SHAN CHOY whose telephone number is (571) 272-1569. The examiner can normally be reached on MON - FRI: 9AM-5:30PM EST Alternate Fridays.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Amir Mehrmanesh can be reached at (571) 270-3351. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/KA SHAN CHOY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2435
