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 1-4 are currently pending and have been examined.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 02/15/2024 has been considered. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Form PTO-1449 is signed and attached hereto.
Claim Objections
Claims 1-4 objected to because of the following informalities:
Re-claim 1, lines 10-11, 15,17, recite the term “the status” when it should be “enrollment status”. Claims 2-4, have the same issue as claim 1.
Re-claim 3, recites “wherein after the status is changed a partial removal of agents associate with the electronic service occurs” when it should recite --wherein after the status is changed, a partial removal of agents associated with the electronic service occurs – Appropriate correction is required.
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 of this title, 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 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gardner et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 20060272020 A1) in view of Agostinacchio et al. (U.S. pub. No. 20160054991 A1), and further in view of Borero et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 20210248672 A1).
As pe claim 1, Gardner teaches the invention substantially as claimed including an electronic device management system for managing an electronic service comprising
a management server (par. 0024 the servicing functions that the Agent performs can be controlled [managed] by a remote server);
at least one electronic device enrolled in the electronic service (par. 0049 client device A consisting of any one of the electronic devices shown which have been implanted with the Agent. The Agent software runs on the client devices for the purpose of reporting asset, location and other information, and receiving instructions from a remote server to program the Agent to support and execute a desired function; par. 0041 AT1 data (for subscribers to asset tracking/monitoring services));
a calling agent installed on the electronic device configured to facilitate calling the management server at predetermined intervals or after predetermined events (par. 0049 The Agent software runs on the client devices for the purpose of reporting asset, location and other information, and receiving instructions from a remote server to program the Agent to support and execute a desired function; par. 0056 Agent is installed and running it will either periodically … report its identity and/or location via the communication link B to the host monitoring system C [server]);
a database containing … identity of the at least one electronic device (par. 0217 unique identification information would be matched against a database at the monitoring server);
Gardner does not expressly disclose: wherein when the management server receives a request of unenrollment of the at least one electronic device from the electronic service; the management server accesses the database and changes the status of the device to a disabled status and a predetermined cool-off period is set; once a status of a device has been changed to disabled, the following steps occur: a. the calling agent of the device continues to call the server according to the predetermined intervals or after the predetermined event; b. after receiving a call from the device, said management server accesses the database and checks if the status of the device has changed from disabled; c. if the status is no longer disabled the device is re-enrolled in the electronic service and the process ends; if the status remains disabled, the server determines if the predetermined cool-off period has ended; d. if the cool off period has ended, the server instruct the calling agent to uninstall and the process ends; if the cool off period has not ended, steps a to d are repeated; a database containing at least an enrollment status and identity of the at least one electronic device.
However, Agostinacchio, teaches: wherein when the management server receives a request of unenrollment of the at least one electronic device from the electronic service; the management server accesses the database and changes the status of the device to a disabled status and a predetermined cool-off period is set; (par. 0011 receives a deletion request for deleting one of the tenants from the plurality of tenants. The illustrative embodiment disables an instance of the software application associated with the tenant to be deleted in response to receiving the deletion request; par. 0051 The protection period of the disabled tenant is calculated at block 554; for example, the protection period is set to the highest time up to the purging of each shared structure (storing data of the disabled tenant)), once a status of a device has been changed to disabled, the following steps occur:
a. the calling agent of the device continues to call the server according to the predetermined intervals or after the predetermined event; b. after receiving a call from the device, said management server accesses the database and checks if the status of the device has changed from disabled; c. if the status remains disabled, the server determines if the predetermined cool-off period has ended (par. 0053 The flow of activity branches at block 572 according to the status […] If the tenant is not disabled, the process directly returns to the block 569 to process a next tenant. Conversely, if the tenant is disabled the expiration of the corresponding protection period […] is verified at block 575 … If the protection period has not expired yet, the process again returns to the block 569 to process a next tenant);
d. if the cool off period has ended, the server instruct the calling agent to uninstall and the process ends (par. 0053 … Conversely, if the protection period has expired […] the slot of the disabled tenant is dropped at block 581 (so as to prevent its re-assignment)); if the cool off period has not ended, steps a to d are repeated (par. 0053 … If the protection period has not expired yet, the process again returns to the block 569 to process a next tenant); a database containing at least an enrollment status and identity of the at least one electronic device (par. 0047 For this purpose, a new entry for its configuration information is added to the service repository [database] and it is populated accordingly; for example, the configuration information of the new tenant comprises newly created credentials thereof for accessing the service […], its status).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to combine the technique of disabling and deleting instances of software applications associated with tenants of Agostinacchio with the system and method of Gardner resulting in a system and method which provides for disabling and deleting software/argents associated with devices based on expiration of a protection period as in Agostinacchio. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivate to make this combination for the purpose of maintaining performance of the offering instance within the desired level (for example, still complying with the corresponding SLA), since the disabled tenants do not contribute to the workload of the offering instance. At the same time, the disabled tenants are not taken into account for determining whether any new tenant may be allocated to the offering instance, and as a result, the deployment of (useless) new offering instances is reduced with corresponding cost savings and management simplifications (par. 0035).
Gardner and Agostinacchio do not expressly disclose: if the status is no longer disabled the device is re-enrolled in the electronic service and the process ends.
However, Borero teaches: if the status is no longer disabled the device is re-enrolled in the electronic service and the process ends (par. 0031 The notification may also indicate a grace period in which the customer 138 must resolve any issues associated with missing requirements 122 in order to be re-enrolled in the enhancement account 144; par. 0034 . If the qualifications are met (step 220) during the grace period, the account 140 returns to the “qualified” state 206).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective date of the claimed invention to combine the technique of re-enrolling customers during a grace period of Borero with the system and method of Gardner and Agostinacchio resulting in a system and method in which devices are re-enrolled to a service during a grace period responsive to determining a qualified/enabled status during the grace period as in Borero. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this combination for the purpose of providing a way to efficiently process data and to manage system resources for managing user accounts and the various statuses that may be applied to different user accounts (par. 0004).
As per claim 2, Agostinacchio further teaches: wherein said cool-off period is set automatically after the status is changed to disabled (par. 0051 the protection period is set to the highest time up to the purging of each shared structure [automatically], once a status of a device has been changed to disabled).
As per claim 3, Agostinacchio teaches further: wherein after the status is changed a partial removal of agents associate with the electronic service occurs (0051 whenever a deletion request for deleting a tenant of the multi-tenant software application is received (for example, after its expiration date plus a grace period). In response thereto, the tenant to be deleted is disabled by updating the status thereof (from trial/subscribed to disabled) in its configuration information … Continuing to block 551, the data of the disabled tenant is removed from the partitioned structures (for example, by removing the corresponding databases, tables or views). The protection period of the disabled tenant is calculated at block 554; for example, the protection period is set to the highest time up to the purging of each shared structure (storing data of the disabled tenant). The configuration information of the disabled tenant is updated at block 557 by setting the expiration of its protection period accordingly. It is noted, the data of the disabled tenant is removed partitioned structures before protection period expires).
As per claim 4, it is a method having similar limitations as claim 1. Thus, claim 4 is rejected for the same rationale as applied to claim 1.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
U.S. Patent No. 6300863 B1 teaches method and apparatus to monitor and locate an electronic device using a secured intelligent agent via a global network.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Willy W. Huaracha whose telephone number is (571)270-5510. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 8:30-5:00pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Bradley Teets can be reached on (571) 272-3338. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/WH/
Examiner, Art Unit 2195
/BRADLEY A TEETS/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2197