Prosecution Insights
Last updated: July 17, 2026
Application No. 18/382,367

AUTOMATED REMEDIATION OF RELOCATED WORKLOADS

Non-Final OA §103§112
Filed
Oct 20, 2023
Examiner
LEE, TAMMY EUNHYE
Art Unit
2195
Tech Center
2100 — Computer Architecture & Software
Assignee
Vmware LLC
OA Round
1 (Non-Final)
84%
Grant Probability
Favorable
1-2
OA Rounds
1y 0m
Est. Remaining
99%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 84% — above average
84%
Career Allowance Rate
360 granted / 430 resolved
+28.7% vs TC avg
Strong +31% interview lift
Without
With
+31.1%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
3y 9m
Avg Prosecution
12 currently pending
Career history
447
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
3.1%
-36.9% vs TC avg
§103
78.6%
+38.6% vs TC avg
§102
1.8%
-38.2% vs TC avg
§112
12.7%
-27.3% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 430 resolved cases

Office Action

§103 §112
DETAILED ACTION 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 . Claims 1-20 are pending for examination. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112 The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b): (b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention. The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph: The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention. Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention. Claim language in the following claims is not clearly understood: As per claim 1, line 8, it is unclear whether “a first moved workload” is one of the “moved workloads” in line 5 (i.e. consistent term should be used with “the” or “said” if they are the same) Line 8-9, it is unclear what it meant by “swapping workload metadata with the associated workload” (i.e. is it swapping the metadata of the first moved workload with the metadata of the associated workload?) Line 8 and 11, it is unclear whether “an associated workload” is referring to one of the “associated workloads” in line 7? Are the “associated workload” in line 8 and 11 referring to the same “associated workload”? (i.e. consistent term should be used with “the” or “said”, if they are the same) Line 11, it is unclear whether “a second moved workload” is one of the “moved workloads” in line 5 (i.e. consistent term should be used with “the” or “said”, if they are the same) As per claim 2, line 2, it is unclear which workloads that “the workload” is referring to (i.e. the first moved workload? The associated workload?) As per claim 3, line 2, it is unclear whether “an associated workload” is referring to one of the “associated workloads” in claim 1 (i.e. consistent term should be used with “the” or “said”, if they are the same) As per claim 4, line 4, it is unclear whether “the workloads” are referring to “the moved workloads” in claim 1 (i.e. consistent term should be used with “the” or “said”, if they are the same) As per claim 5, line 2, it is unclear whether “preserved workloads” are referring to the “moved workloads” in claim 1 and “associated workloads” are referring to the same “associated workload” in claim 1 (i.e. consistent term should be used with “the” or “said” if they are the same) As per claims 6 and 7, line 2, it is unclear whether “a workload” are referring to one of “the workloads” or “moved workloads” in claim 1 (i.e. consistent term should be used with “the” or “said” if they are the same) As per claims 9-15, 17-20, they have the same deficiencies as claims 1-7. Appropriate corrections are required. As per claims 2-8, 10-16, 18-20, they depend from rejected claims and do not resolve the deficiencies thereof and are therefore rejected for at least the same reasons. 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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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. Claim(s) 1, 5, 8-9, 13, 16-17, 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Veale et al. Us Pub 2021/0141654 (hereafter Veale) in view of Al Reza et al. US Pub 2020/0050475 (hereafter Al Reza). As per claim 1, Veale teaches the invention substantially as claimed including a computer-implemented method for detecting and reconciling moved workloads for a management component in a computing environment, the method comprising: receiving data for workloads in the computing environment at the management component (para[0016, 0067], FIG. 4, receive a query response regarding host identifier of the VM); determining the workloads that have moved as moved workloads based on the received data (para[0067], FIG. 4, determine that the VM has been migrated by detecting that identifier in query response differs from identifier stored in environment profile, thus determining the migrated VM based on the received data). Veale does not explicitly teach searching for associated workloads for the moved workloads; for a first moved workload with an associated workload, swapping workload metadata with the associated workload and updating the first moved workload in the management component; and for a second moved workload without an associated workload, preserving the second moved workload as a preserved workload for further processing. However, Al Reza teaches searching for associated workloads for the moved workloads (para[0014, 0040], determining an existing VM that is corresponding to the new VM using the previous ID and the new ID, thus searching for the existing VM corresponding (associated) to the new VM); for a first moved workload with an associated workload, swapping workload metadata with the associated workload and updating the first moved workload in the management component (para[0042-0046], when the existing VM corresponding to the new VM is found using the ID, adding the new VM to the existing VM group of the existing VM, identify the snapshot histories associated with the previous ID, and the snapshot of the existing VM is used as the base for the next snapshot of the new VM; in addition, SLA of the existing VM is assigned to the new VM); and for a second moved workload without an associated workload, preserving the second moved workload as a preserved workload for further processing (para[0014], upon identifying that the new ID corresponds to a newly created VM (no existing VM was found), then create a new VM group for the new VM for the further processing, thus preserved). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Al Reza’s teaching to Veale’s invention in order to provide a method for linking virtual machines and tracking a snapshot history stored in sequence that back up VMs in case of failure, even when VMs are unregistered and reregistered and when VMs are moved from one data center to another data center, which enables to take incremental snapshots across multiple linked VMs (para[0012-0014]). As per claim 5, Veale and Al Reza teach the method of claim 1, and Al Reza teaches further comprising processing preserved workloads to determine whether associated workloads for the preserved workloads can be found (para[0014, 0047], after the new ID corresponds to a new VM and create a new VM group, another new VM can be created using the same ID to be part of the VM group, thus linking an associated VM). As per claim 8, Veale teaches wherein the workloads are virtual machines (para[0016, 0067], FIG. 4, detecting VM migration). As per claim 9, it is a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium claim of claim 1 above, thus it is rejected for the same rationale. As per claim 13, it is a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium claim of claim 5 above, thus it is rejected for the same rationale. As per claim 16, it is a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium claim of claim 8 above, thus it is rejected for the same rationale. As per claim 17, it is a system claim of claim 1 above, thus it is rejected for the same rationale. As per claim 20, it is a system claim of claim 5 above, thus it is rejected for the same rationale. Claim(s) 2-4, 10-12, 18-19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Veale in view of Al Reza as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of TS et al. US Pub 2020/0226034 (hereafter TS). As per claim 2, Veale and Al Reza teach the method of claim 1, but do not explicitly teach wherein when the first moved workload is indicated as being a deleted workload in the received data, deleting the workload after swapping the workload metadata with the associated workload. However, TS teaches when the first moved workload is indicated as being a deleted workload in the received data, deleting the workload after swapping the workload metadata with the associated workload (para[0010, 0026-0028], after the virtual machine download the files from the helper VM, the completion of the system recovery using the helper virtual machine is indicated, then delete the helper virtual machine). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate TS’s teaching to Veale and Al Reza’s invention in order to provide a method of efficient file system restoration using a plurality of recovery destination virtual machines, using a helper VM to facilitate a one to many recovery process, without manually logs into the recovery destination VM to perform the recovery (para[0002, 0010, 0024-0025]). As per claim 3, Veale and Al Reza teach the method of claim 1, and Al Reza teaches wherein, preserving the second moved workload for retirement (para[0014], upon identifying that the new ID corresponds to a newly created VM (no existing VM was found), then create a new VM group for the new VM for the further processing, thus preserved and processed). Veale and Al Reza do not explicitly teach when the second moved workload is indicated as being a deleted workload in the received data, the second moved workload can be subsequently deleted when an associated workload is found during further processing. However, TS teaches when the second moved workload is indicated as being a deleted workload in the received data, the second moved workload can be subsequently deleted when an associated workload is found during further processing (para[0010, 0026-0028], after the virtual machine (the recovery destination VM) download the files from the helper VM, the completion of the system recovery using the helper virtual machine is indicated, then delete the helper virtual machine). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate TS’s teaching to Veale and Al Reza’s invention in order to provide a method of efficient file system restoration using a plurality of recovery destination virtual machines, using a helper VM to facilitate a one to many recovery process, without manually logs into the recovery destination VM to perform the recovery (para[0002, 0010, 0024-0025]). As per claim 4, Veale and Al Reza teach the method of claim 1, but they do not further teach comprising deleting the workloads indicated as being deleted workloads in the received data that are not determined to have moved. However, TS teaches deleting the workloads indicated as being deleted workloads in the received data that are not determined to have moved (para[0010, 0026-0028], the backup server launch a dynamic helper VM, which has not moved, and the completion of the system recovery using the helper virtual machine is indicated, then delete the helper virtual machine). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate TS’s teaching to Veale and Al Reza’s invention in order to provide a method of efficient file system restoration using a plurality of recovery destination virtual machines, using a helper VM to facilitate a one to many recovery process, without manually logs into the recovery destination VM to perform the recovery (para[0002, 0010, 0024-0025]). As per claim 10, it is a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium claim of claim 2 above, thus it is rejected for the same rationale. As per claim 11, it is a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium claim of claim 3 above, thus it is rejected for the same rationale. As per claim 12, it is a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium claim of claim 4 above, thus it is rejected for the same rationale. As per claim 18, it is a system claim of claim 2 above, thus it is rejected for the same rationale. As per claim 19, it is a system claim of claim 4 above, thus it is rejected for the same rationale. Claim(s) 6-7 and 14-15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Veale in view of Al Reza as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Hermanowski et al. US Pub 2022/0300385 (hereafter Hermanowski). As per claim 6, Veale and Al Reza teach the method of claim 1, but they do not explicitly teach wherein determining the workloads that have moved includes determining a workload has moved when the workload is indicated as being a placeholder workload in the managed component and is indicated as being disabled in the received data. However, Hermanowski teaches determining the workloads that have moved includes determining a workload has moved when the workload is indicated as being a placeholder workload in the managed component and is indicated as being disabled in the received data (para[0007, 0018, 0064-0065], each protected VM in active site has a placeholder VM in the passive site, which the VM can be recovered, and the placeholder VM will remain in a powered off state until a failover is executed). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Hermanowski’s teaching to Veale and Al Reza’s invention in order to provide a digital hybrid cloud computing infrastructure implementing an automatic active-passive disaster recovery, where the passive site includes placeholder VM, that can be deployed and configured automatically with a minimal number of manual steps (para[0006]). As per claim 7, Veale and Al Reza teach the method of claim 1, but they do not explicitly teach wherein determining the workloads that have moved includes determining a workload has moved when the workload is indicated as being a managed workload in the managed component and is indicated as being deleted or disabled in the received data. However, Hermanowski teaches determining the workloads that have moved includes determining a workload has moved when the workload is indicated as being a managed workload in the managed component and is indicated as being deleted or disabled in the received data. (para[0007, 0018, 0064-0065], each protected VM in active site has a placeholder (managed) VM in the passive site, which is managing the recovery the protected VM of the active site with the replication of the storage resources, and the placeholder VM will remain in a powered off state until a failover is executed). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Hermanowski’s teaching to Veale and Al Reza’s invention in order to provide a digital hybrid cloud computing infrastructure implementing an automatic active-passive disaster recovery, where the passive site includes placeholder VM, that can be deployed and configured automatically with a minimal number of manual steps (para[0006]). As per claim 14, it is a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium claim of claim 6 above, thus it is rejected for the same rationale. As per claim 15, it is a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium claim of claim 7 above, thus it is rejected for the same rationale. Conclusion The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Tsirkin US Pub 2021/0342173 teaches methods for supporting dynamic power management states for virtual machine (VM) migration, where a processing device may generate, by a host computer system, a host power management data structure specifying a plurality of power management states of the host computer system. The processing device may also detect that a VM has been migrated to the host computer system. The processing device may then prevent the VM from performing power management operations and may cause the virtual machine to read the host power management data structure. Darji et al. US Pub 2022/0365827 teaches a method of a plurality of workload migration scenarios to address a detected workload imbalance among a plurality of workloads in a fleet of storage systems. One movement vector may describe the impact on service request time between the migrating workload and the associated workloads after the migrating workload is moved from the source to the target storage system. Determining each movement vector characterizing impacts on workloads that interact with the migrating workload may include retrieving information and metrics about the associated workloads, source storage system, and target storage system. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to TAMMY EUNHYE LEE whose telephone number is (571)270-7773. The examiner can normally be reached Mon, Tues, Thur 9PM-4PM. 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, Aimee Li can be reached at (571)272-4169 . 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. /TAMMY E LEE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2195
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Prosecution Timeline

Oct 20, 2023
Application Filed
May 19, 2026
Non-Final Rejection mailed — §103, §112 (current)

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Prosecution Projections

1-2
Expected OA Rounds
84%
Grant Probability
99%
With Interview (+31.1%)
3y 9m (~1y 0m remaining)
Median Time to Grant
Low
PTA Risk
Based on 430 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allowance rate.

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