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
The instant application having Application No. 18/384,550 filed on 10/27/2023 is presented for examination.
Examiner Notes
Examiner cites particular columns and line numbers in the references as applied to the claims below 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.
Drawings
The applicant’s drawings submitted are acceptable for examination purposes.
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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 an abstract ide without significantly more.
Step 1: Claim 1 is a method claim. Claim 10 is a system claim.
Step 2A, Prong 1: The limitations "determining..."; "determining..."; "determining..."; under their broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind, then it falls within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas (concepts performed in the human mind including an observation, evaluation, judgment, and opinion).
Step 2A, Prong 2: The limitation "receiving..." is a mere generic transmission and presentation of collected and analyzed data which is considered to be insignificant extra solution activity (MPEP 2106.05(g). The limitation "modifying..." is a mere generic transmission and presentation of collected and analyzed data which is considered to be insignificant extra solution activity (MPEP 2106.05(g).
The "deployment automation pipeline", "processor" and "cloud computing environment" in these steps are recited at a high level of generality (i.e., as a generic processor performing a generic computer function) such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. 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. (see MPEP 2106.05(f)).
Step 2B: The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The limitation "receiving..." and "modifying..." are recognized by the courts as well-understood, routine, and conventional activities when they are claimed in a merely generic manner (see MPEP 2106.05(d)(II)(iv) Storing and retrieving information in memory, Versata Dev. Group Inc....
Claims 2-9 depend from claim 1 and do not add additional elements that would overcome the rejection of claim 1 and are thus rejected for similar reasons. Claims 11-20 are similar to claims 2-9. For example:
2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:
deploying the modified contact center workload within the second cloud computing environment (Mental Process – judgement)
3. The method of claim 2, further comprising:
validating a configuration setting within the modified contact center workload, wherein deploying the modified contact center workload is based at least in part on validating the configuration setting (Mental Process – evaluation)
4. The method of claim 1, wherein receiving the data identifying the contact center workload comprises receiving a deployment request via the deployment automation pipeline, and wherein modifying the contact center workload comprises:
determining a user identifier within the first cloud computing environment associated with the deployment request (Mental Process – evaluation); and
verifying a first level of user access associated with the user identifier to the contact center workload in the first cloud computing environment (Mental Process – evaluation)
5. The method of claim 4, wherein modifying the contact center workload further comprises:
determining the second cloud computing environment, based on the deployment request; and
verifying a second level of user access associated with the user identifier to the second cloud computing environment. (Mental Process – evaluation)
6. The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of objects associated with the contact center workload deployed in the first cloud computing environment include at least one of:
at least one queue object;
at least one flow object;
at least one sub-flow object; or at least one prompt object. (Mental Process – judgement)
7. The method of claim 1, further comprising:
determining, based on the plurality of unique identifiers within the contact center workload, the plurality of objects in the first cloud computing environment;
determining, for each particular object in the plurality of objects in the first cloud computing environment: a name associated with the particular object, based on matching a unique identifier associated with the particular object in the first object listing;
a corresponding object in the second cloud computing environment associated with the particular object, based on matching the name to a corresponding name in the second cloud computing environment; and
a unique identifier associated with the corresponding object in the second cloud computing environment, based on matching the corresponding name to a unique identifier in the second object listing. (Mental Process – evaluation)
8. The method of claim 1, wherein determining the second unique identifier comprises:
comparing the first name to a plurality of names in the second object listing of the second cloud computing environment; and
rendering a user interface, in response to determining that the first name does not match a name within the second object listing, the user interface including an object selection component with a plurality of selection options based on the second object listing. (Mental Process – evaluation)
9. The method of claim 1, wherein the first cloud computing environment is a test environment associated with the contact center workload, the method further comprising:
determining, based on receiving the data identifying a contact center workload, a plurality of production environments associated with the test environment, the plurality of production environments including the second cloud computing environment. (Mental Process – evaluation)
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, 2, 6, 7, 9, 10, 14, and 16-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Singhvi (US 2018/0034890) in view of O’Neil (US 2007/0179939).
/
As per claim 1, Singhvi discloses a method, comprising:
receiving, by a deployment automation pipeline comprising at least one processor, data identifying a contact center workload deployed within a first cloud computing environment, the contact center workload including a plurality of unique identifiers associated with a plurality of objects in the first cloud computing environment (Paragraph 90 “the pod switches 1032 and 1036 may facilitate communication between the pods 1040 and 1044 and the database storage 1056. In some implementations, the load balancer 1028 can distribute workload between the pods 1040 and 1044. Balancing the on-demand service requests between the pods can assist in improving the use of resources, increasing throughput, reducing response times, or reducing overhead. The load balancer 1028 may include multilayer switches to analyze and forward traffic.);
determining, by the deployment automation pipeline, and based on a first unique identifier of the plurality of unique identifiers, a first object in the first cloud computing environment (Paragraph 20 “re-deploying metadata and data from a source organization of a cloud-based computing environment to a destination organization of the cloud-based computing environment. In one embodiment, a user system can be used to select metadata that is to be retrieved from the source organization. A metadata engine can then be used to automatically create a first file that comprises the selected metadata that is to be retrieved from the source organization. The selected metadata can then be packaged into a manifest file that can then be stored at secure file storage where it is securely stored for re-deployment to another organization. A data engine can then be instructed to automatically retrieve data associated with the selected metadata (that is stored in the manifest file) based, for example, on objects specified in the selected metadata. Once retrieved, the data associated with the selected metadata can be automatically saved and stored at a secured database for re-deployment to another organization.);
determining, by the deployment automation pipeline, a second unique identifier associated with a second object in a second cloud computing environment, wherein determining the second unique identifier includes determining that the second unique identifier is associated with the first name within a second object listing of the second cloud computing environment (Paragraph 28 “. In other words, the metadata and the data associated with that metadata collectively make up an application that can be re-deployed to or at the destination organization 120-2. For instance, in one implementation, the selected metadata can include customized content of the source organization 120-1. Stated differently, metadata can refer to customized content or customizations done to an instance that define business logic and processes for an organization. Some non-limiting examples of metadata can include, for example, customized content that describes a build and functionality of objects (or tables), tabs, fields (or columns), permissions, classes, pages (e.g., Apex pages), triggers, controllers, sites, communities, workflow rules, automation rules and processes, etc. Data is associated with metadata to create an application. Data can be stored as one or more objects, where each object holds particular records for an organization. As such, data can include records (or user content) that are held by one or more objects. For example, an “account” object can hold account records in an organization.”); and
modifying, by the deployment automation pipeline, the contact center workload, wherein modifying the contact center workload includes replacing the first unique identifier with the second unique identifier in the contact center workload (Paragraph 20 “selected metadata and the data associated with the selected metadata can be re-deployed to the destination organization. The data engine can automatically reconstruct relationships amongst records (i.e., data) that has been successfully migrated to the destination organization and new identifiers (IDs) at the destination organization that are associated with those records. This automated system is not only more efficient and faster, but can also help improve relational data migration of custom content between organizations because it can eliminate or reduce errors. For instance, there is no need to manually update relation keys when custom content can be migrated between organizations.”).
Singhvi does not expressly disclose but O’Neil discloses determining, by the deployment automation pipeline, a first name associated with the first object, wherein determining the first name includes determining that the first name is associated with the first unique identifier within a first object listing of the first cloud computing environment (Paragraph 13 “present invention which includes the above-referenced automatic mapping system, the presentation layer can include a data source for providing a source field, a map designer for designing a field map, and a scheduler for integrating the field map. In the data layer, the automatic mapping system can also include an extract, transform, and load (ETL) engine, a data transformation module exchanging data with the automatic mapping engine, and a query module for structured calling of data from the data repository based on the field map using a querying language such as SQL, although the present invention is not limited to the use of this programming language.).
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 the method of Singhvi to include the teachings of O’Neil because it improves reliability for mapping names across systems.
As per claim 2, Singhvi further discloses, further comprising:
deploying the modified contact center workload within the second cloud computing environment (Paragraph 19 “technology for re-deploying metadata and associated data from a source organization of a cloud-based computing environment to a destination organization of the cloud-based computing environment. The described subject matter can be implemented in the context of any cloud-based computing environment including, for example, a multi-tenant database system.).
As per claim 6, Singhvi further discloses wherein the plurality of objects associated with the contact center workload deployed in the first cloud computing environment include at least one of:
at least one queue object;
at least one flow object (Paragraph 38);
at least one sub-flow object; or
at least one prompt object.
As per claim 7, Singhvi further discloses further comprising:
determining, based on the plurality of unique identifiers within the contact center workload, the plurality of objects in the first cloud computing environment (Paragraph 20);
determining, for each particular object in the plurality of objects in the first cloud computing environment:
a corresponding object in the second cloud computing environment associated with the particular object, based on matching the name to a corresponding name in the second cloud computing environment (Paragraph 20); and
a unique identifier associated with the corresponding object in the second cloud computing environment, based on matching the corresponding name to a unique identifier in the second object listing (Paragraph 20).
Singhvi does not expressly disclose but O’Neil discloses a name associated with the particular object, based on matching a unique identifier associated with the particular object in the first object listing (Paragraph 13).
As per claim 9, Singhvi further discloses wherein the first cloud computing environment is a test environment associated with the contact center workload, the method further comprising:
determining, based on receiving the data identifying a contact center workload, a plurality of production environments associated with the test environment, the plurality of production environments including the second cloud computing environment (Paragraph 27).
As per claim 10, it is a system claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 1 and is thus rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 14, Singhvi further discloses wherein the first unique identifier is associated with a first object in the source cloud computing environment, the first object comprising at least one of:
a queue object;
a flow object (Paragraph 38);
a sub-flow object; or
a prompt object.
As per claim 16, it is a system claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 9 and is thus rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 17, it is a media claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 1 and is thus rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 18, it is a media claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 2 and is thus rejected under the same rationale.
Claims 3, 8, 11, 15, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Singhvi in view of O’Neil in further view of Brooks (US 2012/0246120)
As per claim 3, Singhvi does not expressly disclose but Brooks discloses further comprising:
validating a configuration setting within the modified contact center workload, wherein deploying the modified contact center workload is based at least in part on validating the configuration setting (Paragraph 89 “Once the user has finished defining the package, the package is validated. This can be done automatically by the system, e.g., when a user indicates that the package is complete, or it may be done responsive to a user request to validate, e.g., the user selecting a "validate" or similar button on a GUI. This invokes the spidering process that makes sure all required setup data is included in the package definition. This is useful in case a user has changed metadata in the package (e.g., added a relationship, another tab or object, etc.) since metadata items were first added to the package.).
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 the method of Singhvi to include the teachings of Brooks because it provides a system to handle mismatches between environments.
As per claim 8, Singhvi does not expressly disclose but Brooks discloses wherein determining the second unique identifier comprises:
comparing the first name to a plurality of names in the second object listing of the second cloud computing environment (Paragraph 89); and
rendering a user interface, in response to determining that the first name does not match a name within the second object listing, the user interface including an object selection component with a plurality of selection options based on the second object listing (Paragraph 89).
As per claim 11, it is a system claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 3 and is thus rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 15, it is a system claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 8 and is thus rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 20, it is a media claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 8 and is thus rejected under the same rationale.
Claim 4, 5, 12, 13, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Singhvi in view of O’Neil in further view of Lev Ran (US 20220131865)
As per claim 4, Singhvi does not expressly disclose but Lev Ran discloses wherein receiving the data identifying the contact center workload comprises receiving a deployment request via the deployment automation pipeline, and wherein modifying the contact center workload (Paragraph 63 “Such an operating model provides a set of practices to organize code and configuration for applications and environments in an automated way. Instead of manually configuring an environment, all changes are automatically deployed once they are approved and merged into a new version. The versioning management system with the operating model for the orchestration system are an example for an implementation of a configuration management system.”) comprises:
determining a user identifier within the first cloud computing environment associated with the deployment request (Paragraph 15); and
verifying a first level of user access associated with the user identifier to the contact center workload in the first cloud computing environment (Paragraph 15).
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 the method of Singhvi to include the teachings of Lev Ran because it secures deployment of workloads between environments.
As per claim 5, Singhvi does not expressly disclose but Lev Ran discloses wherein modifying the contact center workload further comprises:
determining the second cloud computing environment, based on the deployment request (Paragraph 15) and
verifying a second level of user access associated with the user identifier to the second cloud computing environment (Paragraph 15).
As per claim 12, it is a system claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 4 and is thus rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 13, it is a system claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 5 and is thus rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 19, it is a media claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 4 and is thus rejected under the same rationale.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to TIMOTHY A MUDRICK whose telephone number is (571)270-3374. The examiner can normally be reached 9am-5pm Central Time.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Pierre Vital can be reached at (571)272-4215. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/TIMOTHY A MUDRICK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2198 3/19/2026
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