ASSET ACCESS TAG AND USES THEREOF

Application No. 18/436,444

• Filed: Feb 08, 2024
• Examiner: ALAM, FAYYAZ
• Art Unit: 2646
• Tech Center: 2600 — Communications
• Assignee: Dell Products L.P.
• OA Round: 1 (Non-Final)

Office Action

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 .

Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Group I claims 1-12 in the reply filed on 6/16/2026 is acknowledged. Therefore, claims 13-20 are withdrawn.

Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement submitted has been considered by the Examiner and made of record in the application file.

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.

The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-5, 7, and 10-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Malhotra et al. “Dell EMC - Understanding Quick Sync 2 for Dell EMC PowerEdge 14th Gen Servers and MX7000 Chassis”, September 2018, Understanding Quick Sync 2 for Dell EMC PowerEdge 14th Gen Servers and MX7000 Chassis in view of Cisco, “Interface and Hardware Components Configuration Guide, Cisco IOS XE Gibraltar 16.12.x (Catalyst 9300 Switches)”, Chapter: Configuring an External USB Bluetooth Dongle, July 2019, Interface and Hardware Components Configuration Guide, Cisco IOS XE Gibraltar 16.12.x (Catalyst 9300 Switches) - Configuring an External USB Bluetooth Dongle [Support] - Cisco.
Consider claim 1, Dell discloses an apparatus comprising: at least one processing device comprising a processor coupled to a memory (see page 5: “…Quick Sync 2 with OpenManage Mobile (OMM), administrators can configure, monitor, and troubleshoot…”, inherently a processor and memory); at least one antenna coupled to the at least one processing device (see page 4: NFC, inherently an antenna present); the at least one processing device being configured: to obtain data, from a network NFC-based bezel that enabled communication between a mobile device and iDRAC. This “Quick Sync” bezel is supported on PowerEdge R730, R730xd, and R630 PowerEdge servers. The bezel lets customers perform bare-metal configuration by assigning an IP address and changing password of iDRAC. They can also view server details, hardware and software inventory, networking details, health status, and logs…”); to store at least a portion of the obtained data using at least a portion of the memory (see page 5: “…monitor servers, Quick Sync 2 provides information such as: [Symbol font/0xB7] System inventory, including CPU and Memory details [Symbol font/0xB7] Health status [Symbol font/0xB7] iDRAC System Event and Lifecycle Controller logs [Symbol font/0xB7] Network settings [Symbol font/0xB7] Firmware details [Symbol font/0xB7] Diagnostics information including SupportAssist reports, console/last crash screens, and boot and crash videos…”); and to output, in conjunction with the at least one antenna, the at least a portion of the obtained data to one or more user devices (see page 6: “…mobile customers can view server health and inventory data, and also configure common iDRAC and BIOS settings…”, inherently an output to the mobile customer via BLE or WiFi).
However, Malhotra does not explicitly disclose network switch.
In the related field of endeavor, Cisco discloses a network switch (see Section – Information About External USB Bluetooth Dongle: “… Cisco IOS XE Gibraltar 16.12.1, switches support external USB Bluetooth dongle. The connected external USB Bluetooth dongle acts as a Bluetooth host for external devices and serves as a management port on the switch. You can pair an external USB Bluetooth dongle with your Bluetooth-enabled external devices such as smart phone, laptop, or tablet…”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at a time before the effective filing date of the claimed subject matter to substitute the server module for monitoring with a BLE dongle of Cisco in order to arrive at the instant recitation to provide optimal IT monitoring and configuring.
Consider claim 2 as applied to respective claim, Malhotra as modified discloses the at least one antenna comprises at least one near-field communication (NFC) antenna (see Malhotra page 4 “NFC”).
Consider claim 3 as applied to respective claim, Malhotra as modified discloses the at least one processing device comprises at least one electrically erasable programmable read-only memory (EEPROM) integrated circuit (IC) (see Malhotra; inherent, e.g. Kumar USPN 2026/019723, [0058] “…near-field communication (NFC) chip 270, an example of which is illustrated in FIG. 3B. The NFC chip 270 can include EEPROM which allows configuration parameters of the lighting fixture 120 to be set remotely and wirelessly using an NFC-equipped device…”).
Consider claim 4 as applied to respective claim, Malhotra as modified discloses the at least one EEPROM IC comprises at least one NFC EEPROM IC (see Malhotra; inherent, e.g. Kumar USPN 2026/019723, [0058] “…near-field communication (NFC) chip 270, an example of which is illustrated in FIG. 3B. The NFC chip 270 can include EEPROM which allows configuration parameters of the lighting fixture 120 to be set remotely and wirelessly using an NFC-equipped device…”).
Consider claim 5 as applied to respective claim, Malhotra as modified discloses the at least one processing device comprises at least one solid-state drive (SSD) IC (see Malhotra; inherent, e.g. Perpetua USPN 2024/0412268, [0017] “…term “mobile computing unit” refers to any device with one or more processors, memory (e.g., short-term memory (e.g., Read Only Memory or RAM) and long-term memory (e.g., solid-state memory)) and the ability to communicate wirelessly via NFC …”).
Consider claim 7 as applied to respective claim, Malhotra as modified discloses obtaining data from a network switch comprises accessing at least a portion of the data from the network switch using at least one of NFC and at least one inter-integrated circuit (I2C) (see Malhotra; inherent e.g. Raghavulu USPN 2025/0284331 [0201]: “… interface circuit 1520. The interface circuit 1520 may be implemented by any type of interface standard, such as an Ethernet interface, a universal serial bus (USB), a Bluetooth® interface, a near field communication (NFC) interface, a PCI express interface, an I2C interface, and/or a SPI or other serial interface…”).
Consider claim 10 as applied to respective claim, Malhotra as modified discloses obtaining data from a network switch comprises obtaining data associated with one or more of network switch system EEPROM, firmware installed on the network switch, inventory status of one or more elements of the network switch, network operating system status, BMC status, and one or more diagnostics reports (see page 5: “…monitor servers, Quick Sync 2 provides information such as: [Symbol font/0xB7] System inventory, including CPU and Memory details [Symbol font/0xB7] Health status [Symbol font/0xB7] iDRAC System Event and Lifecycle Controller logs [Symbol font/0xB7] Network settings [Symbol font/0xB7] Firmware details [Symbol font/0xB7] Diagnostics information including SupportAssist reports, console/last crash screens, and boot and crash videos…”).
Consider claim 11 as applied to respective claim, Malhotra as modified discloses the apparatus comprises an asset access tag configured for use with at least the network switch (see Malhotra; inherent, e.g. Singla USPN 11750448 “…various network devices, e.g., network device 102 (a switch) and network device 104 (an access point (AP)) may have one or more of the aforementioned EA asset tags integrated therein. For example, network device 104 may have integrated therein, an EA asset tag 104A, and network device 102 may have integrated therein, an EA asset tag 102A. It should be noted that although switches and APs are provided as examples herein, EA asset tags may be implemented in any network device…”).
Consider claim 12 as applied to respective claim, Malhotra as modified discloses the at least one processing device is further configured: to provide one or more commands, via at least one network operating system interface of the network switch using one or more JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) web tokens (JWTs), to at least one of a BMC OS of the network switch and a host CPU SoC of the network switch (see Malhotra section 2.1: “…mobile customers can view server health and inventory data, and also configure common iDRAC and BIOS settings…”; 3.3.4 “.json”; see Cisco “switch” and “dongle”) .

Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6, 8-9 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: See respective claim recitation.

Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See Notice of Reference Cited for state of the art.

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Fayyaz Alam

July 10, 2026

/FAYYAZ ALAM/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2674

Prosecution Timeline

• Feb 08, 2024: Application Filed
• Jul 15, 2026: Non-Final Rejection mailed — §103 (current)