DETAILED ACTION
Status of Claims
This is a first office action on the merits in response to the application filed on 8 February 2024.
Claims 1-20 are currently pending and have been considered by the examiner.
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 .
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 idea without significantly more.
In the instant case, claims 1-18 are directed towards a method and claim 19 is directed to a system/apparatus. Therefore, these claims fall within the four statutory categories of invention.
Claim 20 is directed towards a computer program product embodied in a non-transitory computer readable medium. When considering the BRI of the claim, the examiner must consider the scope of the claim to encompass the computer program product itself regardless of where it is stored/embodied. Products that do not have a physical or tangible form, such as information (often referred to as "data per se") or a computer program per se (often referred to as "software per se") when claimed as a product cannot be considered to be directed to any of the statutory categories. See MPEP 2106.03. Therefore, claim 20 is patent ineligible under 35 USC 101. For purposes of compact prosecution, the examiner will continue analysis of the claim under 35 USC 101.
Claim 1 recites the following:
A method, comprising:
obtaining information regarding computing infrastructure resource utilizations of hosts of a specific cluster;
identifying software license utilizations of the hosts of the specific cluster; and
providing, via a user interface, a first visual user interface element indicating an aggregation of the computing infrastructure resource utilizations of the specific cluster, and a second visual user interface element indicating an aggregation of the identified software license utilizations of the specific cluster.
Regarding Step 2A Prong One, the claims recite the abstract idea of performing a mental process. Specifically, the claims recite the limitations underlined above which recite steps which could reasonably be performed in the human mind or by a human using a pen and paper (such as observation, evaluation, and opinion) which is grouped within the Mental Processes grouping of abstract ideas in prong one of step 2A of the Alice/Mayo test (See MPEP § 2106.04) because the claims involve the processes of observing, judging, evaluation, and providing which can all reasonably be performed by a human with pen and paper. Accordingly, the claims recite an abstract idea (See pages 7, 10, Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International, et al., US Supreme Court, No. 13-298, June 19, 2014; 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. 50, 53-54 (January 7, 2019)).
Regarding Step 2A Prong Two, the recited abstract idea is not integrated into a practical application because, when analyzed under prong two of step 2A of the Alice/Mayo test (See MPEP § 2106.04(d)), the additional element(s) of the claim(s) such as a “user interface” merely use(s) a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea. Specifically, the “user interface” perform(s) the steps or functions underlined above. The use of a processor/computer as a tool to implement the abstract idea does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it requires no more than a computer performing functions that correspond to acts required to carry out the abstract idea. The additional elements do not involve improvements to the functioning of a computer, or to any other technology or technical field (MPEP 2106.05(a)), the claims do not apply or use the abstract idea to effect a particular treatment or prophylaxis for a disease or medical condition (Vanda Memo), the claims do not apply the abstract idea with, or by use of, a particular machine (MPEP 2106.05(b)), the claims do not effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing (MPEP 2106.05(c)), and the claims do not apply or use the abstract idea in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception (MPEP 2106.05(e) and Vanda Memo). Therefore, the claims do not, for example, purport to improve the functioning of a computer. Nor do they effect an improvement in any other technology or technical field. Accordingly, the additional elements do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea, and the claims are directed to an abstract idea.
The claim(s) do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because, when analyzed under step 2B of the Alice/Mayo test (See MPEP § 2106.05), the additional element(s) of a “user interface” amounts to no more than using a computer or processor to automate and/or implement the abstract idea. As discussed above, taking the claim elements separately, the “user interface” perform(s) the steps or functions underlined above. These functions correspond to the actions required to perform the abstract idea. Viewed as a whole, the combination of elements recited in the claims merely recite the abstract idea. Therefore, the use of these additional elements does no more than employ the computer as a tool to automate and/or implement the abstract idea. The use of a computer or processor to merely automate and/or implement the abstract idea cannot provide significantly more than the abstract idea itself (MPEP 2106.05(I)(A)(f) & (h)). Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
Dependent claims 2-18 further describe the recited abstract idea. The dependent claims do not include additional elements that integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or that provide significantly more than the abstract idea. Specifically:
Claims 2, 5, 10, and 12 merely further describes user interface without integrating the additional element into practical application nor amounting to significantly more.
Claims 3, 13-8 merely further describes steps directed towards the recited abstract idea.
Claims 4 and 6-9, and 11 merely further describes information observed/provided when performing the recited abstract idea.
Therefore, as the dependent claims do not include additional elements that integrate the abstract idea into a practical application nor provide significantly more than the abstract idea, the dependent claims are also not patent eligible.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Tyagi et al. (US 20210073354 A1).
Regarding Claim 1, 19, and 20, Tyagi discloses:
A method, comprising:
obtaining information regarding computing infrastructure resource utilizations of hosts of a specific cluster (See Tyagi: Fig. 9 – Step 900; Para. [0181] - “Block 900 involves remotely accessing a license consolidation server using access credentials thereof, where license consolidation server acquires and stores concurrent license usage statistics for a concurrent software application by obtaining license usage data from at least one licensing server disposed on a managed network, where a computational instance of a remote network management platform is dedicated to the managed network, where the computational instance includes persistent storage.” – It is clear to one of ordinary skill in the art that the managed network of Tyagi is equivalent to the BRI of the claimed “cluster”);
identifying software license utilizations of the hosts of the specific cluster (See Tyagi: Fig. 9 – Step 910; Para. [0182] - “Block 910 involves, while remotely accessing the license consolidation server, obtaining the concurrent license usage statistics from the license consolidation server.”); and
providing, via a user interface, a first visual user interface element (See Tyagi: Para. [0184] – “Block 930 involves, based on the concurrent license usage statistics and the license rights allocation, generating a representation of a graphical user interface that contains an overview pane that indicates a utilization of the concurrent software application.”) indicating an aggregation of the computing infrastructure resource utilizations of the specific cluster (The examiner has determined that the aforementioned claim limitation constitutes a recitation of nonfunctional descriptive material in the form of intended use/result. Specifically, the limitation does not impart any clear functional nor structural limitation on the positively claimed method step of “providing”. Accordingly, the limitation cannot be given patentable weight. See MPEP 2111.04. For purposes of compact prosecution, the examiner provides the following citation: See Tyagi: Fig. 8B – 824 – Active Users; Para. [0164] – “FIG. 8B depicts license usage summary pane 820, in accordance with example embodiments. License usage summary pane 820 includes usage graph 822, active users table 824, idle users table 826, and denied users table 828.” – It is clear to one of ordinary skill in the art that the number of active users of a software is directly proportional to the amount computing resource utilization being used to run said software.), and a second visual user interface element (See Tyagi: Fig. 8B – License Usage Over Time - 822) indicating an aggregation of the identified software license utilizations of the specific cluster (The examiner has determined that the aforementioned claim limitation constitutes a recitation of nonfunctional descriptive material in the form of intended use/result. Specifically, the limitation does not impart any clear functional nor structural limitation on the positively claimed method step of “providing”. Accordingly, the limitation cannot be given patentable weight. See MPEP 2111.04. For purposes of compact prosecution, the examiner provides the following citation: See Tyagi: Para. [0184] – “Block 930 involves, based on the concurrent license usage statistics and the license rights allocation, generating a representation of a graphical user interface that contains an overview pane that indicates a utilization of the concurrent software application.”).
Regarding Claim 2, Tyagi discloses:
wherein the user interface is a unified interface including the first visual user interface element and the second visual user interface element within a same view (See Tyagi: Fig. 8B – User interface elements 822 and 824 are contained within a single unified interface window).
Regarding Claim 3, Tyagi discloses:
wherein obtaining the information regarding computing infrastructure resource utilizations of the hosts of the specific cluster includes performing a discovery process with respect to the hosts of the specific cluster (See Tyagi: Para. [0101] – “In general, discovery may proceed in four logical phases: scanning, classification, identification, and exploration. Each phase of discovery involves various types of probe messages being transmitted by proxy servers 312 to one or more devices in managed network 300. The responses to these probes may be received and processed by proxy servers 312, and representations thereof may be transmitted to CMDB 500. Thus, each phase can result in more configuration items being discovered and stored in CMDB 500.”).
Regarding Claim 4, Tyagi discloses:
wherein: the identification of the software license utilizations of the hosts of the specific cluster includes an identification of a software license of the software license utilizations and a corresponding location where the software license is utilized, and the location includes at least one of: a physical location, a host of the hosts of the specific cluster, a device associated with the specific cluster, a software instance, or a virtual machine instance (See Tyagi: Para. [0101] - “In general, discovery may proceed in four logical phases: scanning, classification, identification, and exploration. Each phase of discovery involves various types of probe messages being transmitted by proxy servers 312 to one or more devices in managed network 300. The responses to these probes may be received and processed by proxy servers 312, and representations thereof may be transmitted to CMDB 500. Thus, each phase can result in more configuration items being discovered and stored in CMDB 500.”).
Regarding Claim 5, Tyagi discloses:
via the user interface, a third visual user interface element (See Tyagi: Fig. 8B – Idle Users - 826 and Denied Users - 828) indicating an optimization associated with at least one of: the computing infrastructure resource utilizations of the specific cluster or the identified software license utilizations of the specific cluster (The examiner has determined that the aforementioned claim limitation constitutes a recitation of nonfunctional descriptive material in the form of intended use/result. Specifically, the limitation does not impart any clear functional nor structural limitation on the positively claimed method step of “providing”. Accordingly, the limitation cannot be given patentable weight. See MPEP 2111.04. For purposes of compact prosecution, the examiner provides the following citation: See Tyagi: Para. [0034] – “The aPaaS system may support the ability to configure the behavior of applications using metadata. This allows application behaviors to be rapidly adapted to meet specific needs. Such an approach reduces development time and increases flexibility. Further, the aPaaS system may support GUI tools that facilitate metadata creation and management, thus reducing errors in the metadata.”).
Regarding Claim 6, Tyagi discloses:
wherein the optimization includes an identification of a number of software instances associated with the computing infrastructure resource utilizations of the specific cluster exceeding a threshold (The examiner has determined that the aforementioned claim limitation constitutes a recitation of nonfunctional descriptive material in the form of intended use/result. Specifically, the limitation does not impart any clear functional nor structural limitation on the positively claimed method step of “providing”. Accordingly, the limitation cannot be given patentable weight. See MPEP 2111.04. For purposes of compact prosecution, the examiner provides the following citation: See Tyagi: Para. [0123] – “For example, remote network management platform 320 may run discovery on computing devices within managed network 300 to determine how many times each software application has been installed as discussed (e.g., how many times each software application is installed on devices within managed network 300). In some cases, remote network management platform 320 may also determine how many users from managed network 300 access each installed software application. Then, remote network management platform 320 may compare the number of software installations with the software license rights to determine whether the software application(s) are in or out of compliance.”).
Regarding Claim 7, Tyagi discloses:
wherein: the optimization includes identification of a location within the specific cluster in which to utilize a software license, the software license being associated with the identified software license utilizations of the specific cluster, and the location includes at least one of: a physical location, a host of the hosts of the specific cluster, a device associated with the specific cluster, a software instance, or a virtual machine instance (The examiner has determined that the aforementioned claim limitation constitutes a recitation of nonfunctional descriptive material in the form of intended use/result. Specifically, the limitation does not impart any clear functional nor structural limitation on the positively claimed method step of “providing”. Accordingly, the limitation cannot be given patentable weight. See MPEP 2111.04. For purposes of compact prosecution, the examiner provides the following citation: See Tyagi: Para. [0101] - “In general, discovery may proceed in four logical phases: scanning, classification, identification, and exploration. Each phase of discovery involves various types of probe messages being transmitted by proxy servers 312 to one or more devices in managed network 300. The responses to these probes may be received and processed by proxy servers 312, and representations thereof may be transmitted to CMDB 500. Thus, each phase can result in more configuration items being discovered and stored in CMDB 500.”;).
Regarding Claim 8, Tyagi discloses:
wherein the optimization is based at least on a reconciliation of at least one of: a publisher, a product, an edition, and a version of a software associated with the identified software license utilizations of the specific cluster (The examiner has determined that the aforementioned claim limitation constitutes a recitation of nonfunctional descriptive material in the form of intended use/result. Specifically, the limitation does not impart any clear functional nor structural limitation on the positively claimed method step of “providing”. Accordingly, the limitation cannot be given patentable weight. See MPEP 2111.04. For purposes of compact prosecution, the examiner provides the following citation: See Tyagi: Para. [0127] – “If none of the stored software configurations have matching attributes, then remote network management platform 320 may generate a new software configuration the particular software application. This process may involve (i) gathering attributes (e.g., a particular publisher, tile, version, and/or edition) for the particular software configuration via a GUI and updating the CMDB 500 to include the gathered attributes associated with the new software configuration.”).
Regarding Claim 9, Tyagi discloses:
wherein the optimization is based at least on a model of potential software license utilizations of the specific cluster, the potential software license utilizations of the specific cluster being based at least on a range of movement permitted for a virtual machine associated with the specific cluster (The examiner has determined that the aforementioned claim limitation constitutes a recitation of nonfunctional descriptive material in the form of intended use/result. Specifically, the limitation does not impart any clear functional nor structural limitation on the positively claimed method step of “providing”. Accordingly, the limitation cannot be given patentable weight. See MPEP 2111.04. For purposes of compact prosecution, the examiner provides the following citation: See Tyagi: Para. [0102] – “In the scanning phase, proxy servers 312 may probe each IP address in the specified range of IP addresses for open Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and/or User Datagram Protocol (UDP) ports to determine the general type of device. The presence of such open ports at an IP address may indicate that a particular application is operating on the device that is assigned the IP address, which in turn may identify the operating system used by the device. For example, if TCP port 135 is open, then the device is likely executing a WINDOWS® operating system. Similarly, if TCP port 22 is open, then the device is likely executing a UNIX® operating system, such as LINUX®. If UDP port 161 is open, then the device may be able to be further identified through the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP). Other possibilities exist. Once the presence of a device at a particular IP address and its open ports have been discovered, these configuration items are saved in CMDB 500.”).
Regarding Claim 10, Tyagi discloses:
further comprising providing, via the user interface, a fourth visual user interface element (See Tyagi: Fig. 8B) indicating a health issue associated with the at least one of: the computing infrastructure resource utilizations of the specific cluster or the identified software license utilizations of the specific cluster (The examiner has determined that the aforementioned claim limitation constitutes a recitation of nonfunctional descriptive material in the form of intended use/result. Specifically, the limitation does not impart any clear functional nor structural limitation on the positively claimed method step of “providing”. Accordingly, the limitation cannot be given patentable weight. See MPEP 2111.04. For purposes of compact prosecution, the examiner provides the following citation: See Tyagi: Para. [0117] – “Regardless of how relationship information is obtained, it can be valuable for the operation of a managed network. Notably, IT personnel can quickly determine where certain software applications are deployed, and what configuration items make up a service. This allows for rapid pinpointing of root causes of service outages or degradation. For example, if two different services are suffering from slow response times, the CMDB can be queried (perhaps among other activities) to determine that the root cause is a database application that is used by both services having high processor utilization. Thus, IT personnel can address the database application rather than waste time considering the health and performance of other configuration items that make up the services.”).
Regarding Claim 11, Tyagi discloses:
further comprising providing, via the user interface, a third visual user interface element (See Tyagi: Fig. 8B) indicating a health issue associated with at least one of: the computing infrastructure resource utilizations of the specific cluster or the identified software license utilizations of the specific cluster (The examiner has determined that the aforementioned claim limitation constitutes a recitation of nonfunctional descriptive material in the form of intended use/result. Specifically, the limitation does not impart any clear functional nor structural limitation on the positively claimed method step of “providing”. Accordingly, the limitation cannot be given patentable weight. See MPEP 2111.04. For purposes of compact prosecution, the examiner provides the following citation: See Tyagi: Para. [0117] – “Regardless of how relationship information is obtained, it can be valuable for the operation of a managed network. Notably, IT personnel can quickly determine where certain software applications are deployed, and what configuration items make up a service. This allows for rapid pinpointing of root causes of service outages or degradation. For example, if two different services are suffering from slow response times, the CMDB can be queried (perhaps among other activities) to determine that the root cause is a database application that is used by both services having high processor utilization. Thus, IT personnel can address the database application rather than waste time considering the health and performance of other configuration items that make up the services.”).
Regarding Claim 12, Tyagi discloses:
wherein the first visual user interface element and the second visual user interface element are presented as respective wedges in a circular shape (See Tyagi: Fig. 8C – 834, 836, and 838).
Regarding Claim 13, Tyagi discloses:
further comprising providing a panel associated with a selected element of at least one of: the first visual user interface element or the second visual user interface element (See Tyagi: Figs. 8A-8C – The Dashboard disclosed by Tyagi clearly displays multiple panels for the multiple interface elements).
Regarding Claim 14, Tyagi discloses:
wherein the panel includes information about at least one of the hosts of the specific cluster or cores associated with the specific cluster (The examiner has determined that the aforementioned claim limitation constitutes a recitation of nonfunctional descriptive material in the form of intended use/result. Specifically, the limitation does not impart any clear functional nor structural limitation on the positively claimed method step of “providing”. Accordingly, the limitation cannot be given patentable weight. See MPEP 2111.04. For purposes of compact prosecution, the examiner provides the following citation: See Tyagi: Para. [0164] – “FIG. 8B depicts license usage summary pane 820, in accordance with example embodiments. License usage summary pane 820 includes usage graph 822, active users table 824, idle users table 826, and denied users table 828. Like overview pane 810, license usage summary pane 820 also includes navigation bar 802, which includes tabs for “Overview”, “License Usage Summary”, “Denials Summary”, and “Product Use Summary”. Notably, the tab for “License Usage Summary” is shown in a dark color background to indicate that this tab's information is currently displayed.”).
Regarding Claim 15, Tyagi discloses:
wherein the panel includes information about software installations of the specific cluster (The examiner has determined that the aforementioned claim limitation constitutes a recitation of nonfunctional descriptive material in the form of intended use/result. Specifically, the limitation does not impart any clear functional nor structural limitation on the positively claimed method step of “providing”. Accordingly, the limitation cannot be given patentable weight. See MPEP 2111.04. For purposes of compact prosecution, the examiner provides the following citation: See Tyagi: Para. [0004] – “To ease this process, the managed network could use the services of a remote network management platform. In particular, the remote network management platform may operate to discover software applications installed on computing devices in the managed network, so as to establish installation counts for the software applications. Then, after a user from the managed network specifies license rights for the software applications, the remote network management platform could compare the installation counts to the license rights. As a specific example, the remote network management platform may discover that 160 instances of ADOBE ACROBAT® are installed on the managed network, when only 150 license rights are available. If this occurs, the remote network management platform may notify the managed network that it is out of compliance with the software license agreement.”).
Regarding Claim 16, Tyagi discloses:
wherein the panel includes information about the identified software license utilizations of the specific cluster (The examiner has determined that the aforementioned claim limitation constitutes a recitation of nonfunctional descriptive material in the form of intended use/result. Specifically, the limitation does not impart any clear functional nor structural limitation on the positively claimed method step of “providing”. Accordingly, the limitation cannot be given patentable weight. See MPEP 2111.04. For purposes of compact prosecution, the examiner provides the following citation: See Tyagi: Para. [0184] – “Block 930 involves, based on the concurrent license usage statistics and the license rights allocation, generating a representation of a graphical user interface that contains an overview pane that indicates a utilization of the concurrent software application.”).
Regarding Claim 17, Tyagi discloses:
wherein the panel includes a visual representation of the identified software license utilizations of the specific cluster (The examiner has determined that the aforementioned claim limitation constitutes a recitation of nonfunctional descriptive material in the form of intended use/result. Specifically, the limitation does not impart any clear functional nor structural limitation on the positively claimed method step of “providing”. Accordingly, the limitation cannot be given patentable weight. See MPEP 2111.04. For purposes of compact prosecution, the examiner provides the following citation: See Tyagi: Para. [0184] – “Block 930 involves, based on the concurrent license usage statistics and the license rights allocation, generating a representation of a graphical user interface that contains an overview pane that indicates a utilization of the concurrent software application.”).
Regarding Claim 18, Tyagi discloses:
further comprising providing a dashboard (See Tyagi: Figs. 8A-8C) for governance management associated with the identified software license utilizations of the specific cluster (The examiner has determined that the aforementioned claim limitation constitutes a recitation of nonfunctional descriptive material in the form of intended use/result. Specifically, the limitation does not impart any clear functional nor structural limitation on the positively claimed method step of “providing”. Accordingly, the limitation cannot be given patentable weight. See MPEP 2111.04. For purposes of compact prosecution, the examiner provides the following citation: See Tyagi: Para. [0083] – “Remote network management platform 320 may include modules that integrate with public cloud networks 340 to expose virtual machines and managed services therein to managed network 300. The modules may allow users to request virtual resources, discover allocated resources, and provide flexible reporting for public cloud networks 340. In order to establish this functionality, a user from managed network 300 might first establish an account with public cloud networks 340, and request a set of associated resources. Then, the user may enter the account information into the appropriate modules of remote network management platform 320. These modules may then automatically discover the manageable resources in the account, and also provide reports related to usage, performance, and billing.”).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NICHOLAS K PHAN whose telephone number is (571)272-6748. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 1 pm-9 pm EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Neha Patel can be reached at 571-270-1492. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/NICHOLAS K PHAN/Examiner, Art Unit 3699
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