DETAILED ACTION
Acknowledgments
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
This action is in reply to the application filed on 09/25/2023.
Claims 1-21 are currently pending and have been examined.
Information Disclosure Statement
The Information Disclosure Statements filed 10/04/23 and 05/22/2025 have been considered. Initialed copies of the Form 1449 are enclosed herewith.
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 1-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-patent eligible subject matter because the claim(s) as a whole, considering all claim elements both individually and in combination, do not amount to significantly more than an abstract idea.
Step 1:
The claims recite a process, system, apparatus, article of manufacture, and/or a nontransitory storage medium with instructions, each of which are proper statutory categories.
Step 2A (prong 1):
Claim 1 (representative of claims 8 and 15):
The claim limitations are grouped as shown immediately following:
…machine readable instructions; (Certain Methods Of Organizing Human Activity - business relations or managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people including following rules or instructions)
determine that a first resource usage of a first cluster in a first workload domain satisfies a threshold indicative of an upper limit of resource usage in the first cluster; (Certain Methods Of Organizing Human Activity - business relations or managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people including following rules or instructions)
identify a second cluster in a second workload domain having an availability based on a second resource usage represented resource usage data, the second workload domain logically grouped with the first workload domain based on a criterion; (Certain Methods Of Organizing Human Activity - business relations or managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people including following rules or instructions)
reallocate a host from the second cluster to the first cluster. (Certain Methods Of Organizing Human Activity - business relations or managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people including following rules or instructions)
Additional dependent claims 2-7, 9-14, and 16-21 do not appear remedy the deficiency.
Step 2A (prong 2):
Claim 1 (representative of claims 8 and 15):
…an apparatus
…interface circuitry;
…programmable circuitry to at least one of instantiate or execute the machine readable instructions to:
…a non-transitory computer readable storage medium
These remaining claim limitations are delineated as shown immediately preceding. The abstract idea is not integrated into a practical application. There are no improvements to the functioning of a computer, other technology or technical field, a particular machine is not cited, nothing is transformed to a different state or thing, the abstract idea is not more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the abstract idea. The claim merely uses a computer as a tool to perform the abstract idea, which is generally linked to a particular field of use, in this case, marketing and advertising. Thus, these limitations are recited at a high-level of generality (i.e., as a generic processor and memory performing a generic computer function of processing and storing data) such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component – MPEP 2106.05(f). Further, receiving data, evaluating data and distributing data are data gathering and data outputting, which has no effect on technology and does no more than generally link the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use – see MPEP 2106.05(h).
Step 2B:
The claim limitations do not provide an Inventive Concept. The claim limitations do not recite additional elements that amount to significantly more that the abstract idea because the additional elements of the system comprising a computer processor, computer readable storage medium with instructions, and a memory configured to store information, each recited at a high level of generality in a computer network which only perform the universal computer functions of accessing, receiving, storing, and processing data, transmitting and presenting information. Taking the elements both individually and as an ordered combination, the function performed by the computer at each step of the process is purely orthodox. Using a computer to obtain and display data are some of the most basic functions of a computer. As shown, the individual limitations claimed are some of the most rudimentary functions of a computer. The technical solution described in this invention does not alter hardware structure or its routine, does not transform the character of the information being processed, does not identify a novel source or type of data, does not advance the functionality of a computer as a tool, and does not incorporate specific rules enabling the computer to accomplish innovative utilities. In summary, the individual step and/or component does no more than require a general computer to perform standard computer functions. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional element of a computer devices amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component - requiring the use of software to tailor information and provide it to the user on a generic computer, Intellectual Ventures I LLC v. Capital One Bank (USA), 792 F.3d 1363, 1370-71, 115 USPQ2d 1636, 1642 (Fed. Cir. 2015);
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 1-21 are rejected under U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lu et al. (USPGP 2021/0373971 A1), hereinafter LU.
Claims 1, 8, 15:
LU as shown below discloses the following limitations:
interface circuitry; (see at least Figure 1 as well as associated and related text)
machine readable instructions; (see at least Figure 1 as well as associated and related text)
programmable circuitry to at least one of instantiate or execute the machine readable instructions to: (see at least Figure 1 as well as associated and related text)
determine that a first resource usage of a first cluster in a first workload domain satisfies a threshold indicative of an upper limit of resource usage in the first cluster; (see at least paragraph 0039; Figure 2 as well as associated and related text)
identify a second cluster in a second workload domain having an availability based on a second resource usage represented resource usage data, the second workload domain logically grouped with the first workload domain based on a criterion; (see at least paragraphs 0041, 0045; Figure 2 as well as associated and related text)
reallocate a host from the second cluster to the first cluster. (see at least paragraphs 0016, 0020)
LU does not specifically disclose each of the above limitations within a single embodiment. In this case, each of the elements claimed are all shown by the prior art of record but not combined as claimed. However, the technical ability exists to combine the elements as claimed and the results of the combination are predictable. Therefore, when combined, the elements perform the same function as they did separately. (KSR v. Teleflex, 127 S. Ct. 1727 (2007)). Consequently, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date to combine/modify the method of LU because, “Resource schedulers can determine the optimal placement of virtual machines and other workloads within a cluster. A resource scheduler can dynamically monitor a cluster and allocate physical resources to virtual machines within the cluster. The resource scheduler can also redistribute the virtual machines for load balancing purposes within the cluster. As datacenters expand, multi-cluster configurations are becoming more common. Single cluster private cloud configurations can be expanded to include public cloud resources to create a hybrid cloud environment. Resource management in a complex cloud environment with multiple clusters is a hard problem in view of scalability requirements, the heterogeneity of resource types, and the variability of workloads. Cluster-based limitations of existing solutions can result in a failure to effectively manage multi-cluster datacenter configurations.” (LU: paragraphs 0002-0003). Additionally, there is a recognized problem or need in the art including market pressure, design need, etc., and there are a finite number of identified predictable solutions. Accordingly, those in the art could have pursued known solutions with reasonable expectation of success. (KSR v. Teleflex, 127 S. Ct. 1727 (2007)). Fundamentally, in the competitive business climate, there is a profit-driven motive to maximize the profitability of goods and services that are provided or marketed to customers. Enterprises typically use business planning to make decisions in order to maximize profits.
Claims 2, 3, 9, 10, 16, 17:
LU discloses the limitations as shown in the rejections above. LU further discloses the following limitations:
wherein the programmable circuitry is to recalculate the first resource usage and the second resource usage after the host is reallocated from the second cluster to the first cluster.
wherein the programmable circuitry is to compare the second resource usage data to a second threshold to determine whether the second cluster is available, the second threshold indicative of whether the second cluster has available hosts that can be used to reduce the first resource usage of the first cluster, where the first cluster is in a low resource state.
See at least paragraphs 0053 and 0068-0071; Figure 4 as well as associated and related text
Claims 4, 11, 18:
LU discloses the limitations as shown in the rejections above. LU further discloses the following limitations:
wherein the programmable circuitry is to:
recalculate the first resource usage and the second resource usage after the host is reallocated from the second cluster to the first cluster;
compare the recalculated first resource usage and the recalculated second resource usage to the threshold;
determine that the first resource usage and the second resource usage do not satisfy the threshold;
compare a third resource usage of a third cluster in the first workload domain to the threshold to determine whether the third cluster is in a low resource state.
See at least paragraphs 0045, 0053, and 0068-0071; Figure 4 as well as associated and related text.
Claims 5. 12, 19:
LU discloses the limitations as shown in the rejections above. LU further discloses the following limitations:
wherein the availability is a first availability and the host is a first host, the programmable circuitry is to:
identify a third cluster in the first workload domain or the second workload domain having a second availability based on a third resource usage, the second availability greater than the first availability;
reallocate a second host from the third cluster to the first cluster.
See at least paragraphs 0045, 0050, 0053, and 0068-0071; Figure 4 as well as associated and related text.
Claims 6, 13, 20:
LU discloses the limitations as shown in the rejections above. LU further discloses the following limitations:
wherein the programmable circuitry is to:
obtain a request to automatically optimize resource usage across a logical workload domain, wherein the logical workload domain is the logical grouping of the first workload domain and the second workload domain;
periodically check resource usage data corresponding to clusters in the logical workload domain, wherein the check identifies whether any one of the two or more clusters is using the upper limit of resource usage.
See at least paragraphs 0035, 0045, 0050, 0053, and 0068-0071; Figure 4 as well as associated and related text.
Claims 7, 14, 21:
LU discloses the limitations as shown in the rejections above. LU further discloses the following limitations:
wherein the availability is a first availability, the host is a first host, the programmable circuitry is to:
identify a third cluster in a third workload domain having a second availability based on a third resource usage, the third workload domain logically grouped in the logical workload domain with the first workload domain and the second workload domain;
reallocate a second host from the third cluster to the first cluster.
See at least paragraphs 0035, 0045, 0050, 0053, and 0068-0071; Figure 4 as well as associated and related text.
CONCLUSION
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Non-Patent Literature:
Deepak Narayanan et al. “Solving Large-Scale Granular Resource Allocation Problems Efficiently with POP.” (2021). Retrieved online 02/12/2026. https://cs.stanford.edu/~fiodar/pubs/POP.pdf
Andrew Newell et al. “RAS: Continuously Optimized Region-Wide Datacenter Resource Allocation.” (October 2021). Retrieved online 02/12/2026. https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dskarlat/publications/ras_sosp21.pdf
Foreign Art:
HENRIKSEN et al. “Handling Method Of Distributed Database System, By Monitoring At Least One Event Selected From: Latest Updating Of Each Replica, Replica Status, Status Of Local Resources In Charge Of Each Replica, And Connectivity Status Of Replica.” (WO 2010/037794 A2)
BENVENUTO et al. “Computer-implemented Method For Load Balancing System, Involves Receiving Help Message From Node In Cluster Of Nodes, Where Help Message Is Generated By Node Which Identifies Overloaded State At Nod.” (WO 2012/057956 A2)
AK et al. “System Used By CDN Companies To Improve The Quality Offered To The Users And To Optimize Resource Utilization, Comprises A Workload Automation Engine That Is Used For Listening The Instance Manager.” (WO 2020/027743 A1)
Any inquiry of a general nature or relating to the status of this application or concerning this communication or earlier communications from the Examiner should be directed to James A. Reagan (james.reagan@uspto.gov) whose telephone number is 571.272.6710. The Examiner can normally be reached Monday through Friday from 9 AM to 5 PM. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the Examiner’s supervisor, John Hayes, can be reached at 571.272.6708.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://portal.uspto.gov/external/portal/pair . Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866.217.9197 (toll-free).
Any response to this action should be mailed to:
Commissioner for Patents
PO Box 1450
Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450
or faxed to 571-273-8300.
Hand delivered responses should be brought to the United States Patent and Trademark Office Customer Service Window:
Randolph Building
401 Dulany Street
Alexandria, VA 22314.
/JAMES A REAGAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3697
james.reagan@uspto.gov
571.272.6710 (Office)
571.273.6710 (Desktop Fax)