Prosecution Insights
Last updated: May 28, 2026
Application No. 18/477,877

SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR PROVISIONING HARDWARE AS A SERVICE

Non-Final OA §103
Filed
Sep 29, 2023
Priority
Aug 04, 2023 — IN 202311052540
Examiner
MUDRICK, TIMOTHY A
Art Unit
2198
Tech Center
2100 — Computer Architecture & Software
Assignee
DELL PRODUCTS, L.P.
OA Round
2 (Non-Final)
84%
Grant Probability
Favorable
2-3
OA Rounds
5m
Est. Remaining
97%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 84% — above average
84%
Career Allowance Rate
450 granted / 537 resolved
+28.8% vs TC avg
Moderate +14% lift
Without
With
+13.5%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
3y 1m
Avg Prosecution
29 currently pending
Career history
566
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
3.5%
-36.5% vs TC avg
§103
71.3%
+31.3% vs TC avg
§102
21.6%
-18.4% vs TC avg
§112
1.6%
-38.4% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 537 resolved cases

Office Action

§103
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 This communication is responsive to Amendment filed 3/27/2026. In Amendment, claims 5, 11 and 17 are cancelled and no claims are added. Thus, claims 1-4, 6-10, 12-16 and 18 are pending in this application. This Office Action is made final. 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 1-4, 6-10, 12-16 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ganesan (US 2019/0327142) in view of Cencini (US 2017/0116103) in further view of Bhide (US 2017/0339024). As per claim 1, Ganesan discloses A system for provisioning hardware as a service, the system comprising: a private cloud server (PCS) (Fig. 1, “rack management controller (RMC) 112,”) communicatively coupled to a server (Fig. 2, Server 240) and an external cloud server (Fig. 1 “data center management controller (DCMC)”), the private cloud server comprising: a PCS processor (Paragraph 15 “Examples of RMCs 112, 122, 132, 142, and 152 can include service processors”); and a PCS memory storing: a set of instructions executable by the PCS processor for: communicating with the external cloud server to retrieve a configuration file for a device installed in the server (Paragraph 15 “RMCs 112, 122, 132, 142, and 152, and DCMC 160 are connected together with various service processors associated with the equipment in server racks 110, 120, 130, 140, and 150 into a management network whereby the DCMC can remotely manage the equipment in the server racks.”); and storing the configuration file in a device configuration file repository (Paragraph 15). Ganesan does not expressly disclose Cencini discloses a remote access controller (RAC) (Paragraph 104 “In some embodiments, each computing device 13 may include a baseboard management controller that communicates with the rack controller 24 via the out-of-band network interface 29.”) comprising: a RAC processor (Paragraph 11 “and an off-motherboard microcontroller electrically coupled to the low-bandwidth bus connector, the microcontroller comprising one or more processors and memory storing instructions that, when executed by at least some of the processors, effectuate operations comprising: receiving, with an off-motherboard network interface, via an out-of-band network, a first command from computing device configured to monitor or control a plurality of rack-mounted computing devices; sending a second command based on the first command via the connector to an electronic device coupled to the low-bandwidth bus on the motherboard; receiving a response to the second command via the low-bandwidth bus from the electronic device; and transmitting data based on the response, with the off-motherboard network interface, via the out-of-band network, to the computing device configured to monitor or control a plurality of rack-mounted computing devices.”); and a RAC memory storing: a hardware abstraction layer (HAL) for communicating with the plurality of devices (Paragraph 176 “In some cases, the microcontroller may abstract the process of identifying and communicating with these components away from higher-level components, like the rack control unit. To scan and identify parts, the microcontroller may take a number of steps to identify the part, as parts often do not have an identifier stored in a standardized register address (or in some cases, in any address).); a set of instructions executable by the RAC processor to: discover a plurality of devices on the server (Paragraphs 135-136); communicate with the PCS to retrieve a configuration file for each device installed in the server (Paragraph 136 “The Crate API may be used by Forklift to communicate with Manifest to retrieve file and configuration information, and the appropriate containers (services) are retrieved from Dockworker, and are spun up using docker-compose or similar orchestration tool. When a container is started, in some embodiments, the Crate API may also be used within the container to retrieve from Manifest files or configuration information needed that is specialized to the VEC itself, allowing for a single image to be used, but configured to the needs of each individual rack controller or VEC where appropriate.”); and configure the server for operation based on a set of details in the configuration file (Paragraph 136). 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 system of Ganesan to include the teachings of Cencini because it provides for the purpose of monitoring or controlling a rack-mounted computing device independently of whether the rack-mounted computing device is operating or is turned off via a low-pin-count motherboard bus independently of a baseboard management controller. Ganesan does not expressly disclose but Bhide discloses a telemetry service (Abstract “The processing devices access a key performance indicator (KPI) for the service that is defined by a search query that produces a value derived from the machine data pertaining to the entities identified in the service definition. The value indicates how the service is performing at a point in time or during a period of time and indicates a state of the KPI. A graphical interface is displayed and an indication of at least one threshold, which defines an end of a range of values representing a state of the KPI, for the KPI is received.”); wherein the set of instructions executable by the PCS processor further including: executing the telemetry service to: determine telemetry data about a device of the plurality of devices installed in the server based on the device configuration file (Paragraph 136 “The entity definitions, the service definitions, and the KPI definitions can be stored in the data store(s) 290 that are coupled to the service monitoring system 210. The entity definitions, the service definitions, and the KPI definitions can be stored in a data store 290 in a key-value store, a configuration file, a lookup file, a database, or in metadata fields associated with events representing the machine data.”); and aggregate portions of the data and remove redundant portions from the data (Paragraph 104 “Implementations of the present disclosure are described for monitoring a service at a more abstract level, as well. In particular, an aggregate KPI can be configured and calculated for a service to represent the overall health of a service. For example, a service may have 10 KPIs, each monitoring a various aspect of the service. The service may have 7 KPIs in a Normal state, 2 KPIs in a Warning state, and 1 KPI in a Critical state. The aggregate KPI can be a value representative of the overall performance of the service based on the values for the individual KPIs.” See also, paragraph 431 “For log data, such transformations can include removing a portion of an event (e.g., a portion used to define event boundaries, extraneous text, characters, etc.) or removing redundant portions of an event. Note that a user can specify portions to be removed using a regular expression or any other possible technique.”). 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 system of Ganesan to include the teachings of Cencini because it provides for the purpose of monitoring the health of the system by measuring key performance metrics and using the data to make informed management choices. As per claim 2, Ganesan further discloses wherein: the RAC memory stores a software developer kit (SDK) service for determining configuration information and initialization information for each device type (Paragraph 16 “The configuration of each element is particular to the function provided by the element, the physical and virtual locations of the elements on various data and storage networks of data center 100, the desired management and environmental parameters of the data center and the particular elements, BIOS or UEFI settings, and the like. In general, each element of server racks 110, 120, 130, 140, and 150 includes a management controller such as a Baseboard Management Controller, or the like, that permits DCMC 160 to manage the configurations of the elements of the server racks.”). As per claim 3, Ganesan does not expressly disclose Cencini discloses a remote access controller (RAC) (Paragraph 104 “In some embodiments, each computing wherein the PCS memory stores a hardware inventory service configured to store hardware information about a device installed in the server and a firmware inventory service configured to store firmware for the device (Paragraph 40). As per claim 4, Ganesan does not expressly disclose Cencini discloses wherein the PCS memory stores a monitoring service and a set of instructions executable by the PCS processor to determine monitoring information about a device installed in the server based on the device configuration file (Paragraph 11). As per claim 6, Ganesan further discloses wherein the telemetry service comprises an open telemetry service (Paragraph 21). As per claims 7-10 and 12, they are data center claims having similar limitations as cited in claims 1-4 and 6 and are rejected under the same rationale. As per claims 13-16 and 18, they are method claims having similar limitations as cited in claims 1-4 and 6 and are rejected under the same rationale. Response to Arguments Applicant's arguments filed 3/27/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive as a new ground of rejection was necessitated by Amendment. Conclusion Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a). A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action. 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. 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, 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. 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. /TIMOTHY A MUDRICK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2198 4/14/2026
Read full office action

Prosecution Timeline

Show 1 earlier event
Mar 11, 2026
Non-Final Rejection mailed — §103
Mar 20, 2026
Applicant Interview (Telephonic)
Mar 20, 2026
Examiner Interview Summary
Mar 27, 2026
Response Filed
Apr 16, 2026
Final Rejection mailed — §103
May 11, 2026
Response after Non-Final Action
May 20, 2026
Request for Continued Examination
May 22, 2026
Response after Non-Final Action

Precedent Cases

Applications granted by this same examiner with similar technology

Patent 12632281
INFORMATION PROCESSING APPARATUS, INFORMATION PROCESSING SYSTEM, AND INFORMATION PROCESSING METHOD
2y 11m to grant Granted May 19, 2026
Patent 12632320
INFORMATION PROCESSING APPARATUS AND INFORMATION PROCESSING METHOD
2y 8m to grant Granted May 19, 2026
Patent 12619482
SPATIAL COMPUTING
3y 4m to grant Granted May 05, 2026
Patent 12608242
MANAGEMENT COMPUTER, MANAGEMENT COMPUTING SYSTEM, MANAGEMENT COMPUTING PROGRAM, AND MANAGEMENT COMPUTING METHOD
2y 8m to grant Granted Apr 21, 2026
Patent 12608688
SIMULATED NETWORK SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR RELATING USERS OF REAL-WORLD E-COMMERCE AND OTHER USER NETWORK SYSTEMS TO INFORMATION
2y 11m to grant Granted Apr 21, 2026
Study what changed to get past this examiner. Based on 5 most recent grants.

Strategy Recommendation AI-generated — please review before filing

Get a prosecution strategy drawn from examiner precedents, rejection analysis, and claim mapping.
Typically takes 5-10 seconds — AI-generated, attorney review required before filing

Prosecution Projections

2-3
Expected OA Rounds
84%
Grant Probability
97%
With Interview (+13.5%)
3y 1m (~5m remaining)
Median Time to Grant
Moderate
PTA Risk
Based on 537 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allowance rate.

Sign in with your work email

Enter your email to receive a magic link. No password needed.

Personal email addresses (Gmail, Yahoo, etc.) are not accepted.

Free tier: 3 strategy analyses per month