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 .
Response to Amendment
Applicant’s “Response to Amendment and Reconsideration” filed on 03/26/2026 has been considered.
Applicant’s response by virtue of amendment to claim(s) 1-20 has NOT overcome the Examiner’s rejection under 35 USC § 101.
Claim(s) 1-2, 11, 20 are amended.
Claim(s) 1-20 are pending in this application and an action on the merits follows.
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.
Claim(s) 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more and thus do not satisfy the criteria for subject matter eligibility.
Step 1
Claim(s) 1, 11 and 20 fall(s) in two of the four statutory categories of invention.
Step 2A Prong One: Yes
The limitations of claims 1, 11, and 20:
Claim 1:
Claim 11:
to detect a discrepancy between the first inventory and the second inventory, and to provide an indication of the discrepancy;-
wherein the inventory object identifies inventory information related to the inventory items that are to be collected in the inventory, and identifies execution information related to the collection of the inventory.
Claim 20:
Claim 20:
Claim 20:
The limitations of claims 1, 11 and 20 recite concepts of inventory discrepancy check, which falls into the grouping of Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity. More specifically, the claim language recites concepts that manages data (A), collects data (B, E), compare data (B.1), identifies data (C), validates data (D), store data (F), thus are considered commercial and fundamental economic practice known in the inventory management of computer resources industry.
Thus, claims 1-20 recite an abstract idea.
Step 2A Prong Two: No
Besides the abstract idea, claims 1, 11 and 20 recite the additional elements:
Claims 1, 11, and 20: “an inventory manager”;
Claim 1: “a plurality of information handling systems, each information handling system including a plurality of inventory items”,
Claim 11: “method for inventorying items on a plurality of information handling systems, the method comprising: providing, in an inventory system, the information handling systems; and”;
Claim 20: “A system for inventorying items on a plurality of information handling systems, the inventory system comprising”;
Claims 1, 11, and 20: “querying the information handling systems”, “re-querying the information handling systems”;
Claim 9, 19-20: “a cloud network including an inventory collector”, “inventory registry”;
The claimed additional elements that perform limitations A and F are claimed at a high level of generality and are considered nothing more than data being managed and stored, and thus are mere instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer; the additional elements that perform limitations B, E are claims at a high level of generality and are considered nothing more insignificant extra-solution activity; the additional elements that perform limitations B.1, C and D are also claimed at a high level of generality and are considered nothing more than data identification and comparison, and thus are mere instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer. When view in combination, the additional elements merely describe how to generally “apply” the abstract idea in a generic or general-purpose computer, and generality links the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use, and thus do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application, and claim(s) 1, 11, and 20 are directed to the judicial exception.
Claims 1-20 are directed to an abstract idea.
Step 2B: No
As discussed with respect to Step 2A Prong Two, the additional elements in the claims generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (i.e., computer technology) such that they amount to no more than mere instructions
to apply the judicial exception using generic computer components. The same analysis applies here in Step 2B, i.e., mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot integrate a judicial exception into a practical.
Further, considered as an ordered combination, the additional elements of Applicants' claims add nothing that is not already present when the steps are considered separately. The claimed invention does not focus on an improvement in computers as tools, but rather certain independently abstract ideas that use computers as tools. {Elec. Power, 830 F.3d at 1354). (Step 2B: NO).
Further, the Office have found that receiving and transmitting data over the network is not enough to be patent-eligible, see MPEP 2106.05(d), that gathering data is not enough is not enough to be patent-eligible, see MPEP2106.05(g). The processing data is not enough is not enough to be patent-eligible, 2106.05(f), 2106.05(g).
Even when the steps are considered in combination, did not amount to an inventive concept.
As for dependent claims 2-10, 12-19, the claims merely recite limitations that further narrow the abstract idea recited on claim 1, and thus fail to amount significantly more.
Claims 1-20 are ineligible.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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.
Claim(s) 1-5, 7, 9-15, 17, 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Maes (US 20160254943 A1) in view of Speeter et al. (US 20060161895 A1, hereinafter Speeter).
Regarding claims 1, 11, and 20, Maes discloses:
A system comprising: a plurality of information handling systems, each information handling system including a plurality of inventory items; and [0070][0079] instantiated cloud services;
an inventory manager configured to manage an inventory object, to query the information handling systems to collect a first inventory of the inventory items based on the inventory object, ([0096]-[0097] The topology-based management broker stores and manage topologies (302) ([0214]-[0216] monitoring policies, topologies and nodes can be stored as one filed or individual files; [inventory objects];) [0152]-[0154] “The monitoring system (313) monitors (block 801) an instantiated topology (FIG. 3, 312) based on the monitoring policies associated with the topology (302) and the nodes (302-1, 302-2, 302-3, 302-4, 302-5, 302-6, 302-7) of the topology (302) as described above”; “A number of events detected by the monitoring system (313) may be processed by the event handler (316) based on a number of the policies described above” see Figure 3)
,to detect a discrepancy, and to provide an indication of the discrepancy; ([0154]-[0155] the event handler generates a number of incidents based on the number of the policies such as nodes wrongly provisioned; provide a remediation determination in the form of an incident sent to the remediation engine (317);)
wherein the inventory object identifies inventory information related to the inventory items that are to be collected in the inventory, and identifies execution information related to the collection of the inventory. [0032][0045]-[0046] and par. 54-55, 59-78, par. 214-216; monitoring policies, topologies and nodes stored in one file has information relate to nodes;
Claim 20 “wherein the inventory manager is further configured to validate the inventory; and a cloud network including an inventory collector to collect the inventory from the information handling systems and an inventory registry to store the inventory.” [0152]-[0155] [0110]-[0119] the monitoring system collects events of the computer resources based on the policy and topology; generates a number of incidents based on the number of the policies such as nodes wrongly provisioned for remediation; [0101]-[0102] A realized topology (314) is derived by the LCM engine (311) or other device based on the instantiated service (312); [0062] [0088][0026][0109]; [0107] records realized topology;
Mae discloses the event handler (316) may poll the monitoring system (313) for the event data also discloses realized topology being stored; however, does not disclose “to re-query the information handling systems to collect a second inventory of the inventory items based on the inventory object”, “detect a discrepancy between the first inventory and the second inventory”;
Speeter discloses: [0108]-[0113] query an agent software process running on each host using blueprint to guide the discovery process; send the result to a centralized server”, and retain an image of a discovered deployment; [0117] “Comparison can be used to determine if a deployment is drifting away from a standardized configuration (a gold-standard or template), or it can be used to investigate the difference between different deployments, or the same deployment across time.” [0118] “(i) Comparisons of deployment images can be made across time and across space. A deployment image can be compared against a historical snapshot of the same deployment, or two snapshots of the same deployment can be compared. These are considered to be “across time” since they are images of the same thing, only at different points in time. Alternatively, two entirely different deployments can be compared against one another. For example, an image or snapshot taken from a staging environment can be compared to an image or snapshot taken from a production environment. These are considered “across space” since they are images of deployment on different hosts, located in different places.”;
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify Mae to include the above limitations as taught by Speeter, in order to an have an improved system of managing, tracking and implementing configuration changes, see Speeter para. 6.
Regarding claims 2 and 12, Maes discloses:
wherein the inventor manager is further configured to provide an inventory specification that provides a template for the inventory object. [0048][0125]-[0128] infrastructure templates; create the topology (302); Figures 3-4;
Regarding claims 3 and 13, Maes discloses:
wherein the inventory specification provides for the selection of the inventory information to be collected in the inventory. [0048][0125]-[0128] selects policies, requirements, and capabilities of the nodes (320-1, 320-2, 320-3, 320-4, 320-5) of a number of infrastructure templates (320); Figures 3-4;
Regarding claims 4 and 14, Maes discloses:
wherein the inventory information includes at least one of the information handling systems, hardware associated with the information handling systems, firmware instantiated on the information handling systems, software loaded on the information handling systems, and virtual machines instantiated on the information handling systems. [0049] “a cloud computing scenario where a number of computing devices, real or virtual, are designed, provisioned, deployed, and managed within a service-oriented network”; [0062]-[0066] “Provisioning policies may also, if implemented, rely on the requirements and capabilities of the nodes within the proposed cloud service that is based on the topology (302)…the requirements policies may indicate that a node requires particular software or a particular software version associated with it such as a particular operating system”;
Regarding claims 5 and 15, Maes discloses:
wherein the inventory specification provides for the selection of the execution information for the inventory. ([0214]-[0216] [0046] “The monitoring policies may also include instructions to execute the monitoring (e.g. via actual workflows to perform)”; [0108] of the instantiated topologies; Figures 3, 10-14; [0150] [0214]-[0216] and stored in the RTSM as individual files or unique file - monitoring policies, topologies and nodes; [00198] such as collect data Figure 3, 10-14; [0073]-[0075];
Regarding claims 7 and 17, Maes disclose:
claims 7 “wherein the inventory manager is further configured to validate the inventory after the inventory is collected”; [00113] “events may individually not support the creation of an incident that indicates remediation, but a number of events, when analyzed by the event handler (316), may indicate that an issue within the instantiated topology (312) is not in agreement with the policies (303), or is otherwise in need of remediation.” [0110]-[00119];[0152]-[160];
Regarding claims 9 and 19, Maes discloses:
further comprising a cloud network including an inventory collector to collect the inventory from the information handling systems and an inventory registry to store the inventory. further comprising claim 19 “providing, on the inventory system,”; [0101]-[0102] A realized topology (314) is derived by the LCM engine (311) or other device based on the instantiated service (312); [0062] [0088][0026][0109]; [0107] records realized topology;
Regarding claim 10, Maes discloses:
wherein the information handling systems include at least one of a computer, a datacenter device, and an Internet-of-Things device. [0032] nodes are servers;
Claim(s) 6, 8 and 16, 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Maes and Speeter combination as applied to claim 1 and 11, and further in view of Austen et al. (US 20130013759 A1, hereinafter Austen).
Regarding claims 6 and 16, the combination does not disclose: wherein the execution information includes at least one of a frequency of collection of the inventory, a trigger condition for the collection of the inventory, and a time of collection of the inventory.
Austen discloses: ([0082]“the global management controller 250 polls the local management controller according to a predefined frequency, to retrieve VPD from one or more components managed by the local management controller”);
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify the combination to include the above limitations as taught by Austen, in order to global view may be maintained more conveniently and/or efficiently, see Austen para. 84.
Regarding claims 8 and 18, the combination does not disclose: “wherein the inventory is validated against a master inventory.”
Austen discloses: [0066][0067] “the global management controller 250 receives, from the first local management controller 260 1, an indication that the VPD has changed, where the indication specifies a second checksum generated based on the changed VPD of the first component…the global management controller 250 determines whether the stored VPD is current by comparing the second checksum with the stored checksum 308 3 of FIG. 4.”; Figure 4;
It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify the combination to include the above limitations as taught by Austen, in order to global view to be maintained more conveniently and/or efficiently, see Austen para. 84.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on 03/26/2026 have been fully considered but they are moot in view of the new grounds of rejection necessitated by amendments.
Applicant’s arguments with respect to U.S.C 101 rejection have been considered but are not persuasive, see Remarks page 5. Therefore, the rejection under 35 USC 101 has been maintained.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to VANESSA DELIGI whose telephone number is (571)272-0503. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday 07:30AM-5PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Florian (Ryan) Zeender can be reached on (571) 272-6790. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/VANESSA DELIGI/Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3627
/FLORIAN M ZEENDER/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3627
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