Prosecution Insights
Last updated: April 19, 2026
Application No. 18/488,548

CUSTOMIZATION OF APPLICATION PROGRAMMING INTERFACES

Non-Final OA §103
Filed
Oct 17, 2023
Examiner
CHEN, ZHI
Art Unit
2196
Tech Center
2100 — Computer Architecture & Software
Assignee
DELL PRODUCTS, L.P.
OA Round
1 (Non-Final)
61%
Grant Probability
Moderate
1-2
OA Rounds
3y 3m
To Grant
99%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 61% of resolved cases
61%
Career Allow Rate
152 granted / 250 resolved
+5.8% vs TC avg
Strong +40% interview lift
Without
With
+40.5%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
3y 3m
Avg Prosecution
27 currently pending
Career history
277
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
12.7%
-27.3% vs TC avg
§103
49.1%
+9.1% vs TC avg
§102
6.9%
-33.1% vs TC avg
§112
25.2%
-14.8% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 250 resolved cases

Office Action

§103
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. This action is responsive to the communication filed 10/17/2023. Claims 1-20 are presented for examination. Examiner Notes Examiner cites particular columns, paragraphs, figures and line numbers in the references as applied to the claims below for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings in the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well . It is respectfully requested that, in preparing responses, the applicant fully consider the references in entirely as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the examiner. Information Disclosure Statement The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 11/4/2025 and 12/4/2025. The submissions are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner. 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 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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Evans ( US 20150237165 A1 ) in view of Munoz ( US 20170060349 A1 , hereafter Munoz) . Regarding to claim 1 , Evans discloses: A method for managing access to data (see [0007]-[0008]; “ the formal REST interaction constraints applied to resources (components, connectors, and data elements) ” and “ the computer implemented method includes the steps of identifying individual resources requiring operations to be performed ”) , the method comprising: obtaining, by a service device, a new resource creation request for a Representational State Transfer (REST) application programming interface (API) hosted by the service device (see Fig. 1, [0007]-[0008], [0024], [0031] and [0033]; “ allow the creation of new resources through a POST request ”, “ a transmission may be a request to create resources on the server ” and “ In the event that the URI does not yet have a corresponding resource, then the server creates the resource with that URI ”) ; identifying, by the service device and based on the new resource creation request, at least one data source uniform resource identifier of the REST API (see [0033]; “ A POST operation is used to transmit a representation of a new data entity to the server, so that it will be stored as a new subordinate of the resource identified by the URI … In the event that the URI does not yet have a corresponding resource, then the server creates the resource with that URI ”) ; establishing, by the service device, a new custom resource for the REST API, the new custom resource having a [new] data source uniform resource identifier (see Fig. 1, [0007]-[0008], [0024], [0031] and [0033]; “ allow the creation of new resources through a POST request ”, “ a transmission may be a request to create resources on the server ” and “ In the event that the URI does not yet have a corresponding resource, then the server creates the resource with that URI ” and “ In the event that the URI does not yet have a corresponding resource, then the server creates the resource with that URI ”) ; obtaining, by the service device and from a client device, an invocation of the REST API, the [ new ] data source uniform resource identifier be provided as part of the invocation (see [0024]; “ allow the creation of new resources through a POST request. When a new resource has been POSTed , the response includes the URI of the new resource . The client may then use that URI to retrieve (GET), update (PUT) or delete (DELETE) that resource ”) ; and in response to the invocation, providing, by the service device and to the client device, the portion of the data (see [0024]; “ allow the creation of new resources through a POST request. When a new resource has been POSTed , the response includes the URI of the new resource . The client may then use that URI to retrieve (GET), update (PUT) or delete (DELETE) that resource ”. Also see [0007] and [0033]; “ the formal REST interaction constraints applied to resources (components, connectors, and data elements ) ” and “ A POST operation is used to transmit a representation of a new data entity to the server ”). Evans does not disclose: the data source uniform resource identifier associated with the new custom resource is a new data source uniform resource identifier, and the new custom resource being usable to obtain a portion of the data associated with the at least one data source uniform resource identifier. However, Munoz discloses: the new custom resource having a new data source uniform resource identifier, and the new custom resource being usable to obtain a portion of the data associated with the at least one data source uniform resource identifier (see [0033], [0045], [0069]; “ the user may associate a tab with a stack of pages through which the user may visually navigate. The uniform resource indicator (URI) address of each page in the stack may be stored in the master URI of the stack associated with the tab, allowing for sharing or bookmarking of the stack … a URI may include a uniform resource locator (URL), a uniform resource name (URN) or an indicator of other resources or content, for example deep links of applications ”, “ the address of the stack may include a combination of the addresses of the pages 302 and 304 in the stack ”, “a stack, may be implemented by combining the URI addresses into a single master URI address . The URI addresses may be written into the master URI address in the same order in which they are placed in the stack. A combination character or set of characters, for example &&& may be placed in between the URI addresses of the pages in the stack ”). It would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill, in the art before the effective filing date of the claim invention, to modify the URI of new resource created by REST API request from Evans by including combining URI addresses of multiple objects into a single URI address of a new object from Munoz, and thus the combination of Evans and Munoz would disclose the missing limitations from Evans, since it would provide a mechanism allowing a user to navigate through multiple dimensions of resources within a single tab of an application (see [0033], [0045] and [0069] from Munoz). Regarding to Claim 2 , the rejection of Claim 1 is incorporated and further the combination of Evans and Munoz discloses: wherein the at least one data source uniform resource identifier comprises a first data source uniform resource identifier and a second data source uniform resource identifier (see [0033] and [0069] from Munoz; “ a stack of pages through which the user may visually navigate. The uniform resource indicator (URI) address of each page in the stack may be stored in the master URI of the stack associated with the tab ” and “ for example &&& may be placed in between the URI addresses of the pages in the stack … The master URI of the stack may then be … the same order as they appear in the stack ”) . Regarding to Claim 3 , the rejection of Claim 2 is incorporated and further the combination of Evans and Munoz discloses: wherein the REST API associates the first data source uniform resource identifier with a first sub-portion of the portion of the data and the second data source uniform resource identifier with a second sub-portion of the portion of the data (see [0024] from Evans, [0033] and [0069] from Munoz; “ allow the creation of new resources through a POST request . When a new resource has been POSTed , the response includes the URI of the new resource ” “ the user may associate a tab with a stack of pages through which the user may visually navigate. The uniform resource indicator (URI) address of each page in the stack may be stored in the master URI of the stack associated with the tab ”) . Regarding to Claim 4 , the rejection of Claim 3 is incorporated and further the combination of Evans and Munoz discloses: wherein prior to obtaining the new resource creation request, the REST API did not include any data source uniform resource identifiers associated with both the first sub-portion of the portion of the data and the second sub-portion of the portion of the data (see [0024] from Evans; “ Collection resources might also allow the creation of new resources through a POST request. When a new resource has been POSTed , the response includes the URI of the new resource ”. At the combination of system, the related REST API request is used to create the new resource that is combination of the claimed first sub-portion and claimed second sub-portion, and thus before or prior to obtaining the new resource creation request, each of the claimed first sub-portion and claimed second sub-portion is identified or associated with own corresponding URI, in this way, there is no single URI associated with both sub-portions ) . Regarding to Claim 5 , the rejection of Claim 4 is incorporated and further the combination of Evans and Munoz discloses: wherein the new custom resource associates the first sub-portion of the portion of the data and the second sub-portion of the portion of the data with the new data source uniform resource identifier (see [0033] and [0069] from Munoz; “ a stack of pages through which the user may visually navigate. The uniform resource indicator (URI) address of each page in the stack may be stored in the master URI of the stack associated with the tab ” and “ for example &&& may be placed in between the URI addresses of the pages in the stack … The master URI of the stack may then be … the same order as they appear in the stack ”) . Regarding to Claim 6 , the rejection of Claim 3 is incorporated and further the combination of Evans and Munoz discloses: obtaining, by the service device and from a second client device, a second invocation of the REST API, the first data source uniform resource identifier be provided as part of the second invocation ; in response to the second invocation, providing, by the service device and to the second client device, the first sub-portion of the portion of the data (see Fig. 1, [0017], [0023]-[0024] and [0033] from Evans; “ the server 102 may communicate primarily with one or more clients 112 ”, “ a RESTful client generally retrieves, creates, updates and deletes resources through HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE). Each resource is identified by a URI ” and “ PUT requests that the enclosed entity be stored under the URI that is provided in the request ”. At the combination system, a second client from the one or more clients 112 makes REST API request/invocation to request the first sub-portion of the portion of the data or pages via the corresponding URI of the first sub-portion on the REST API request/invocation ) ; obtaining, by the service device and from a third client device, a third invocation of the REST API, the second data source uniform resource identifier be provided as part of the third invocation; and in response to the third invocation, providing, by the service device and to the third client device, the first sub-portion of the portion of the data (see [0024], [0033] from Evans and [0033] from Munoz; “ A POST operation is used to transmit a representation of a new data entity to the server, so that it will be stored as a new subordinate of the resource identified by the URI … In the event that the URI does not yet have a corresponding resource, then the server creates the resource with that URI ” and “ the user may associate a tab with a stack of pages through which the user may visually navigate. The uniform resource indicator (URI) address of each page in the stack may be stored in the master URI of the stack associated with the tab ”. Also see Fig. 1, [0017] from Evans; “ the server 102 may communicate primarily with one or more clients 112 ”. At the combination system, a third client from the one or more clients 112 makes REST API request to create another new resource contains at least first sub-portion and second sub-portion, and thus the response of such REST API request contains a master URI having second URI associated with the second sub-portion and first URL associated with the first sub-portion, then the third client uses such master URI to make REST API invocation to request such new resources to access at least the first sub-portion ). Note: the claim now only requests “ the second data source uniform resource identifier be provided as part of the third invocation ” and “providing” “ the first sub-portion of the portion of the data ”. Such particular requirement does not further limit that the claimed third invocation contains the second data source uniform resource identifier only without containing the URI associated with the first sub-portion of the portion of the data OR the claimed providing does not provide the second sub-portion and the first sub-portion of the portion of data together. Regarding to Claim 7 , the rejection of Claim 1 is incorporated and further the combination of Evans and Munoz discloses: wherein the REST API comprises a customizable resource (see [0024] from Evans, [0033] and [0069] from Munoz; “ allow the creation of new resources through a POST request . When a new resource has been POSTed , the response includes the URI of the new resource ” “ the user may associate a tab with a stack of pages through which the user may visually navigate. The uniform resource indicator (URI) address of each page in the stack may be stored in the master URI of the stack associated with the tab ”. The new resource created by REST at the combination system is a combination/stack of pages selected or associated by user, and thus the REST API comprises a customizable resource by the user ) . Regarding to Claim 8 , the rejection of Claim 7 is incorporated and further the combination of Evans and Munoz discloses: wherein the new resource creation request comprises a criteria usable to discriminate the at least one data source uniform resource identifier from other data source uniform resource identifiers of the REST API (see [0033] and [0069] from Munoz; “ a stack of pages through which the user may visually navigate. The uniform resource indicator (URI) address of each page in the stack may be stored in the master URI of the stack associated with the tab ” and “ for example &&& may be placed in between the URI addresses of the pages in the stack … The master URI of the stack may then be … the same order as they appear in the stack ”) . Regarding to Claim 9 , Claim 9 is a product claim corresponds to method Claim 1 and is rejected for the same reason set forth in the rejection of Claim 1 above (see “ Software and data 522 are stored in persistent storage 508 for access and/or execution by processors 504 ” from [0057] and [0064]- [0065] from Evans for claimed limitation “non-transitory machine-readable medium … cause the processor to perform operations”) . Regarding to Claim 10 , Claim 10 is a product claim corresponds to method Claim 2 and is rejected for the same reason set forth in the rejection of Claim 2 above. R egarding to Claim 11 , Claim 11 is a product claim corresponds to method Claim 3 and is rejected for the same reason set forth in the rejection of Claim 3 above. R egarding to Claim 1 2 , Claim 12 is a product claim corresponds to method Claim 4 and is rejected for the same reason set forth in the rejection of Claim 4 above. Re garding to Claim 1 3 , Claim 13 is a product claim corresponds to method Claim 5 and is rejected for the same reason set forth in the rejection of Claim 5 above. Regarding to Claim 1 4 , Claim 14 is a product claim corresponds to method Claim 6 and is rejected for the same reason set forth in the rejection of Claim 6 above. Regarding to Claim 1 5 , Claim 15 is a product claim corresponds to method Claim 7 and is rejected for the same reason set forth in the rejection of Claim 7 above. Regarding to Claim 1 6 , Claim 16 is a product claim corresponds to method Claim 8 and is rejected for the same reason set forth in the rejection of Claim 8 above. Regarding to Claim 1 7 , Claim 17 is a system claim corresponds to method Claim 1 and is rejected for the same reason set forth in the rejection of Claim 1 above (see “ Software and data 522 are stored in persistent storage 508 for access and/or execution by processors 504 ” from [0057] and [0064]- [0065] from Evans for claimed limitation “a processor … cause the processor to perform operations”) . Regarding to Claim 1 8 , Claim 18 is a system claim corresponds to method Claim 2 and is rejected for the same reason set forth in the rejection of Claim 2 above. R egarding to Claim 1 9 , Claim 19 is a system claim corresponds to method Claim 3 and is rejected for the same reason set forth in the rejection of Claim 3 above. Regarding to Claim 20 , Claim 20 is a system claim corresponds to method Claim 4 and is rejected for the same reason set forth in the rejection of Claim 4 above. Conclusion The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Price ( US 20040059946 A1 ) discloses: a single URI that may cause access to multiple databases, files and other data sources (see [0039]). Kurrasch ( US 20040128399 A1 ) discloses: b y combining the statements into one URI, one TMCP message may contain multiple actions instead of requiring multiple messages with only one action per message (see [0020]). Bitincka et al. ( US 12395547 B1 ) discloses: the merging the transaction into the configuration files for a plurality of nodes is performed via a representational state transfer call (see claim 7). Frank (US 20180191692 A1) discloses: w hen the creation of a new resource is requested, the resources URI/ID are first known after a successful processing by the REST server (see [0121]). Rajasekar et al. ( US 20110170505 A1 ) discloses: POST--create a new resource without a pre-determined URI (see [0043]) and PUT--create a new resource with a predetermined URI (see [0047]). Garaga et al. ( US 20240137274 A1 ) discloses: a resource is created by a ReST server based on a request from a ReST client (see [0031]). Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to FILLIN "Examiner name" \* MERGEFORMAT ZHI CHEN whose telephone number is FILLIN "Phone number" \* MERGEFORMAT (571)272-0805 . The examiner can normally be reached on FILLIN "Work Schedule?" \* MERGEFORMAT M-F from 9:30AM to 5:30PM . If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, FILLIN "SPE Name?" \* MERGEFORMAT April Y Blair can be reached on FILLIN "SPE Phone?" \* MERGEFORMAT 571-270-1014 . The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from Patent Center and the Private Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from Patent Center or Private PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Patent Center and Private PAIR to authorized users only. Should you have questions about access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). 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) Form at https://www.uspto.gov/patents/uspto-automated- interview-request-air-form. /Zhi Chen/ Patent Examiner, AU2196 /APRIL Y BLAIR/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2196
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Prosecution Timeline

Oct 17, 2023
Application Filed
Mar 30, 2026
Non-Final Rejection — §103 (current)

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Prosecution Projections

1-2
Expected OA Rounds
61%
Grant Probability
99%
With Interview (+40.5%)
3y 3m
Median Time to Grant
Low
PTA Risk
Based on 250 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allow rate.

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