DETAILED ACTION
This action is responsive to the pending claims, 1-20, received 13 February 2026. Accordingly, the detailed action of claims 1-20 is as follows:
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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Should applicant desire to obtain the benefit of foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d) prior to declaration of an interference, a certified English translation of the foreign application must be submitted in reply to this action. 37 CFR 41.154(b) and 41.202(e).
Failure to provide a certified translation may result in no benefit being accorded for the non-English application.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 10/14/2024, 01/14/2025 and 07/07/2025 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
Examiner Note
Regarding the applicant’s “amended independent claims 1 and 12 based on the allowable subject matter of allowable claims 6, 7, 9 and 10. (Remarks pg 8)”, the applicant modified the scope of the claims presented in claims 6 and 9, which obviates a 112 further limiting rejection. However, in doing so has presented claim amendments necessitating a new grounds of rejection. Currently, the second (or first in the alternate limitation) cloud service is configured based on an availability zone of the first (or second in the alternate limitation) cloud service such that the configuration can occur with (concurrent) deployment of the second (or first in the alternate limitation) service. Whereas dependent claims 6 and 9 require the zone of which a service is (currently) residing to be determined, thereafter the corresponding service is set based on the determination.
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1-2,4, 8, 11 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang et al (CN 105553725 A, hereafter referred to as Wang) in view of Arroyo et al (US 20130198740 A1, hereafter referred to as Arroyo).
Regarding claim 1, Wang teaches a method comprising:
providing a service feature setting interface to obtain (Wang [0040] teaches using a tenant’s request, or requirements [0013-0015], as input for deploying multi-tenant data center software) a supply-dependency relationship of different tenants (Wang [0040] discloses tenant requests include the dependencies between tenants, which represents the communication dependency between tenants [0021, 0053]); and
deploying, based on the supply-dependency relationship (Wang [0040] teaches deploying based on a tenant request including dependencies between tenants), a second cloud service for a second tenant serving as a first dependent party (Wang [0086] teaches the dependency, for the service, represents the tenant has a communication requirement with a specified another tenant) or a first cloud service for a first tenant serving as a first supplier (Wang [0086] teaches the dependency, for the service, represents the tenant accepts communication requests from other tenants).
However, Wang does not explicitly teach configuring the second cloud service based on a first availability zone or a first auto scaling policy of the first cloud service, or configuring the first cloud service based on a second availability zone or a second auto scaling policy of the second cloud service.
Arroyo, in an analogous art, teaches configuring the second cloud service based on a first availability zone or a first auto scaling policy of the first cloud service, or configuring the first cloud service based on a second availability zone or a second auto scaling policy of the second cloud service (Arroyo [0068] based on obtaining a location relationship constraint input, through an interface, deploying the first and second service in the same zone).
It would have been obvious for a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Wang in view of Arroyo in order to configure the second or first cloud service, as taught by Wang, to be configured based on the availability zone of the corresponding service, as taught by Arroyo.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated in order to reduce the burden on the user and provide a solution where requirements, including resource demands, communication demands, location relationships and availability are automatically translated into an integrated infrastructure (Arroyo [0021]).
Regarding claim 2, Wang-Arroyo teaches the limitation of claim 1, as rejected above.
Additionally, Wang-Arroyo teaches the method further comprising:
obtaining, using the service feature setting interface (Wang [0040] teaches using a tenant’s request, or requirements [0013-0015], as input for deploying multi-tenant data center software, wherein the requests include the dependencies between tenants, which represents the communication dependency between tenants [0021, 0053]) a first supply type of the first tenant (Wang [0086] discloses the dependency, “*” indicates a first communication requirement), wherein the first supply type is a supplier (Wang [0086] teaches accepting communication requests from other tenants); and
obtaining, using the service feature setting interface (Wang [0040] teaches using a tenant’s request, or requirements [0013-0015], as input for deploying multi-tenant data center software, wherein the requests include the dependencies between tenants, which represents the communication dependency between tenants [0021, 0053]), a second supply type of the second tenant (Wang [0086] discloses the dependency, “i” indicates a first communication requirement), wherein the second supply type is a dependent party (Wang [0086] teaches the tenant has a communication requirement with a specified tenant).
Regarding claim 4, Wang-Arroyo teaches the limitation of claim 1, as rejected above.
Additionally, Wang-Arroyo teaches the method further comprising:
determining, using the service feature setting interface (Wang [0040] teaches using a tenant’s request, or requirements [0013-0015], as input for deploying multi-tenant data center software, wherein the requests include the dependencies between tenants, which represents the communication dependency between tenants [0021, 0053]), a second dependent party set by the first tenant is the second tenant (Wang [0086] teaches the dependency, for the service, represents the tenant accepts communication requests from other tenants); or
determining, using the service feature setting interface (Wang [0040] teaches using a tenant’s request, or requirements [0013-0015], as input for deploying multi-tenant data center software, wherein the requests include the dependencies between tenants, which represents the communication dependency between tenants [0021, 0053]), a second supplier set by the second tenant, is the first tenant (Wang [0086] teaches the dependency, for the service, represents the tenant has a communication requirement with a specified another tenant).
Regarding claim 8, Wang-Arroyo teaches the limitation of claim 1, as rejected above.
Additionally, Wang-Arroyo teaches the method further comprising:
determining a quality of service (QoS) or a throughput of the first cloud service (Wang [0093] teaches identifying a communication requirement, based on the tenant request [0085], for communication between tenants including Tenant A’s services); and
adjusting, based on the QoS or the throughput, the second cloud service (Wang [0028, 0056] teaches evenly distributing the bandwidth including for Tenant P’s services [0056]).
Regarding claim 11, Wang-Arroyo teaches the limitation of claim 1, as rejected above.
Additionally, Wang-Arroyo teaches the method further comprising:
determining a quality of service (QoS) or a throughput of the second cloud (Wang [0093] teaches identifying a communication requirement, based on the tenant request [0085], for communication between tenants including Tenant A’s services); and
adjusting, based on the QoS or the throughput, the first cloud service (Wang [0028, 0056] teaches evenly distributing the bandwidth including for Tenant P’s services [0056]).
Claims 12, 13, 15, 19-20 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang et al (CN 105553725 A, hereafter referred to as Wang) in view of Arroyo et al (US 20130198740 A1, hereafter referred to as Arroyo).
Regarding claim 12, Wang teaches a method to
provide a service feature setting interface to obtain (Wang [0040] teaches using a tenant’s request, or requirements [0013-0015], as input for deploying multi-tenant data center software) a supply-dependency relationship of different tenants (Wang [0040] discloses tenant requests include the dependencies between tenants, which represents the communication dependency between tenants [0021, 0053]); and
deploy, based on the supply-dependency relationship (Wang [0040] teaches deploying based on a tenant request including dependencies between tenants), a second cloud service for a second tenant serving as a first dependent party (Wang [0086] teaches the dependency, for the service, represents the tenant has a communication requirement with a specified another tenant) or a first cloud service for a first tenant serving as a first supplier (Wang [0086] teaches the dependency, for the service, represents the tenant accepts communication requests from other tenants).
However, Wang is silent regarding a network device comprising: a memory configured to store instructions; and one or more processors coupled to the memory and configured to execute the instructions to cause the network device to execute the aforementioned method, as disclosed by Wang, and configure the second cloud service based on a first availability zone or a first auto scaling policy of the first cloud service, or configuring the first cloud service based on a second availability zone or a second auto scaling policy of the second cloud service.
Arroyo, in an analogous art, teaches a network device comprising: a memory configured to store instructions (Arroyo [0006]; and one or more processors coupled to the memory and configured to execute the instructions (Arroyo [0006]) to cause the network device to execute the instructions to cause the network device to (Arroyo [0040 and 0068]):
configure the second cloud service based on a first availability zone or a first auto scaling policy of the first cloud service, or configuring the first cloud service based on a second availability zone or a second auto scaling policy of the second cloud service (Arroyo [0068] based on obtaining a location relationship constraint input, through an interface, deploying the first and second service in the same zone).
It would have been obvious for a person having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Wang in view of Arroyo in order to configure the second or first cloud service, as taught by Wang, to be configured based on the availability zone of the corresponding service, as taught by Arroyo.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated in order to reduce the burden on the user and provide a solution where requirements, including resource demands, communication demands, location relationships and availability are automatically translated into an integrated infrastructure (Arroyo [0021]).
Claims 13, 15, 19, the do not teach or further limit over the limitations presented above with respect to claims 2, 4 and 8.
Therefore, claims 13, 15 and 19 are rejected for the same reasons set forth above regarding claims 2, 4 and 8.
Regarding claim 20, Wang-Arroyo teaches the limitations of claim 12, as rejected above.
Additionally, Wang-Arroyo teaches the network device
wherein the one or more processors are further configured to execute the instructions to cause the network device to:
determine an availability zone at which the second cloud is located and set the first cloud service
determine an auto scaling policy of the second cloud service and adjust, according to the auto scaling policy, the first cloud service; or
determine a quality of service (QoS) or a throughput of the second cloud service (Wang [0093] teaches identifying a communication requirement, based on the tenant request [0085], for communication between tenants including Tenant A’s services) and adjust, based on the QoS or the throughput, the first cloud service (Wang [0028, 0056] teaches evenly distributing the bandwidth including for Tenant P’s services [0056]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 3, 5-7, 9-10, 14, 16-18 objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
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 SHEAN TOKUTA whose telephone number is (571)272-5145. The examiner can normally be reached M-TH 630-430.
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, Brian Gillis can be reached at 5712727952. 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.
SHEAN TOKUTA
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2446
/SHEAN TOKUTA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2446
Prosecution Insights