DETAILED ACTION
This non-final office action is responsive to the Request for Continued Examination (RCE) filed January 5, 2026. Claims 1, 7, 15, and 20 are currently amended. Claims 1-20 are pending in this application.
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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on January 6, 2026 is 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
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, 9-18, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Brajkovic et al. (US 2024/0273226 A1) in view of Gibbons, JR. et al. (US 2018/0314603 A1) (‘Gibbons’).
With respect to claims 1, 15 and 20 Brajkovic teaches:
one or more memories storing processor-executable code (paragraphs 84 and 87-88); and
one or more processors coupled with the one or more memories and individually or collectively operable to execute the code (paragraph 84);
receiving, by a data management system (i.e. R-cloud platform) (paragraphs 14, 16 and 48), a request to restore a first computing object included in a software-as-a-service application comprising a set of computing objects (i.e. restore workflow invoked when recovery is requested) (paragraphs 59, 83), wherein the set of computing objects are included in the software-as-a-service application, wherein the set of computing objects comprises the first computing object (i.e. data objects of SAAS access point) (Figs. 1 and 2, paragraphs 42 and 78), and wherein the software-as-a-service application is different than the data management system and is associated with a first storage environment (R-cloud platform is different from SAAS applications/access points. R-cloud stores a catalog with backup details that is configured and maintained outside of SaaS itself)(paragraphs 48 and 83); and
restoring, by the data management system, the first computing object and one or more second computing objects to the first storage environment via a set of application programming interfaces associated with the software-as-a-service application (Fig. 3, paragraph 48, 63, and 83), wherein restoration of the one or more second computing objects is based at least in part on the one or more second computing objects being in a hierarchical relationship with the first computing object (SAAS defines different levels of hierarchy of resources, associations, and backup sequence; attributes include other dependent or subservient data objects; the »canBackup« attribute to specify, at one or more levels of a data hierarchy, whether backup protection is available; granularity can include projects, folder, and files…projects include a hierarchy of child object as seen in Fig. 2) (paragraphs 25, 42, 67, 69-70, and78), and wherein the set of application programming interfaces associated with the software-as-a-service application are for access of the first computing object and the one or more second computing objects (Fig. 3, paragraph 48, 63, and 83).
Brajkovic does not explicitly teach software-as-a-service backup data using a set of snapshots or restoring software-as-a-service data/objects using snapshots.
Gibbons teaches software-as-a-service backup data using a set of snapshots and restoring software-as-a-service data/objects using snapshots (paragraphs 57, 118, 130 and 142).
It would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the invention to have modified Brajkovic to use snapshot technology for backup because combining the prior art technique of snapshot backups into Brajkovic’s backup/recovery system would achieve predicable results, backup of SAAS data. Further, Brajkovic stores backup version, which can be replaces with snapshots to yield the same results.
With respect to claims 2 and 16, Brajkovic in view of Gibbons teaches wherein: respective computing objects within the set of computing objects comprise respective sets of tables, tables included in the respective sets of tables are assigned to respective table groups, and a table group comprises one or more tables associated with a same group of one or more application programming interfaces from among the set of application programming interfaces (Brajkovic, Fig. 1, paragraphs 36-37, 69 and 71).
With respect to claims 3 and 17, Brajkovic in view of Gibbons teaches wherein an order in which to restore the respective sets of tables associated with the first computing object and the one or more second computing objects is based at least in part on a second hierarchical relationship associated with the respective sets of tables (Brajkovic, paragraphs 36-37, 59, 69 and 72).
With respect to claims 4 and 18, Brajkovic in view of Gibbons teaches wherein restoration of the one or more second computing objects is further based at least in part on second respective sets of tables being in hierarchical relationships with first respective sets of tables associated with the first computing object (Brajkovic, paragraphs 36-37, 59, 69 and 72).
With respect to claim 9, Brajkovic in view of Gibbons teaches wherein the request comprises a request to restore a table of the respective sets of tables, and wherein the first computing object is associated with the table (Brajkovic, paragraphs 59, 69, and 82-83).
With respect to claim 10, Brajkovic in view of Gibbons teaches wherein the request comprises a request to restore a logical component of the software-as-a-service application, and wherein the first computing object is included in a group of computing objects associated with the logical component (Brajkovic, paragraphs 59, 69, and 82-83; Gibbons, paragraphs 127-128).
With respect to claim 11, Brajkovic in view of Gibbons teaches wherein receiving the request comprises: receiving the request via a user interface associated with a user account associated with the software-as-a-service application (Brajkovic, paragraphs 48, 59 and 82-83; Gibbons, paragraphs 57, 62, 66, 118, 128 and 130).
With respect to claim 12, Brajkovic in view of Gibbons teaches: presenting, via the user interface, a plurality of computing objects in hierarchical relationships with the first computing object, the plurality of computing objects comprising the one or more second computing objects (Brajkovic, Fig. 1 and 2, paragraphs 28, 35, 48-49); and
receiving, via the user interface, a selection of the one or more second computing objects of the plurality of computing objects (Brajkovic, paragraphs 28, 58-59, and 82-83; Gibson, paragraph 128).
With respect to claim 13, Brajkovic in view of Gibbons teaches further comprising: selecting one or more second snapshots associated with the one or more second computing objects based on a proximity in time to a first time, the first time of a first snapshot associated with the first computing object (Gibbons, paragraphs 127-128, 130 and 142; Brajkovic, paragraphs 58-59 and 82-83).
With respect to claim 14, Brajkovic in view of Gibbons teaches further comprising: updating dependencies associated with one or more third computing objects at the first storage environment based at least in part on restoring the first computing object and the one or more second computing objects (Brajkovic, paragraphs 59 and 67).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-8 and 19 are 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.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1-20 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ALICIA M WILLOUGHBY whose telephone number is (571)272-5599. The examiner can normally be reached 9-5:30, EST, M-F.
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/ALICIA M WILLOUGHBY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2156