Prosecution Insights
Last updated: April 19, 2026
Application No. 18/543,508

THREAT-DETECTION TELEMETRY IN A ZERO-TRUST COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT

Final Rejection §103§112§DP
Filed
Dec 18, 2023
Examiner
VAUGHAN, MICHAEL R
Art Unit
2431
Tech Center
2400 — Computer Networks
Assignee
DELL PRODUCTS, L.P.
OA Round
2 (Final)
78%
Grant Probability
Favorable
3-4
OA Rounds
3y 0m
To Grant
99%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 78% — above average
78%
Career Allow Rate
626 granted / 799 resolved
+20.3% vs TC avg
Strong +31% interview lift
Without
With
+31.1%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
3y 0m
Avg Prosecution
23 currently pending
Career history
822
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
16.3%
-23.7% vs TC avg
§103
35.5%
-4.5% vs TC avg
§102
23.2%
-16.8% vs TC avg
§112
19.2%
-20.8% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 799 resolved cases

Office Action

§103 §112 §DP
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 The instant application having Application No. 18/543,508 is presented for examination by the examiner. Claims 4, 14, and 19 are canceled. Claims 1-3, 5-13, 15-18, and 20 are amended. Claims 1-3, 5-13, 15-18, and 20 are pending. Response to Amendment Double Patenting The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969). A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b). The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13. The USPTO Internet website contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit www.uspto.gov/patent/patents-forms. The actual filing date of the application in which the form is filed determines what form (e.g., PTO/SB/25, PTO/SB/26, PTO/AIA /25, or PTO/AIA /26) should be used. A web-based eTerminal Disclaimer may be filled out completely online using web-screens. An eTerminal Disclaimer that meets all requirements is auto-processed and approved immediately upon submission. For more information about eTerminal Disclaimers, refer to www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/applying-online/eterminal-disclaimer. Claims 1-20 are provisionally rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-20 of copending Application No. 18/543,244 (reference application). Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because all the limitation of broader genus claims of ‘508 are contained in the narrower species claims of ‘244, as enunciated in (ELI LILLY AND COMPANY v BARR LABORATORIES, INC., United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, ON PETITION FOR REHEARING EN BANC (DECIDED: May 30, 2001). “A later patent claim is not patentably distinct from an earlier patent claim if the later claim is obvious over, or anticipated by, the earlier claim. In re Longi, 759 F.2d at 896, 225 USPQ at 651 (affirming a holding of obviousness-type double patenting because the claims at issue were obvious over claims in four prior art patents); In re Berg, 140 F.3d at 1437, 46 USPQ2d at 1233 (Fed. Cir. 1998) (affirming a holding of obviousness-type double patenting where a patent application claim to a genus is anticipated by a patent claim to a species within that genus). “ ELI LILLY AND COMPANY v BARR LABORATORIES, INC., United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, ON PETITION FOR REHEARING EN BANC (DECIDED: May 30, 2001). Claim Objections Claim objections have been overcome by amendment. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112 Claim rejections have been overcome by amendment. Response to Arguments Applicant's arguments filed 12/23/25 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant alleges that the prior art does not explicitly teach the updated telemetry definition specifies an adjustment to a frequency of telemetry collection by a hardware subsystem of the IHS. This feature was previously in claims 4, 14, and 19. In rejecting those claims, Examiner pointed to paragraphs 0012 and 0062 to support that limitation. In paragraph 0012, Wu teaches that update telemetry rules can include logging for a longer collection period of time. That change in the period of collection meets the claims’ adjustment to a frequency. In paragraph 0062, Wu teaches further teaches that the rule updates can be update at any time over different lengths of time thus solidifying the fact that rules adjustment can update the time period for collection whenever a rule adjustment needs to take place. Further evidence of updating the time of collection is shown in paragraph 0033 where the start and end time of collection can be specified. Further specific adjustment to the time, to collect and send telemetry can be found in paragraphs 0055 and 0056. In view of the foregoing, respectfully the rejection must be maintained. 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 1-3, 5-13, 15-18, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over USP Application Publication 2016/0204992 to Wu et al., hereinafter Wu hereinafter in view of WO 2018/125903 to Nachenberg et al., hereinafter Nachenberg. As per claims 1 and 11, Wu teaches a system for collection of telemetry by an Information Handling System (IHS), the system comprising: a policy decision point of a zero-trust computing environment that controls access to a plurality of protected resources [telemetry service 100; 0011 and 0020], wherein the policy decision point is configured to: identify a telemetry definition specifying telemetry being collected by the IHS [current rules; 0032]; update the telemetry definition to specify an updated telemetry chain for configuring telemetry collection by the plurality of hardware components of the IHS [0035, 0036, 0052]; transmit the updated telemetry definition to the IHS (0061); and the IHS comprising a plurality of sensors, one or more processors, and a memory coupled to the processors, the memory storing program instructions that, upon execution by the processors [client device 110], cause the IHS to: identify the updated telemetry chain in the updated telemetry definition received from the policy decision point (0012 and 0043); adjust telemetry generation by one or more of the hardware components of the IHS based on their position in the telemetry chain (0012 and 0043), wherein the updated telemetry definition specifies an adjustment to a frequency of telemetry collection by a hardware subsystem of the IHS (0012 and 0062); and transmit the adjusted telemetry (0012 and 0062). Wu is silent in explicitly teaching receive an indication of attack related to the IHS. Wu teaches responding to many sorts of errors, including specific hardware (0052) but not specifically adjusting the telemetry in response of attack. On the other hand, Nachenberg teaches adjusting the telemetry in response of receiving an indication of attack (0037 and 0038). Nachenberg adjusts the collection to telemetry data similarly to Wu. The trigger of the updating of the telemetry rules is the main difference. It would be beneficial to adjust telemetry rules in Wu for reasons of cybersecurity as taught by Nachenberg in order to protect the system from those types of risk. The claim is obvious because one of ordinary skill in the art can combine methods known before the effective filing date which produce predictable results. As per claim 16, it is rejected for the same reasons as claims 1 and 11. As per claims 2, 12, and 17, Wu teaches the IHS comprises a remote access controller [telemetry component 130; 0028] that adjusts telemetry generation by the one or more of the hardware components of the IHS (0052). As per claims 3, 13, and 18, Wu teaches the remote access controller comprises one or sideband management pathways used in adjusting telemetry generation by the one or more of the hardware components of the IHS (0028, 0036, and 0029). As per claims 5, 15, and 20, Wu teaches the telemetry chain comprises an ordered list of hardware component types (0036 and 0038). As per claim 6, Wu teaches whether to queue the telemetry that is ready for transmission based on a position of the telemetry within the subsystem telemetry chain (0036). As per claim 7, Wu teaches the telemetry for a subsystem is queued when its position in the telemetry subsystem chain is at a terminal end of the telemetry subsystem chain (queues all telemetry including terminal component; 0036). As per claim 8, Wu teaches the telemetry for a subsystem is transmitted immediately when its position in the telemetry subsystem chain is at a start of the telemetry subsystem chain [increase logging on storage devices; the storage device can be interpreted as the start or root of the chain; 0037]. As per claim 9, the combination of Wu and Nachenberg teaches the telemetry definition further specifies an adjustment to telemetry collected by hardware subsystem that is associated with the indicator of attack [Nachenberg: 0037 and 0038]. As per claim 10, the combination of Wu and Nachenberg teaches the telemetry definition further specifies an adjustment to subsystem telemetry collection related to a user [Nachenberg: source] that is associated with the indicator of attack [Nachenberg: 0037 and 0038]. 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 extension fee 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 date of this final action. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHAEL R. VAUGHAN whose telephone number is (571)270-7316. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday - Thursday, 7:30am - 5:00pm, EST. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Lynn Feild can be reached on (571) 272-2092. 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 the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /MICHAEL R VAUGHAN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2431
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Prosecution Timeline

Dec 18, 2023
Application Filed
Sep 19, 2025
Non-Final Rejection — §103, §112, §DP
Dec 23, 2025
Applicant Interview (Telephonic)
Dec 23, 2025
Response Filed
Dec 23, 2025
Examiner Interview Summary
Mar 02, 2026
Final Rejection — §103, §112, §DP (current)

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Study what changed to get past this examiner. Based on 5 most recent grants.

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Prosecution Projections

3-4
Expected OA Rounds
78%
Grant Probability
99%
With Interview (+31.1%)
3y 0m
Median Time to Grant
Moderate
PTA Risk
Based on 799 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allow rate.

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