Detailed Action Status of Claims This action is in reply to the application filed on 12/19/2023 . Claim s 1-9 are currently pending and have been examined. 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. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102 The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action: A person shall be entitled to a patent unless – (a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale , or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention. Claim s 1-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102 (a)(1) as being anticipated by Kouznetsov et al. ( US 2017 / 0097845 A1 ) . Claims 1, 4, and 7: Kouznetsov discloses the limitations as shown in the following rejections: A distributed ecosystem of information handling systems, comprising: a plurality of host systems; and a manager (VMM) comprising a program of instructions/ [ Claim 7: a non-transitory computer-readable medium; and computer-executable instructions carried on the computer-readable medium ] configured to, when read and executed by a processor of one of the plurality of host systems: determine workload requirements for a workload (VM or VM sub-group) to be executed on one of the plurality of host systems (¶0031-0033; 0036- 0037, 0041 ; FIG. 1; Kouznetsov claim 21 ). based on endpoint capabilities (e.g. host capacity) , current execution load, and a license status for an execution environment (e.g. guest OS) of the workload on each of the plurality of host systems, select a selected (with highest score) host system from the plurality of host systems to minimize a number of licenses required for the execution environment (¶ 0027, 003 2 -0035, 0040-0041, 0060 , 0064 ) disclosing VMs are grouped and assigned to hosts based on constraints and placement optimization policies, including objectives to lower needed licenses and costs thereof . Exemplary quotation: “licensing costs for some software used by VMs 18 are based on the amount of host resources on which the VMs 19 run…reducing the host resource footprint of the selected VMs 18 can reduce software license requirements. In this example, the Windows® VMs 18 are licensed based on their host footprint. Therefore, running the Windows® VMs 18 on fewer hosts results in lower software licensing costs” (¶0034-0035). place the workload for execution on the selected host system (¶0028, 0033, 0044, 0066, 0084) . Claims 2, 5, and 8: Kouznetsov discloses the limitations as shown in the rejections above. Kouznetsov further discloses wherein the workload requirements comprise one or more of hardware requirements, processing requirements, memory requirements, and required execution environment (OS type, Linux Windows, etc.) for the workload (¶0032, 0037, 0040-0041) . Claims 3, 6, and 9: Kouznetsov discloses the limitations as shown in the rejections above. Kouznetsov further discloses the endpoint capabilities comprise one or more of hardware capabilities, processing capabilities, memory capabilities, and required execution environment for the workload (¶0032, 0038, 0040-0041). Conclusion The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure: The following references are directed to workload placement including licensing considerations: US 20130042003 A1, US 20200379818 A1, US 20170200102 A1, US 20200026579 A1 , US 20110072431 A1, US 11416306 B1; “Intelligent and compliant dynamic software license consolidation in cloud environment” Any inquiry of a general nature or relating to the status of this application or concerning this communication or earlier communications from the Examiner should be directed to Paul Mills whose telephone number is 571-270-5482 . The Examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday 11:00am-8:00pm. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the Examiner’s supervisor, April Blair can be reached at 571-27 0 - 1014 . 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. 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. /P. M./ Paul Mills 03/09/2026 /APRIL Y BLAIR/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2196