DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
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.
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.
Claims 1-20 are rejected in the Instant Application.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement(s) (IDS) submitted on 4/17/2025, 11/18/2025 is/are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement(s) is/are being considered if signed and initialed by the Examiner.
Claim Rejections
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 1-2, 4-6, 8-10, 12-14, 16-18, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Colenbrander (US Pub. 2017/0216720) in view of Colenbrander (“Colenbrander2,” US Pub. 2023/0199062).
With respect to Claim 1, Colenbrander teaches a computing system comprising: one or more processors; and one or more memories having stored therein instructions that, upon execution by the one or more processors, cause the computing system to perform operations comprising: (paras. 41-42; processor and memory such as RAM or a hard disk)
receiving, by a video game streaming service, from a customer, one or more requests to link a plurality of different video games to a host computing instance group for hosting execution of the plurality of different video games, (paras. 7, 30, 36-37, 45; user requests to play a game of a cloud gaming system and selects a title from a plurality of titles owned by the user. Para. 72; user purchases a second, different game. Para. 93; User frequently plays Titles B and C. Fig. 4B, paras. 95-98; User may select Title B for play and then select Title C for play. Further, the system services multiple users, see paras. 30, 45. Therefore, other users requesting games would also result in one or more requests to execute a plurality of different games.)
initiating, by the video game streaming service, at a first time, loading of a first video game instance corresponding to a first video game of the plurality of different video games (para. 37-38; System identifies a data center with capacity and has a server of the data center load the game code and instantiate the game. Figs. 3B, 4B, paras. 85-86, 95-98; User selects Title B for play and system performs operation 346 (start game for title B) at step 410. User then selects Title C for play and system performs operation 346 for title C at step 414.)
onto a first host computing instance of the host computing instance group; (para. 37-38; System identifies a data center with capacity and has a server of the data center load the game code and instantiate the game.)
transmitting, by the video game streaming service, a first video stream captured from the first video game instance to a first user; (para. 44; System cloud game servers generate video and audio streams and transmit them to the client device.)
initiating, by the video game streaming service, at a second time, loading of a second video game instance corresponding to a second video game of the plurality of different video games (para. 37-38; System identifies a data center with capacity and has the data center load the game code and instantiate the game. Figs. 3B, 4B, paras. 85-86, 95-98; User selects Title B for play and system performs operation 346 (start game for title B) at step 410. User then selects Title C for play and system performs operation 346 for title C at step 414.)
onto a second host computing instance of the host computing instance group; (para. 37; system selects a data center that is close to the user unless it lacks capacity or is overused. Therefore, when a second player that is located in a different location than the first user requests a game, it will be placed onto a different, closer data center. Even if the same user requests a game, the data center may be overused and a different data center would be selected.)
and transmitting, by the video game streaming service, a second video stream captured from the second video game instance to a second user. (paras. 30, 45; system services multiple users. paras. 7, 30, 36-37, 45; user requests to play a game of a cloud gaming system and selects a title from a plurality of titles owned by the user. See also paras. 144-145; multiplayer and massively multiplayer games. para. 44; System cloud game servers generate video and audio streams and transmit them to the client device.)
But Colenbrander does not explicitly teach wherein the video game streaming service allows any of the plurality of different video games to be loaded onto any host computing instance in the host computing instance group at any time that there is sufficient on-host size availability.
Colenbrander2, however, does teach wherein the video game streaming service allows any of the plurality of different video games to be loaded onto any host computing instance in the host computing instance group at any time that there is sufficient on-host size availability; (Examiner asserts Colenbrander renders this obvious on its own, see para. 37-38; System identifies a data center with capacity and has a server of the data center load the game code and instantiate the game. Regardless, Examiner will cite Colenbrander2, Fig. 2A, paras. 37-42; network and distributed storage stores data for video games which are loaded onto compute nodes for execution. Para. 44, 51; storage and sessions of games may be based on a calculated load of game. Load of game includes size of storage. paras. 34-35; virtual machines that are collections of resources. Paras. 61-67, 75; system assigns sessions based on load balancing that is based on capacity of storage and compute resources. Therefore, the system can identify the resources available on a virtual machine and the load required to host a game and it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill prior to the effective filing date to load the game onto any machine with capacity for the game in order to provide cloud gaming to the user.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill prior to the effective filing date to combine the system of Colenbrander with the loading onto any host when there is availability in order to efficiently utilize the resources of the system and minimize load. (Colenbrander2, paras. 6, 23)
With respect to Claim 2, modified Colenbrander teaches the computing system of claim 1, and Colenbrander also teaches wherein the operations further comprise: initiating, at a third time, loading of a third video game instance of a third video game onto the first host computing instance. (Duplication of parts is not a patentable act. Para. 45; Titles A, B through M1 where M1 is an integer equal to or greater than 0. Figs. 3B, 4B, paras. 85-86, 95-98; User selects Title B for play and system performs operation 346 (start game for title B) at step 410. User then selects Title C for play and system performs operation 346 for title C at step 414.)
With respect to Claim 4, modified Colenbrander teaches the computing system of claim 1, and Colenbrander2 also teaches wherein the first video game and the second video game have different respective video game sizes. (para. 61-62; each game has its own load score. Paras. 23, 51; storage size of game. Load score is based on demand on network storage from the compute node. Therefore, games have both different storage sizes and different active memory access sizes.)
The same motivation to combine as the independent claim applies here.
With respect to Claim 5, it is substantially similar to Claim 1 and is rejected in the same manner, the same art and reasoning applying.
With respect to Claim 6, it is substantially similar to Claim 2 and is rejected in the same manner, the same art and reasoning applying.
With respect to Claim 8, modified Colenbrander teaches the computer-implemented method of claim 5, and Colenbrander also teaches wherein the first application is a video game. (paras. 30, 110; video game.)
With respect to Claim 9, modified Colenbrander teaches the computer-implemented method of claim 5, and Colenbrander also teaches further comprising: transmitting, by the application streaming service, an audio stream captured from the first application instance to the first user. (para. 44; System cloud game servers generate video and audio streams and transmit them to the client device.)
With respect to Claim 10, modified Colenbrander teaches the computer-implemented method of claim 5, and Colenbrander also teaches wherein the first application and the second application are different application titles. (Para. 72; user purchases a second, different game. Para. 93; User frequently plays Titles B and C. Fig. 4B, paras. 95-98; User may select Title B for play and then select Title C for play.)
With respect to Claim 12, it is substantially similar to Claim 4 and is rejected in the same manner, the same art and reasoning applying.
With respect to Claim 13, it is substantially similar to Claim 1 and is rejected in the same manner, the same art and reasoning applying. Further, Colenbrander also teaches one or more non-transitory computer-readable storage media having stored thereon computing instructions that, upon execution by one or more computing devices, cause the one or more computing devices to perform operations comprising: (paras. 41-42; memory such as RAM or a hard disk)
With respect to Claims 14, 16-18, 20, they are substantially similar to Claims 2, 8-10, 4, respectively, and are rejected in the same manner, the same art and reasoning applying.
Claims 3, 7, 11, 15 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Colenbrander (US Pub. 2017/0216720) in view of Colenbrander (“Colenbrander2,” US Pub. 2023/0199062), and further in view of Pare (US Pub. 2021/0299574).
With respect to Claim 3, modified Colenbrander teaches the computing system of claim 1, but does not explicitly teach wherein the loading of the first video game instance onto the first host computing instance is initiated before an initiation of loading of any other video game instances corresponding to any of the plurality of different video games onto the first host computing instance, and wherein the loading of the second video game instance onto the second host computing instance is initiated before an initiation of loading of any other video game instances corresponding to any of the plurality of different video games onto the second host computing instance.
Pare, however, does teach wherein the loading of the first video game instance onto the first host computing instance is initiated before an initiation of loading of any other video game instances corresponding to any of the plurality of different video games onto the first host computing instance, and wherein the loading of the second video game instance onto the second host computing instance is initiated before an initiation of loading of any other video game instances corresponding to any of the plurality of different video games onto the second host computing instance. (para. 49, 61; game session requests are placed in a queue and resolved to place the session. Therefore, the loading due to the request occurs before loading due to another request. See also Para. 35, 46; system may auto-scale to spinup or spin down instances. Spinning up an instance would be the initial placement before any other placements.)
It would have been obvious to combine the method of modified Colenbrander with the loading before the loading of other instances in order to provide for an orderly determination of utilization in order to make assignments based upon load.
With respect to Claim 7, it is substantially similar to Claim 3 and is rejected in the same manner, the same art and reasoning applying.
With respect to Claim 11, modified Colenbrander teaches the computer-implemented method of claim 5, but does not explicitly teach wherein the first application instance is loaded onto the first host computing instance based at least in part on a determination that no application instance of the first application has been loaded onto any host computing instance in the host computing instance group.
Pare, however, does teach wherein the first application instance is loaded onto the first host computing instance based at least in part on a determination that no application instance of the first application has been loaded onto any host computing instance in the host computing instance group. (para. 41-42; processes can be executing in idle mode without an owner. Para. 35, 46; system may auto-scale to spinup or spin down instances.)
It would have been obvious to combine the method of modified Colenbrander with the loading based on there being no loaded instance in order to minimize the number of idle modes while still having available a sufficient number of processes for demand. (Pare, para. 46)
With respect to Claim 15, it is substantially similar to Claim 3 and is rejected in the same manner, the same art and reasoning applying.
With respect to Claim 19, it is substantially similar to Claim 11 and is rejected in the same manner, the same art and reasoning applying.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NICHOLAS P CELANI whose telephone number is (571)272-1205. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 9-5.
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/NICHOLAS P CELANI/Examiner, Art Unit 2449