Prosecution Insights
Last updated: April 19, 2026
Application No. 18/625,428

FAST TEST DISABLEMENT FOR PULL REQUEST AND CONTINUOUS INTEGRATION WORKFLOWS

Non-Final OA §112
Filed
Apr 03, 2024
Examiner
LEE, MARINA
Art Unit
2192
Tech Center
2100 — Computer Architecture & Software
Assignee
Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC
OA Round
1 (Non-Final)
85%
Grant Probability
Favorable
1-2
OA Rounds
2y 9m
To Grant
99%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 85% — above average
85%
Career Allow Rate
551 granted / 646 resolved
+30.3% vs TC avg
Strong +19% interview lift
Without
With
+18.6%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
2y 9m
Avg Prosecution
12 currently pending
Career history
658
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
13.1%
-26.9% vs TC avg
§103
44.5%
+4.5% vs TC avg
§102
19.1%
-20.9% vs TC avg
§112
12.9%
-27.1% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 646 resolved cases

Office Action

§112
DETAILED ACTION Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status 1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . 2. This action is responsive to the application filed April 03, 2024. Claims 1-20 are pending and are presenting for examination. Claim Objections 3. Claim 8 is objected to because of the following informalities: As to claim 8, recites to include the following limitation “yaml file” in the claim. As acronym is likely to change its meaning over time, thus, it (yaml) needs to be spelled out once in the claim. Appropriate correction is required. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112 4. The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b): (b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention. 5. Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention. As to claim 1, line 14, recites the following limitation “the disabled test”, it is unclear of which “the disabled test” refers to for example, the “disable test” at line 6 (which already tracked?) or the “disabled test” of the failing test, at line 11, that needs to track? As to claim 2, line 4, recites the following limitation “the disabled test”, it is unclear of which “the disabled test” refers to for example, the “disable test” at line 6 of claim 1 (which already tracked?) or the “disabled test” of the failing test, at line 11 of claim 1, that needs to track? As to claim 9, line 10, recites the following limitation “the disabled test”, it is unclear of which “the disabled test” refers to for example, the “disable test” at line 2 (which already tracked?) or the “disabled test” of the failing test, at line 7, that needs to track? As to claim 10, line 2, recites the following limitation “the disabled test”, it is unclear of which “the disabled test” refers to for example, the “disable test” at line 2 of claim 9 (which already tracked?) or the “disabled test” of the failing test, at line 7 of claim 9, that needs to track? As to claim 15, line 11, recites the following limitation “the disabled test”, it is unclear of which “the disabled test” refers to for example, the “disable test” at line 3 (which already tracked?) or the “disabled test” of the failing test, at line 8, that needs to track? As to claim 16, line 3, recites the following limitation “the disabled test”, it is unclear of which “the disabled test” refers to for example, the “disable test” at line 3 of claim 15 (which already tracked?) or the “disabled test” of the failing test, at line 8 of claim 15, that needs to track? The term “substantially real-time” in claims 6, 14, and 20 is a relative term which renders the claim indefinite. The term “substantially real-time” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention. See MPEP§ 2173.05(b). Claims 3-5, 7, 8, 10-13, and 17-19 depend on the rejected claims and inherit the same issues. Allowable Subject Matter 6. Claims 1, 9, and 15 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action. 7. Claims 2, 6, 10, 14, 16, and 20 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims. 8. Claims 3-5, 7, 8, 11-13, and 17-19 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. 9. The following is an Examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance: The prior arts of record or made of record, taken alone or in combination do not disclose and/or suggest, and/or motivation to combine, at least “after determining that the failing test in the target branch is disabled, tracking the disabled test in the disabled test file; in response to a request from the user device to requeue the test policy received after the disabled test is tracked in the disabled test file, determining whether artifact in the build policy is identical with artifact in the test policy; when it is determined that the artifact in the build policy is identical with the artifact in the test policy, fetching from the code repository a latest version of the disabled test file, and applying the requeued test policy using the latest version of the disabled test file as a source of truth to disable and suppress tests in the code repository; or when it is determined that the artifact in the build policy is not identical with the artifact in the test policy, fetching from the code repository all versions of the disabled test file within a time period, generating a union content of all versions of the disabled test file, and applying the requeued test policy using the union content as a source of truth to disable and suppress tests in the code repository, the time period being between a start time of the build policy and a start time of the requeued test policy; and unblocking the pull request.” as limitations recited in as such manners as in independent claim 1 or variants thereof in other independent claims 9, and 15. Conclusion 10. The prior art made of record and not relied upon (cited on 892 form) is considered pertinent to application disclosure. SELVARAJ et al. (US-20250147872-A1) disclose scalable and automated code testing of multiple merged code branches from multiple developers. Tsirkin et al. (US-20240211381-A1) disclose efficient testing of versioned software system behavior. BOUZGUARROU et al. (US-20230385066-A1) disclose re-enabled and disabled of target branches. Plate et al. (US-12189788-B2) discloses automated back-propagation of a fix using a reproducible build, test and validation process to create a patched artifact. Hong et al. (US-20230176961-A1) discloses automated software testing and error detection of software application within a continuous integration/continuous delivery (CI/CD) pipeline. 11. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MARINA LEE whose telephone number is (571)270-1648. The examiner can normally be reached Monday to Friday (8 am to 4: 30 pm). 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, Hyung S. Sough can be reached on (571)-272-6799. 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. /MARINA LEE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2192
Read full office action

Prosecution Timeline

Apr 03, 2024
Application Filed
Mar 07, 2026
Non-Final Rejection — §112 (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

1-2
Expected OA Rounds
85%
Grant Probability
99%
With Interview (+18.6%)
2y 9m
Median Time to Grant
Low
PTA Risk
Based on 646 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allow rate.

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