Prosecution Insights
Last updated: October 02, 2026
Application No. 18/659,115

MANAGING RESOURCES OF A DOCKING STATION

Non-Final OA §103§112
Filed
May 09, 2024
Examiner
NGUYEN, BRANDON A
Art Unit
Tech Center
Assignee
Dell Products L.P.
OA Round
1 (Non-Final)
Grant Probability
Favorable
1-2
OA Rounds

Examiner Intelligence

Grants only 0% of cases
0%
Career Allowance Rate
0 granted / 0 resolved
-60.0% vs TC avg
Minimal +0% lift
Without
With
+0.0%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
Avg Prosecution
19 currently pending
Career history
19
Total Applications
across all art units
This examiner has no resolved cases yet (career too new); statute-level performance unavailable. The Grant Probability card shows Tech Center averages instead.

Office Action

§103 §112
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 . Specification The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities: Specification paragraph 26 numbers information handling system as 101. This should be corrected to 100. Appropriate correction is required. Claim Objections Claims 1, 12, and 20 are objected to because of the following informalities: The term “second identifiers” appears in the claimed language, and that there is a lack of antecedent basis for this term. However, the examiner believes that the applicant meant to say, “a partition of resources of docking station, including providing the user identifier, the first parameters, and the second parameters”. Appropriate correction is required. If not, please see 112 rejection. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112 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. The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph: The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention. Claims 1, 12, and 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. Claims 1, 12, and 20 recites the limitation "second identifier" in “a partition of resources of the docking station, including providing the user identifier, the first parameters, and the second identifiers;”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. 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. Claim(s) 1-3, 5, 9-14, 16, and 20 is/are rejected under U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as anticipated by or, in the alternative under 35 U.S.C. 103 as obvious over Roose Pub. No. US 2022/0214978 A1. Regarding claim 1, Roose teaches “A computer-implemented method of managing resources of a docking station, including: establishing a coupling between an information handling system and the docking station ([0005] teaches connecting a computing device (host) to a docking station); providing, by the information handling system and to the docking station, a user identifier associated with a user of the information handling system ([0008] teaches obtaining identification information from the connected host device. [0011] teaches that identification information may be information identifying a user) and first parameters associated with the information handling system ([0013-0015] teaches the docking station receiving setting information from the connected host device. [0020-0022] teach that setting information includes display configurations, network settings, audio settings, peripheral device settings such the information may be parameters associated with the host device); identifying, by the docking station, second parameters associated with the docking station ([0056-0062] provide an array of resources associated with the docking station); … in response to the request: identifying, by the external computing device, key performance indicators (KPIs) based on the user identifier, the first parameters, and the second parameters; ([0019] teaches whether to transmit setting information to the remote device based on authorization such that a level of entitlement and security is implied regarding the user. [0013] also teaches the setting information including at least one configuration setting used to control the interaction between host device and the resources of the docking station, the resources detailed as see on [0056-0062] such that the setting information contain both the first and second parameters); “determining, by the external computing device, a configuration of the resources of the docking station based on the KPIs; providing, by the external computing device and to the docking station, the configuration ([0008-0013] teaches retrieving a configuration from a remote server based on obtained identification information, the identification information associated with the setting information such that the remote server determines a configuration based on received parameters and determining the KPIs of said parameters; and applying, by the docking station, the configuration to partition the resources of the docking station ([0097-0098] teaches applying the configuration).” Roose may not have explicitly taught that the docking station requests to an external computing device. However, it may be implied as retrieving data implies a request being made for that data such that it teaches the limitation “requesting, by the docking station and to an external computing device communicatively coupled to the docking station, a partition of resources of the docking station, including providing the user identifier, the first parameters, and the second identifiers ([0008-0013] teaches the docking station retrieving a configuration from a remote server device based on the identification information obtained from the host device, such that the docking station may have requested a resource configuration from the server based on provided identification information). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to combine the teachings of Roose to show that information retrieved by the docking station may imply a request for such information. A person having ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious that a docking station would request for information based on information because a request-response protocol is a well-known implementation for retrieving information. Regarding claim 12, it is similar to claim 1 and is rejected for the same reasons. Claim 12 is directed towards “A computing environment, including: an information handling system comprising a processor having access to memory media storing instructions executable by the processor to perform operations; ([0099-0105])”. Regarding claim 20, it is similar to claim 1 and is rejected for the same reasons. Claim 20 is directed towards “A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing software comprising instructions executable by one or more computers… ([0099-0105])”. Regarding claim 2, Roose teaches “The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further including: storing, at the docking station, data indicating the user identifier and the first parameters ([0015-0018])”. Regarding claim 13, it is similar to claim 3 and is rejected for the same reasons. Regarding claim 5, Roose teaches “The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein identifying the KPIs further includes identifying an entitlement of the resources of the docking station based on the user identifier ([0065] teaches an authorization module determining authorization information in order to determine privileges associated with the user. Also see [0075-0076]).” Regarding claim 16, it is similar to claim 5 and is rejected for the same reasons. Regarding claim 9, Roose teaches “The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further including: requesting, by the docking station and to the information handling system, the user identifier and the first parameters associated with the information handling system ([0070-0074] teaches the docking station identifying both the user and the host such that the docking station requested for user credentials along with host information).” Regarding claim 11, Roose teaches “The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the second parameters include interfaces of the docking station and computing peripherals connected to the docking station ([0056-0062] teaches the docking station consisting with a set of resources including peripheral devices, interfaces, etc.).” Claim(s) 3, 4, 14, and 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Roose as applied above in claims 1 and 12, and in further view of Guttahalli Krishna et al. Pub. No. US 2016/0357447 A1 (hereafter Guttahalli K.). Regarding claim 3, Roose teaches of storing configurations ([0010] teaches selecting configurations from a stored configuration storage such that it may store previously generated configurations), however, may not explicitly teach of generating a configuration of resources based on KPIs. Guttahalli K. teaches an optical resource allocation based at least in part, local and non-local memory accesses such that it teaches the combination “The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein determining the configuration of the resources further includes identifying a previously generated configuration of the resources based on the KPIs ([0038-0042] teaches determining an optimal resource allocation based at least in part on local and non-local memory accesses, wherein the memory accesses may be a KPI).” It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to combine the teachings of Guttahalli K. to the invention of Roose to show that information retrieved by the docking station may be used to determine an optimal configuration/allocation of resources. A person having ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this combination in order to show that resource configurations may be generated/determined based on KPIs, optimizing resource usage in a system (Guttahalli K. [0012]). Regarding claim 14, it is similar to claim 3 and is rejected for the same reasons. Regarding claim 4, wherein the combination, Guttahalli K. teaches “The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein determining the configuration of the resources further includes generating the configuration of the resources based on the KPIs ([0038-0042]).” Regarding claim 15, it is similar to claim 4 and is rejected for the same reasons. Claims 6 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Roose as applied above in claims 1 and 12, and in further view of Sanders et al. Pub. No. US 2021/0349978 A1 (hereafter Sanders). Regarding claim 6, Roose may not explicitly teach KPIs including security risks of resources. Sanders teaches a security setting associated with a user such that it teaches the limitation “The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein identifying the KPIs further includes identifying a security risk of the resources of the docking station based on the first parameters associated with the information handling system, the resources including interfaces of the docking station ([0014-0015] teaches registering with a security API in order to validate authorization of removing a device from a docking station or not. [0023] also teaches of port/interface security based on limitations specified when registering such that the settings applied to a specific user may be KPIs identified to determine security risks of a docking station).” It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to combine the teachings of Sanders to the invention of Roose to show that information retrieved by the system may be used to determine security risks associated with the user using the docking station. A person having ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this combination in order to allow for more robust security augmentations in the system (Sanders [0007-0008]). Regarding claim 17, it is similar to claim 6 and is rejected for the same reasons. Claims 7, 8, 18, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Roose as applied above in claims 1 and 12, and in further view of Iyer et al. Pub. No. US 2022/0058035 A1 (hereafter Iyer). Regarding claim 7, Roose may not explicitly teach identifying a performance of peripheral devices. Iyer teaches adjusting resource utilization of peripherals such that it teaches the limitation “The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein identifying the KPIs further includes identifying a performance of peripheral devices connected to the docking station based on the first parameters associated with the information handling system and the second parameters associated with the docking station ([0033] teaches reducing wireless traffic by changing processing performance of a peripheral such that the system is aware of the current operating state of a peripheral).” It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to combine the teachings of Iyer to the invention of Roose to show that information retrieved by the system may be regarding the performance peripheral devices. A person having ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this combination in order to throttle resource utilization at a client IHS (Iyer [0041-0043]). Regarding claim 18, it is similar to claim 7 and is rejected for the same reasons. Regarding claim 8, Roose may not explicitly teach identifying usage of peripheral devices based on parameters. Iyer teaches “The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein identifying the KPIs further includes identifying a usage of the peripheral devices based on the first parameters associated with the information handling system and the second parameters associated with the docking station ([0029] teaches that when the client IHS is connected to the docking station, the IHS is able to access peripheral devices such that the system is aware of what peripheral devices are being used. [0033] also teaches configuring power states of peripherals such that a system is aware of what peripherals are being used in order to configure their settings).” It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to combine the teachings of Iyer to the invention of Roose to show that information retrieved by the system may include what peripherals are being used. A person having ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this combination in order to be able to configure resource utilization values of a system, allowing for dynamic allocation of resources in terms of determining a resource configuration for the system (Iyer [0033] for reference). Regarding claim 19, it is similar to claim 8 and is rejected for the same reasons. Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Roose as applied above in claim 1, and in further view of Reeves et al. Pub. No. US 2012/0084480 A1 (hereafter Reeves). Regarding claim 10, Roose may not teach that the first parameters include parameters associated with an operating system and applications executed at the information handling system. Reeves teaches determining a current operating system (OS) based on a docked device such that it teaches the limitation “The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein the first parameters include parameters associated with an operating system (OS) executing at the information handling system and applications executing at the information handling system ([0010-0013] teaches detecting a docking event, and determining a user experience profile is associated with a certain operating system such that the environment adapts to that operating system in order to output a GUI. [0080] teaches that a user experience profile may be associated with applications of the OS such that the detected OS of the docked device may also include applications of that device to be shared alongside the OS when determining what OS a user experience profile has selected).” It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to combine the teachings of Reeves to the invention of Roose to show that information retrieved by the docking station may include information associated with the operating system and applications running on the docked device. A person having ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this combination in order determine security risks associated with the operating system and determine an optimal resource configuration pertaining to the operating system and applications running. Conclusion Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BRANDON A NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571)272-6074. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri (10am-6pm). 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, Aimee Li can be reached at (571) 272-4169. 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. /BRANDON NGUYEN/Examiner, Art Unit 2195 /Aimee Li/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2195
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Prosecution Timeline

May 09, 2024
Application Filed
Aug 17, 2026
Non-Final Rejection mailed — §103, §112
Sep 28, 2026
Interview Requested

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Prosecution Projections

1-2
Expected OA Rounds
Grant Probability
Low
PTA Risk
Based on 0 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allowance rate.

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