DETAILED ACTION
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 § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 8-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. Claims 8-14 are directed to a computer readable storage medium, which is non-statutory unless claimed as a non-transitory storage medium readable. The specification doesn’t specify a computer readable storage medium as a non-transitory computer readable medium. Thus one of ordinary skill in the art can interpret the claims as transitory forms of computer readable media. (See In re Nuijten, 500 F.3d 1346,1356-57 (Fed. Cir. 2007) and Interim Examination Instructions for Evaluating Subject Matter Eligibility Under 35 USC 101, Aug. 24, 2009; p.2.
Claims 8-14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because claim 21 is directed to non-statutory subject matter. Claims 8-14 is directed to a computer/software program per se. Computer software does not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter recited in 35 U.S.C § 101 (process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter). See Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. at 72, 175 USPQ at 676-77.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
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.
Claim(s) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20210042851 A1 herein Gupta in view of “Algorithmic Mechanism Design” by Noam Nisan and Amir Ronen herein Nisan.
Claim 1, Gupta discloses a computer-implemented method for establishing a multi-cloud environment (0002, method), the method comprising:
receiving a declared type ci from a participant i corresponding to cost parameters (0035, workload owner transmits requirements for dynamic computing services to an IT broker); central broker (IT broker or IT solutions broker)
Gupta may not explicitly disclose constructing a graph of nodes and edges, wherein the nodes comprise a super node and standard nodes corresponding to possible types of the participant i; and determining payment from the participant i to a central broker involving an allocation of tasks among participants corresponding to a shortest path distance from the super node to the ci.
Nisan discloses constructing a graph of nodes and edges, wherein the nodes comprise a super node and standard nodes corresponding to possible types of the participant i (Pg. 174: 3.2, a communication network modeled by a directed graph G, and two special nodes in it x and y. Each edge e of the graph is an agent. Each agent e has private information (its type) te ≥ 0 which is the agent’s cost for sending a single message along this edge); and
determining payment from the participant i to a central broker involving an allocation of tasks among participants corresponding to a shortest path distance from the super node to the ci (Pg. 174: 3.2, Each edge e of the graph is an agent. Each agent e has private information (its type) te ≥ 0 which is the agent’s cost for sending a single message along this edge. The goal is to find the cheapest path from x to y (as to send a single message from x to y). The set of feasible outputs are all paths from x to y, and the objective function is the path’s total cost. Agent e’s valuation is 0 if its edge is not part of the chosen path, and −te if it is). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Gupta to include constructing graphs to determine cost of services as taught by Nisan so as to find the cheapest path (Pg. 174: 3.2).
Claim 2, Gupta in view of Nisan disclose the method as recited in claim 1. Gupta may not explicitly disclose further comprising: obtaining the allocation of tasks among the participants by solving an optimization problem.
Nisan discloses obtaining the allocation of tasks among the participants by solving an optimization problem (Pgs. 175-176: Def. 10, There are k tasks that need to be allocated to n agents. Each agent i’s type is, for each task j, the minimum amount of time tij in which it is capable of performing this task. The goal is to minimize the completion time of the last assignment (the make-span). The valuation of an agent i is the negation of the total time it has spent on the tasks allocated to it; Pg. 176: Def. 11, allocation: each task is allocated to the agent who is capable of doing it in a minimal amount of time (tasks with equal time declarations are allocated arbitrarily)). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Gupta to include constructing graphs to determine cost of services as taught by Nisan so as to find the cheapest path (Pg. 174: 3.2).
Claim 3, Gupta in view of Nisan discloses the method as recited in claim 2. Gupta discloses creating a multi-cloud environment with n cloud providers and b cloud buyers based on the allocation of tasks among the participants (0030, parties involved include IT broker, workload owner, solutioning teams, cloud solution providers and verifiers; thus, providers and buyers), each of whom has m types where n, b are positive integer values (0030, since one or more of the participants, thus positive integer values; and more than one type of participant, thus, m types).
Gupta may not explicitly disclose further comprising: creating a multi-cloud environment based on the determined payment from the participant i to the central broker.
Nisan discloses creating a multi-cloud environment based on the determined payment from the participant i to the central broker (Pg. 178: Def. 12, Let t be a type vector, i an agent. For a set X of tasks, we define the price offered for X to agent i as: (see equation)). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Gupta to include constructing graphs to determine cost of services as taught by Nisan so as to find the cheapest path (Pg. 174: 3.2).
Claim 4, Gupta in view of Nisan disclose the method as recited in claim 1. Gupta discloses wherein the participant corresponds to a cloud buyer (0031, workload owner includes a customer, client or user).
Claim 5, Gupta in view of Nisan disclose the method as recited in claim 1. Gupta discloses wherein the participant corresponds to a cloud provider (0032, cloud solutions providers).
Claim 6, Gupta in view of Nisan discloses the method as recited in claim 1. Gupta may not explicitly disclose wherein the allocation minimizes a total cost of processing the tasks.
Nisan discloses wherein the allocation minimizes a total cost of processing the tasks (Pg. 174: 3.2, Each edge e of the graph is an agent. Each agent e has private information (its type) te ≥ 0 which is the agent’s cost for sending a single message along this edge. The goal is to find the cheapest path from x to y (as to send a single message from x to y). The set of feasible outputs are all paths from x to y, and the objective function is the path’s total cost. Agent e’s valuation is 0 if its edge is not part of the chosen path, and −te if it is; Pg. 177: 4.2, tasks are allocated to the agent who is capable of doing in a minimal time). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Gupta to include constructing graphs to determine cost of services as taught by Nisan so as to find the cheapest path (Pg. 174: 3.2).
Claim 7, Gupta in view of Nisan disclose the method as recited in claim 1. Gupta may not explicitly disclose wherein the graph contains a linear number of the nodes, wherein there is an edge on every ordered pair of the standard nodes, wherein there is an edge from the super node to every standard node.
Nisan discloses wherein the graph contains a linear number of the nodes, wherein there is an edge on every ordered pair of the standard nodes, wherein there is an edge from the super node to every standard node ci (Pg. 174: 3.2, Each edge e of the graph is an agent. Each agent e has private information (its type) te ≥ 0 which is the agent’s cost for sending a single message along this edge. The goal is to find the cheapest path from x to y (as to send a single message from x to y). The set of feasible outputs are all paths from x to y, and the objective function is the path’s total cost. Agent e’s valuation is 0 if its edge is not part of the chosen path, and −te if it is). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Gupta to include constructing graphs to determine cost of services as taught by Nisan so as to find the cheapest path (Pg. 174: 3.2).
Claim 8, as analyzed with respect to the limitations as discussed in claim 1. Gupta discloses a computer program product for establishing a multi-cloud environment (0002, computer program product), the computer program product comprising one or more computer readable storage mediums having program code embodied therewith (0094).
Claim 9, as analyzed with respect to the limitations as discussed in claim 2.
Claim 10, as analyzed with respect to the limitations as discussed in claim 3.
Claim 11, as analyzed with respect to the limitations as discussed in claim 4.
Claim 12, as analyzed with respect to the limitations as discussed in claim 5.
Claim 13, as analyzed with respect to the limitations as discussed in claim 6.
Claim 14, as analyzed with respect to the limitations as discussed in claim 7.
Claim 15, as analyzed with respect to the limitations as discussed in claim 1. Gupta discloses a system (Abstract), comprising: a memory for storing a computer program for establishing a multi-cloud environment (0026, memory); and a processor connected to the memory (0026, processor.
Claim 16, as analyzed with respect to the limitations as discussed in claim 2.
Claim 17, as analyzed with respect to the limitations as discussed in claim 3.
Claim 18, as analyzed with respect to the limitations as discussed in claim 4.
Claim 19, as analyzed with respect to the limitations as discussed in claim 5.
Claim 20, as analyzed with respect to the limitations as discussed in claim 6.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Mehmood B. Khan whose telephone number is (571)272-9277. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:30 am-6:30 pm.
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/Mehmood B. Khan/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2463
MEHMOOD B. KHAN
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2463
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