Prosecution Insights
Last updated: April 19, 2026
Application No. 18/785,224

MANAGING USE OF NON-STANDARD FEATURES OF DATA PROCESSING SYSTEM COMPONENTS USING OUT-OF-BAND METHODS

Non-Final OA §103
Filed
Jul 26, 2024
Examiner
SHIN, CHRISTOPHER B
Art Unit
2181
Tech Center
2100 — Computer Architecture & Software
Assignee
DELL PRODUCTS, L.P.
OA Round
1 (Non-Final)
90%
Grant Probability
Favorable
1-2
OA Rounds
2y 2m
To Grant
95%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 90% — above average
90%
Career Allow Rate
589 granted / 656 resolved
+34.8% vs TC avg
Minimal +5% lift
Without
With
+4.9%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
2y 2m
Avg Prosecution
17 currently pending
Career history
673
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
4.0%
-36.0% vs TC avg
§103
48.1%
+8.1% vs TC avg
§102
9.2%
-30.8% vs TC avg
§112
23.4%
-16.6% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 656 resolved cases

Office Action

§103
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 . Claims 1-20 have been received and pending in the application. Allowable Subject Matter Claims 8 & 12-13 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. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103 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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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. 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) 1-7, 9-11 & 14-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Karam et al. (US 2016/0142243 A1). Examiner relies on the entire teachings of the Karam reference for the following rejection; the examiner kindly advise the applicant to carefully consider the entire teachings to better understand the examiner’s position & interpretations applied to the claimed invention. As for Independent claims 1, 14 & 18, the Karam reference teaches functionally equivalent recitations/limitations of the claimed invention, when the examiner applies Broadest Reasonable Interpretation, as follows: CLAIMS 1, 14 & 18 Karam Ref. Teachings [emphasis added] 1.A method for managing operation of a data processing system, the method comprising: Fig 1 with accompanying description teaches the operation/management of the “network management environment” teaches a functional equivalence of the “data processing system” screening, by a management controller of the data processing system, commands issued by hardware resources of the data processing system Par 11-12, “Management server 102 includes…Interaction agent 112, facilitates interaction with users to receive and provide desired requirements, specification, and status updates…command line interface…”; the examiner notes that the commands from the user (i.e., the claimed hardware resource) is screened/provided by the agent 112 of the management server 102. to identify a command that implicates use of a non-standard feature of Par 13, “Application agent 114 implements and manages the desired network requirement, configurations, and status updates…”; par 20, “declarative requirements express a desired configuration of network components without specifying an exact native device configuration”; the examiner notes that the declarative requirement teaches the claimed non-standard feature a channel card of the hardware resources; Par 13, “selected network devices 106 and 108…” modifying, by the management controller and a remote system, the command to obtain Par 13, “proxy agent may generate native hardware instructions implementing its device requirements to configure its associated individual network device”; par 15, “data store 104 is utilized to track and provide state information and communications of agent components”; par 21, “desired configuration a desired action , a command, or any other instruction or desired result of one or more devices”; the examiner notes that the management server teaches the claimed management controller & data store 104 teaches the remote system a non-standard feature customized command that is natively executable by the channel card; and Par 13, “device requirements may be translated to any of a number of different native device instructions (e.g., native instruction of devices of different vendors device versions, device operations, device operating systems, programming interfaces, etc.) initiating, by the management controller, execution of the non-standard feature customized command by the channel card to facilitate provisioning of a computer-implemented service. Par 49, “native hardware instructions are generated at the proxy agent to configure a device of the proxy agent…to configure the device…executed by the device”; par 52, “operational state that indicates that the generated native hardware instructions are successfully executed on the device” 14. A non-transitory machine-readable medium having instructions stored therein, which when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations for managing operation of a data processing system, the operations comprising: screening, by a management controller of the data processing system, commands issued by hardware resources of the data processing system to identify a command that implicates use of a non-standard feature of a channel card of the hardware resources; modifying, by the management controller and a remote system, the command to obtain a non-standard feature customized command that is natively executable by the channel card; and initiating, by the management controller, execution of the non-standard feature customized command by the channel card to facilitate provisioning of a computer-implemented service. The teachings of the claim 1 are similarly applied. 18. A data processing system, comprising: a processor; and a memory coupled to the processor to store instructions, which when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform operations, the operations comprising: screening, by a management controller of the data processing system, commands issued by hardware resources of the data processing system to identify a command that implicates use of a non-standard feature of a channel card of the hardware resources; modifying, by the management controller and a remote system, the command to obtain a non-standard feature customized command that is natively executable by the channel card; and initiating, by the management controller, execution of the non-standard feature customized command by the channel card to facilitate provisioning of a computer-implemented service. The teachings of the claim 1 are similarly applied. As for the independent claims 1, 14 & 18, the teachings of the Karam reference do not expressly or identically disclose the term “non-standard feature” (e.g., paragraph 18 of the specification defines “The non-standard feature may be a capability of the channel card that is additional to those of a standard for a type of the channel card”); however, such not identically/expressly disclosed termed of the “non-standard feature” is obvious from the functionally equivalent teachings of the Karam reference; teaches, in paragraph 20, “[f]or example, declarative requirements express a desired configuration of network components without specifying an exact native device configuration and control flow”, and, in paragraph 21, further teaches “desired configuration, a desired action, a command, or any other instruction or desired result of one or more device”. The examiner notes that, obvious from the above teachings, one skilled in the art can easily choose, desire or declare a desired functional configuration/action/command of the network device to be an “additional capability or feature of a standard capability or feature (i.e., the teachings of the desired implies additional features). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to come up with the claimed invention from the functionally equivalent teachings of the Karam reference for the detailed teachings and the reasons demonstrated/discussed above. As for the further dependent claims 2-7, 9-11, 15-17 & 19-20, the Karam reference teaches functionally equivalent recitations/limitations of the claimed invention, when the examiner applies Broadest Reasonable Interpretation, as follows: CLAIMS 2-7, 9-11, 15-17 & 19-20 Karam Ref. Teachings [emphasis added] 2. The method of claim 1, wherein the command is not natively executable by the channel card, par 20, “declarative requirements express a desired configuration of network components without specifying an exact native device configuration”; par 21, “desired configuration a desired action, a command, or any other instruction or desired result of one or more devices”; the examiner notes that the declarative requirement is not natively executable by the network device and the management controller is unable to obtain the non-standard feature customized command without cooperation of the remote system. Par 13, “proxy agent may generate native hardware instructions implementing its device requirements to configure its associated individual network device”; par 15, “data store 104 is utilized to track and provide state information and communications of agent components”; par 21, “desired configuration a desired action , a command, or any other instruction or desired result of one or more devices”; the examiner notes that the management server teaches the claimed management controller & data store 104 teaches the remote system 3. The method of claim 2, wherein the remote system is adapted to interpret and convert the command to obtain the non-standard feature customized command. Par 13, “device requirements may be translated to any of a number of different native device instructions (e.g., native instruction of devices of different vendors device versions, device operations, device operating systems, programming interfaces, etc.) 4. The method of claim 3, wherein the remote system is a system operated by a vendor that manufactured the channel card. Obvious from the teachings of Par 13, “device requirements may be translated to any of a number of different native device instructions (e.g., native instruction of devices of different vendors device versions, device operations, device operating systems, programming interfaces, etc.)” 5. The method of claim 2, wherein in the command is converted to the non-standard feature customized command using proprietary logic maintained and controlled exclusively by the remote system. Obvious from the teachings of Par 13, “device requirements may be translated to any of a number of different native device instructions (e.g., native instruction of devices of different vendors device versions, device operations, device operating systems, programming interfaces, etc.) to implement the device requirements” 6. The method of claim 2, wherein other commands of the commands are natively executable by the channel card, and the management controller is adapted to allow direct processing of the other commands by the channel card without modification. Obvious from the teachings of Par 13, “device requirements may be translated to any of a number of different native device instructions (e.g., native instruction of devices of different vendors device versions, device operations, device operating systems, programming interfaces, etc.) to implement the device requirements” 7. The method of claim 1, wherein the non-standard feature is a capability of the channel card that is additional to those of a standard for a type of the channel card. Par 13, “Application agent 114 implements and manages the desired network requirement, configurations, and status updates…”; par 20, “declarative requirements express a desired configuration of network components without specifying an exact native device configuration”; the examiner notes that the declarative requirement teaches the claimed non-standard feature 9. The method of claim 1, wherein modifying the command comprises: sending, by the management controller, at least the command to the remote system via an out-of-band channel; and receiving, by the management controller, the non-standard feature customized command. Par 15, “data store 104 is directly connected to management server 102 via a non-standard connection…data store 104 (e.g., manage data subscriptions) …a data service” 10. The method of claim 1, wherein initiating execution of the non-standard feature customized command comprises: transparently, to the channel card, inserting the non-standard feature customized command into an execution flow for commands issued to the channel card. Par 12, “application agent…generate unique device requirements for each network device 106 and network device 108. Proxy agent 116…may generate native hardware instruction implanting its device requirements to configure its associated individual network device. 11. The method of claim 1, wherein the management controller is separate from and tasked with managing operation of the hardware resources, and the management controller monitors at least a portion of the hardware resources to identify and intercept the issued commands transparently to the hardware resources. Par 11-12, “Management server 102 includes…Interaction agent 112, facilitates interaction with users to receive and provide desired requirements, specification, and status updates…command line interface…”; the examiner notes that the commands from the user (i.e., the claimed hardware resource) is screened/provided by the agent 112 of the management server 102. 15. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 14, wherein the command is not natively executable by the channel card, and the management controller is unable to obtain the non-standard feature customized command without cooperation of the remote system. The teachings of the claim 2 are similarly applied. 16. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 15, wherein the remote system is adapted to interpret and convert the command to obtain the non-standard feature customized command. The teachings of the claim 3 are similarly applied. 17. The non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 16, wherein the remote system is a system operated by a vendor that manufactured the channel card. The teachings of the claim 4 are similarly applied. 19. The data processing system of claim 18, wherein the command is not natively executable by the channel card, and the management controller is unable to obtain the non-standard feature customized command without cooperation of the remote system. The teachings of the claim 2 are similarly applied. 20. The data processing system of claim 19, wherein the remote system is adapted to interpret and convert the command to obtain the non-standard feature customized command. The teachings of the claim 3 are similarly applied. As for the further dependent claims 2-7, 9-11, 15-17 & 19-20, the further limiting recitations are further obvious from the above discussed reasons and teachings; therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to come up with the claimed invention from the functionally equivalent teachings of the Karam reference for the detailed teachings and the reasons demonstrated/discussed above. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHRISTOPHER B SHIN whose telephone number is (571)272-4159. The examiner can normally be reached 8:00-4:00 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, IDRISS N ALROBAYE can be reached at 571-270-1023. 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. /CHRISTOPHER B SHIN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2181
Read full office action

Prosecution Timeline

Jul 26, 2024
Application Filed
Feb 02, 2026
Non-Final Rejection — §103 (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
90%
Grant Probability
95%
With Interview (+4.9%)
2y 2m
Median Time to Grant
Low
PTA Risk
Based on 656 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allow rate.

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