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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 07/26/2024, 11/14/2025 and 12/08/2025 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 11-14 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.
Regarding Claim 11, prior art does not explicitly disclose wherein the data processing system comprises a network module adapted to separately advertise network endpoints for the management controller and hardware resources of the data processing system, the network endpoints being usable by the remote server to address communications to the hardware resources using an in-band communication channel and the management controller using the out-of-band communication channel.
Regarding Claims 12-14, the claims depend upon Claim 11 and are therefore also allowed due to their dependency.
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) 1,5,10,15 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sharma (US20220121619) in view of Young (US20220207463).
Regarding Claims 1,15 and 18 Sharma discloses A method for managing operation of a data processing system, the method comprising: making an identification that a channel card of the data processing system is a non-standard channel card; (Paragraph [0039] Examiner Note (E.N.) The Information Handling System (IHS) includes one or more non-standard hardware components (non-standard channel card). The non-standard hardware component also includes a management controller that supports interoperation with the remote access controller via a sideband device management bus. Each of the non-standard hardware components supported by IHS include various processing and memory resources that have been specialized to support customized computing operations, such as specific signal processing, security, data mining, and artificial intelligence function.)
based on the identification: making a determination, by a management controller of the data processing (Paragraph [0075] E.N. After the IHS has been initialized and the operating system of the IHS has been booted, the remote access service module that runs in the operating system start the plugin broker. The plugin broker initiates a remote management session, such as a Redfish session, in order to configure remote management communication with the remote access controller.)
and based on user input from a user, (Paragraph [0054] E.N. Users of an IHS choose to install customized, nonstandard hardware components in order to address particular computing needs.)
regarding whether the non-standard channel card is to be converted to a standard channel card; in an instance of the determination in which the non-standard channel card is to be converted to the standard channel card: (Paragraph [0076] The plugin broker validates the retrieved management software and manifest by computing a checksum of these files and comparing it with a checksum retrieved from the operating system key store that was provisioned during manufacture of the IHS. The plugin broker also validates the signature of the retrieved management software using the certificate that was generated during manufacture of the IHS and stored to the key store.)
performing, using the certificate, an action set to convert the non-standard channel card to the standard channel card to obtain a converted channel card; (Paragraph [0076] E.N. The plugin broker also validates the signature of the retrieved management software using the certificates, such as an x509 public key certificate, that was generated during the manufacture of the IHS and stored to the key store. These validations ensure that the files that will be used to operate the plugin for management of the non-standard device have not been altered since the factory provisioning of the IHS.)
and providing, using the converted channel card, computer-implemented services. (Paragraph [0074] E.N. The non-standard hardware provisioned during the manufacture of the IHS provides customized computing functions for this specific customer.)
Sharma does not, but in related art, Young discloses obtaining, by the management controller and via an out-of-band communication channel, a certificate for the standard channel card from a remote server; (Paragraph [0083] E.N. The certificate signing request (CSR) is generated by a remote access controller and transmit the CSR to a remote validation service without booting the operating system of the IHS and utilize out-of-band data collection, networking and validated instructions to generate and transmit the CSR to the removed validation service.)
Therefore, it would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Sharma to incorporate the teachings of Young because Sharma does not explicitly disclose out-of-band communication which is disclosed by Young. Incorporating the teachings of Young to Sharma allows for the use of out-of-band communication to be implemented in order to verify non-standard channel cards.
Regarding Claim 15, Sharma further discloses 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 (Paragraph [0004])
Regarding Claim 18, Sharma further discloses 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 (Paragraph [0004])
Regarding Claim 5, Sharma in view of Young discloses the method of claim 1. Sharma further discloses wherein the identification is made by a basic input/output system (BIOS) of the data processing system during a startup procedure for the data processing system. (Paragraph [0044] E.N. Remote Access controller operate from a different power plane from the processor and other components of IHS, thus allowing the remote access controller to operate and management tasks to proceed while the processing cores of IHS are powered off. Various functions provided by the BIOS, including launching the OS of the IHS is implemented by the remote access controller.)
Regarding Claim 10, Sharma in view of Young discloses the method of claim 1. Sharma further discloses wherein the management controller is separate from and tasked with managing operation of hardware resources of the data processing system, the hardware resources comprising the channel card. (Figure 4 and Paragraph [0057] E.N. The remote management of nonstandard hardware components of an IHS are supported, where administrators utilize remote monitoring and management tools that interface with an IHS via a remote access controller of the IHS)
Claim(s) 2-4, 7-9, 16-17 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sharma (US20220121619) in view of Young (US20220207463) and in further view of Brandwine (US10027678).
Regarding Claims 2, 16 and 19 Sharma in view of Young discloses the method of claim 1, the non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 15 and the data processing system of claim 18. Sharma and Young do not, but in related art, Brandwine discloses wherein the non-standard channel card is configured to perform at least one non-standard function based on standard functions of a class of the channel card and the non-standard channel card has a first level of trust for accessing hardware resources of the data processing system. (Col 2 lines 26-35 E.N. The peripheral device may only enable a minimum set of features, such as for instance when the peripheral device establishes that it is on a moderately trusted environment.)
Therefore, it would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Sharma in view of Young to incorporate the teachings of Brandwine because Sharma and Young do not explicitly disclose level of trust which is disclosed by Shama and Young. Incorporating the teachings of Brandwine to Sharma and Young allows for a level of trust to be implemented in order to either allow or deny access to certain data/files.
Regarding Claim 3,17 and 20 Sharma in view of Young and in further view of Brandwine discloses the method of claim 2, the non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 16 and the data processing system of claim 19. Sharma and Young do not, but in related art, Brandwine discloses wherein the standard channel card is configured to perform the standard functions and not the at least one non-standard function and the standard channel card has a second level of trust for accessing the hardware resources. (Col 12 lines 30-37 E.N. The computing system’s characteristics match a particular profile that has been assigned a high-level of trust. A profile is assigned a high-level of trust, for example, when the profile is specified by the computing system’s owner. Based on the high level of trust, the location-aware peripheral device configures itself to enable all of its available feature.)
Therefore, it would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Sharma in view of Young to incorporate the teachings of Brandwine because Sharma and Young do not explicitly disclose level of trust which is disclosed by Shama and Young. Incorporating the teachings of Brandwine to Sharma and Young allows for a level of trust to be implemented in order to either allow or deny access to certain data/files.
Regarding Claim 4, Sharma in view of Young and in further view of Brandwine discloses the method of claim 3. Sharma and Young do not, but in related art, Brandwine discloses wherein the second level of trust is associated with a higher degree of authority for activating functions of the hardware resources than a degree of authority for activation functions of the hardware resources associated with the first level of trust. (Col 2 lines 27-37 E.N. Based on the high level of trust, the location-aware peripheral device configures itself to enable all of its available feature.)
Therefore, it would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Sharma in view of Young to incorporate the teachings of Brandwine because Sharma and Young do not explicitly disclose level of trust which is disclosed by Shama and Young. Incorporating the teachings of Brandwine to Sharma and Young allows for a level of trust to be implemented in order to either allow or deny access to certain data/files.
Regarding Claim 7, Sharma in view of Young and in further view of Brandwine discloses the method of claim 2. Sharma further discloses wherein the certificate comprises a cryptographically verifiable data structure delegating a right to use firmware associated with the standard channel card to the user, the firmware associated with the standard channel card being usable to activate the standard functions. (Paragraph [0064] E.N. A third factory process may install an operating system, which may include the described remote access controller service module, and may also configure a server IHS with an identity module (IDM) that includes firmware uploaded to the remote access controller, where the firmware may serve to rebrand and customize feature sets for a particular customer.)
Regarding Claim 8, Sharma in view of Young and in further view of Brandwine discloses the method of claim 7. Sharma further discloses wherein performing the action set comprises: replacing firmware associated with the non-standard channel card with the firmware associated with the standard channel card, the firmware associated with the non-standard channel card being usable to activate the at least one non-standard function. (Paragraph [0076] The plugin broker validates the retrieved management software and manifest by computing a checksum of these files and comparing it with a checksum retrieved from the operating system key store that was provisioned during manufacture of the IHS. The plugin broker also validates the signature of the retrieved management software using the certificate that was generated during manufacture of the IHS and stored to the key store.)
Regarding Claim 9, Sharma in view of Young and in further view of Brandwine discloses the method of claim 8. Sharma and Young do not, but in related art, Brandwine discloses wherein performing the action set further comprises: preventing, by the management controller, future instances of activation of the at least one non-standard feature. (Col 2 lines 33-35 E.N. The peripheral device disables itself, either temporarily or permanently such as when it finds itself in an untrusted environment.)
Therefore, it would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Sharma in view of Young to incorporate the teachings of Brandwine because Sharma and Young do not explicitly disclose preventing instances of activation of non-standard features which is disclosed by Shama and Young. Incorporating the teachings of Brandwine to Sharma and Young allows for a level of trust to be implemented in order to either allow or deny features to be activated.
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sharma (US20220121619) in view of Young (US20220207463) and in further view of Pelissier (US11868551).
Regarding Claim 6, Sharma in view of Young discloses the method of claim 1. Sharma and Young do not, but in related art, Pelissier discloses wherein making the determination comprises: assuming, by the management controller, control over a display and one or more human interface devices (HIDs) of the data processing system; presenting, by the management controller and using at least the display, information to the user; and obtaining, by the management controller and via at least the one or more HIDs, the user input. (Col 2 lines 18-25 E.N. To obtain user input, a human interface device is utilized. Actuation of the human interface device convey to data processing systems corresponding types of user input. One of ordinary skill in the art can determine that information is displayed to the user while a human interface device is utilized to obtain user input/data.)
Therefore, it would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Sharma in view of Young to have incorporate the teachings of Pelissier because Sharma and Young do not explicitly disclose human interface devices (HID) which is taught by Pelissier. Incorporating the teachings of Pelissier to Sharma and Young allows for the use of HIDs to control user input and either allow or deny the use of non-standard channel cards.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to AAYUSH ARYAL whose telephone number is (571)272-2838. The examiner can normally be reached 8:00 a.m. - 5:30 p.m..
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/AAYUSH ARYAL/Examiner, Art Unit 2435
/AMIR MEHRMANESH/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2491