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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments and amendments, filed 5/14/26, with respect to the rejections of the claims under 35 U.S.C. 101 and under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, these rejections have been withdrawn.
Applicant's arguments and amendments with respect to the rejections of the claims under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) and under 35 U.S.C. 103 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argued:
At pages 9-10 of the Office Action, the Office alleges that Parulkar anticipates the above recitations, referring specifically to col. 3, 11. 23-48 thereof. However, the cited portion of Parulkar discloses only that the deployment of computing resources "within communications service provider networks" can dramatically lower access latency. There is no disclosure of suggestion of determining a service radius, let alone basing that service radius on a latency requirement, nor providing a list of sites located within that determined service radius. While Parulkar mentions benefits to deploying within a service provider network, Parulkar does not disclose or suggest providing a list of sites within that network. Regardless, even assuming arguendo that Parulkar suggested making such a list, the claimed service radius is based on a latency requirement and not an existing service provider network. In Parulkar, a computing site could be located one mile outside of a service provider network, and would not be contemplated for deployment due to it being outside of the service provider network. However, in the presently claimed invention, a site having such proximity to the service provider network would have a very low latency as to meet the latency requirement and therefore be in the determined service area, and thus end up on the list of computing sites. Therefore, for at least this reason, Parulkar fails to anticipate the above recitations of the present claims.
The Examiner respectfully disagrees and draws Applicant’s attention to col. 34, ll. 33-col. 35, ll. 3 of Parulkar which states:
The operations include, at block 1004, selecting a provider substrate extension to host the compute instance from a plurality of provider substrate extensions of the cloud provider network, wherein the selection is based at least in part on the latency requirement, and wherein the selected provider substrate extension is connected to a communications service provider network and is controlled at least in part by the service of the cloud provider network via a connection through at least a portion of the communications service provider network. As explained with reference to FIGS. 6 and 7, an edge location placement service 620, 720 can evaluate candidate edge locations to determine which edge locations satisfy the customers latency requirement. To do so, the edge location placement service obtains a geographic indicator that can be correlated to a geographic region covered by one or more access point(s) in the CSP network and evaluates the latency from that point or points to edge locations deployed within the CSP network. Such a geographic indicator might be provided with the request received at block 1002 (e.g., by a customer specifying a geographic region such as a city, a zip code, etc.) or obtained by determining the location of a device identified with the request, for example. Various techniques can be used to obtain latency values or estimated values between points of the CSP network (e.g., edge location to access point). The edge location placement service can determine which, if any, edge locations satisfy the customer's latency requirement and return that candidate set to the hardware virtualization service. The set can include an indication of the latency margin between each of the edge locations in the set relative to the latency requirement. Using a cost function or other technique to rank the candidate edge locations, the hardware virtualization service can select an edge location on which to host the requested compute instance. Factors that may be used in the selection include the available hardware capacity at the candidate edge locations, the overall utilization of the capacity, the cost of the capacity, the margin of the latency relative to the customer's latency requirement, etc. (Emphasis added).
Herein Parulkar teaches the claimed limitations, receiving a latency requirement (As explained with reference to FIGS. 6 and 7, an edge location placement service 620, 720 can evaluate candidate edge locations to determine which edge locations satisfy the customers latency requirement); determining, based on the latency requirement, a service radius (To do so, the edge location placement service obtains a geographic indicator that can be correlated to a geographic region covered by one or more access point(s) in the CSP network and evaluates the latency from that point or points to edge locations deployed within the CSP network); wherein each provider computing site in the list of the provider computing sites are located within the determined service radius of the customer site (The edge location placement service can determine which, if any, edge locations satisfy the customer's latency requirement and return that candidate set to the hardware virtualization service).
Contrary to Applicant’s assertion, Parulkar clearly discloses determining a service radius, basing that service radius on a latency requirement and providing a list of sites located within that determined service radius (“…the edge location placement service obtains a geographic indicator that can be correlated to a geographic region covered by one or more access point(s) in the CSP network and evaluates the latency from that point or points to edge locations deployed within the CSP network.”).
Parulkar determines the service radius i.e., a geographic region covered by one or more access point(s) in the CSP network and returns a candidate set of the edge locations within the region satisfying the customer’s latency requirements. The edge location placement service also evaluates the latency from that point or points to edge locations deployed within the CSP network. Therefore Parulkar anticipates the newly added limitations of the present claims.
The Examiner respectfully reminds applicant of the broadest reasonable interpretation standard (See MPEP 2111), "During examination, the claims must be interpreted as broadly as their terms reasonably allow." In re American Academy of Science Tech Center, 367 F.3d 1359, 1369, 70 USPQ2d 1827, 1834 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (The USPTO uses a different standard for construing claims than that used by district courts; during examination the USPTO must give claims their broadest reasonable interpretation.) In Phillips v. AWH Corp., 415 F.3d 1303, 75 USPQ2d 1321 (Fed. Cir. 2005), the court further elaborated on the “broadest reasonable interpretation" standard and recognized that “The Patent and Trademark Office (“PTO") determines the scope of claims in patent applications not solely on the basis of the claim language, but upon giving claims their broadest reasonable construction." Thus, when interpreting claims, the courts have held that Examiners should (1) interpret claim terms as broadly as their terms reasonably allows and (2) interpret claim phrases as broadly as their construction reasonably allows. In conclusion, upon taking the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claims, the cited references teach all of the claimed limitations and the rejections are maintained as below.
Terminal Disclaimer
The terminal disclaimer filed on 5/14/26 disclaiming the terminal portion of any patent granted on this application which would extend beyond the expiration date of U.S. Patent No. 12,068,940 has been reviewed and is accepted. The terminal disclaimer has been recorded.
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection of the claims has been withdrawn in view of the Terminal Disclaimer.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1, 4-7, 9, 11 and 14-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Parulkar et al. (10,979,534).
As per claim 1, Parulkar et al. teaches a method, comprising: receiving customer information in a service request, wherein the customer information includes at least a desired computing service and customer location data for a customer site [col. 21, ll. 42-col. 22, ll. 7];
determining provider location data for a plurality of provider computing sites [col. 23, ll. 54-col. 24, ll. 15];
determining a first estimate of latency for each of the plurality of provider computing sites based on the customer location data and the provider location data [col. 23, ll. 54-col. 24, ll. 15];
receiving a latency requirement;
determining, based on the latency requirement, a service radius [col. 34, ll. 33-col. 35, ll. 3];
providing a list of the provider computing sites based on the first estimate of latency for each of the provider computing sites [col. 24, ll. 47-60], wherein each provider computing site in the list of the provider computing sites are located within the determined service radius of the customer site [col. 34, ll. 33-col. 35, ll. 3 and figs. 6-7];
receiving a selection of one of the provider computing sites [col. 24, ll. 61-col. 25 ll. 27]; and
providing the computing service to the customer site from the selected provider computing site [col. 24, ll. 47-60].
As per claim 4, Parulkar et al. teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising: determining a first fine estimate of latency for a first provider computing site; and determining a second fine estimate of latency for a second provider computing site of the plurality of computing sites [col. 4, ll. 42-60].
As per claim 5, Parulkar et al. teaches the method of claim 4, further comprising: providing a client agent to a client device; causing the client agent to perform a first latency test between the client device and the first provider computing site to determine the first fine estimate; and causing the client agent to perform a second latency test between the client device and the second provider computing site to determine the second fine estimate [col. 6, ll. 14-25].
As per claim 6, Parulkar et al. teaches the method of claim 5, further comprising: causing a first latency test server to be instantiated at the first provider computing site; causing a second latency test server to be instantiated at the second provider computing site; wherein the first latency test is performed between the client device and the first latency test server and the second latency test is performed between the client device and the second latency test server [col. 11, ll. 20-46].
As per claim 7, Parulkar et al. teaches the method of claim 3, wherein the selected provider computing site is the first provider computing site and the first provider computing site does not include available resources necessary to provide the computing service, further comprising: automatically causing the additional resources to be added to the first provider computing site [col. 13, ll. 34-47].
As per claim 9, Parulkar et al. teaches the method of claim 5, wherein at least the first latency test is a traceroute between the client device and the first provider computing site [col. 18, ll. 42-67].
Claims 11 and 14-17 have similar limitations as to the rejected claims above therefore they are being rejected under the same rationale.
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) 3, 8, 10, 13 and 18-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Parulkar et al. (10,979,534) in view of Dunsmore et al. (2022/0061059).
As per claim 3, Parulkar et al. teaches the limitations of claim 1 as above and further teaches determining whether a first provider computing site of the plurality of computing sites includes available resources necessary to provide the computing service; when the first provider computing site does include available resources necessary to provide the computing service, including the first provider computing site on the list [Parulkar et al., col. 21, ll. 7-17].
But Parulkar et al. fails to explicitly teach, however, Dunsmore et al. in the same field of endeavor teaches when the first provider computing site does not include available resources necessary to provide the computing service: determining whether additional resources can be added to the first provider computing site to provide the computing service; when the additional resources can be added to the first provider computing site to provide the computing service, including the first provider computing site on the list along with an indication of when the additional resources can be added; when the additional resources cannot be added to the first provider computing site, excluding the first provider computing site from the list [Dunsmore et al., paragraph 0062].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Parulkar et al. with Dunsmore et al. in order to utilize one or more different networks (optionally including one or multiple different cellular networks) to analyze network connectivity characteristics between the test devices and other resources.
As per claim 8, Parulkar-Dunsmore teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the customer location data comprises a street address of the customer site, further comprising: translating the street address to a global positioning satellite (GPS) location; and determining a distance between the GPS location and each of the provider computing sites; wherein determining the first estimate of latency is based on the distance and a speed of light [Dunsmore et al., paragraph 0106].
As per claim 10, Parulkar-Dunsmore teaches the method of claim 4, further comprising: providing a client agent to a client device; determining whether the client device is at the customer site; when the client device is not at the customer site, sending a query to the client device to determine an internet protocol (IP) address of a second client device at the customer site; receiving the IP address of the second client device; performing a first latency test between the second client device and the first provider computing site to determine the first fine estimate; performing a second latency test between the second client device and the second provider computing site to determine the second fine estimate; and providing a redetermined list of the plurality of provider computing sites based at least on the first fine estimate and the second fine estimate Dunsmore et al., paragraphs 0021, 0025 and 0111].
Claims 13 and 18-19 have similar limitations as to the rejected claims above therefore they are being rejected under the same rationale.
There are prior art made of record not relied upon but is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See attached.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any extension fee pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RANODHI N SERRAO whose telephone number is (571)272-7967. The examiner can normally be reached Monday to Friday 8:00 am to 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, John Follansbee can be reached on (571) 272-3964. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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Ranodhi N. Serrao
/RANODHI SERRAO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2444
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