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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Claims 11-27 remain for examination. Claims 11, 13, 15 have been amended. Claims 1-10 have been deleted. Claims 21-27 have been added. Applicant's arguments filed on 05/05/2026 have been fully considered but they are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection necessitated by the amendments. Accordingly, this action has been made final.
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 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 pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 21-27 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Goodman U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20240236056 A1 (hereinafter " Goodman ") in view of Bailey 20250300969 A1.
As to claim 11, Goodman teaches an IHS (Information Handling System) comprising: one or more processors; one or more memory devices coupled to the one or more processors, the one or more memory devices storing computer-readable instructions that, upon execution by the one or more processors, cause the IHS to (Goodman Pa. [0041]) [Information handling system 300 can also include one or more computer-readable medium for storing machine-executable code, such as software or data]: receive an indication of the request for work having a failed cryptographic chain of authorization (Goodman Pa. [0018]) [cryptographic chains, such as the chain from certificate 140, to certificate 150, and to work order 160, may be used to attest the credentials and authorization of user node 106 to make a request, such as in a certificate-chain-based permissions model]- (Goodman Pa. [0031]) [ if certificate 140 or 150 is revoked, processor 120 of endpoint node 112 may remove this certificate and the associated hash from storage 122. In this situation, user nodes would no longer be able to utilize revoked certificates to have operations performed in endpoint node (viewed as failure of authorization)] [0033] [In an example, processor 120 may determine that the hash identifiers received from user node 110 are not within hash list 134, such that the authorization for user node 110 cannot be verified], including identifying a substitute cryptographic chain of authorization, sufficient to authorize the work (Goodman Pa. [0033]) [Endpoint node 112 may provide user node 110 with a new request for the certificates associated with the hash identifiers. User node 110 may then provide these certificates to endpoint node 112. In response to the reception of these new certificates (read substitute cryptographic chain), processor 120 of endpoint node 112 may attest that user node 110 is authorized to perform the operation so that the operation is permitted and performed], and connecting the initiator to a root of authority (Goodman Pa. [0019]) [the chain of certificates may be created by enrolling one or more root certificate authorities onto multiple node environment]; and transmit a message, including the substitute cryptographic chain of authorization, to the endpoint (Goodman Pa. [0031]) [endpoint node 112 already had the certificate hash for certificate 140, such that only certificate 170 was needed to be sent to endpoint 110. In this example, as chain of certificates get longer, only the unknown certificates need to be transmitted to endpoint node 112 so that bandwidth consumed by certificate transmission on multiple node environment 100 is reduced. In certain examples, if certificate 140 or 150 is revoked, processor 120 of endpoint node 112 may remove this certificate and the associated hash from storage 122. In this situation, user nodes would no longer be able to utilize revoked certificates to have operations performed in endpoint node 112.]
It is noted that Goodman does not explicitly disclose operate as a control plane node in a system that includes an endpoint configured to run a workload and an initiator configured to generate a request for work; wherein the indication is received from the endpoint running the workload according to the request for work; analyze cached cryptographic authorizations.
However, Bailey discloses disclose operate as a control plane node in a system that includes an endpoint configured to run a workload and an initiator configured to generate a request for work (Bailey Pa. [0121]) [Worker node 610 is a machine (e.g., physical, virtual, combination), in a cluster that runs applications and workloads
as containers, where the worker node 610 is responsible for executing tasks assigned to it by a control plane. The worker node 610 is a node that runs the application containers and is managed by the control plane. The worker node 610 runs an agent, such as node agent 638, to communicate with the control plane. The node agent 638 ensures that the containers are running in a specified location. In some examples, the worker node 610 (or nodes) may run other agents for monitoring, logging, security, and the like. In some examples using Kubernetes, for example, worker nodes are where the actual computation and execution of applications occurs, while the control plane nodes are responsible for orchestrating and managing the state of the cluster]; wherein the indication is received from the endpoint running the workload according to the request for work (Bailey Pa. [0042]) [a proxy resource manager 150 can perform load balancing operation in connection with availability zones (AZ) (as mentioned further herein) including different clusters of instances of compute service managers with varying computing resources…the proxy resource manager 150 receives data retrieval, data storage, and data processing requests. In response to such requests, the proxy resource manager 150 routes the requests to an appropriate availability zone with an appropriate compute service manager cluster]; analyze cached cryptographic authorizations (Bailey Pa. [0069-0072]) [each includes one data cache and one processor, alternate embodiments may include execution nodes containing any number of processors and any number of caches. Additionally, the caches may vary in size among the different execution nodes. The caches shown in FIG. 3 store, in the local execution node, data that was retrieved from one or more data storage devices in cloud storage platform 104. Thus, the caches reduce or eliminate the bottleneck problems occurring in platforms that consistently retrieve data from remote storage systems. Instead of repeatedly accessing data from the remote storage devices, the systems and methods described herein access data from the caches in the execution nodes, which is significantly faster and avoids the bottleneck problem discussed above. In some embodiments, the caches are implemented using high-speed memory devices that provide fast access to the cached data. Each cache can store data from any of the storage devices in the cloud storage platform 1]
Thus, it would have been recognized by one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, that applying the known technique taught by Bailey to the access online content system of Goodman would have yield predictable results and resulted in an improved system, namely, a system that would implement network egress access control with untrusted intermediaries (Bailey [0001])
As to claim 12, Goodman teaches wherein the computer-readable instructions cause the IHS to: transmit a subsequent request for work, including a statement of work and the substitute cryptographic chain of authorization, in the message (Goodman Pa. [0018]) [cryptographic chains, such as the chain from certificate 140, to certificate 150, and to work order 160, may be used to attest the credentials and authorization of user node 106 to make a request, such as in a certificate-chain-based permissions model]
As to claim 13, the combination of Goodman and Bailey teaches further comprising computer-readable instructions that cause the IHS to: analyze the cached cryptographic authorizations by searching the cached cryptographic authorizations for a delegation of authority to a first node (Goodman Pa. [0020]) [owner node 102 may be the root authority for endpoint node 112. User node 106 may send request 166 to endpoint 110. For this request to be fully attested, user node 106 would have to include two more assertions or certificates, certificate 140 stating owner node 102 gives permission to user node 104 to do anything…user node 106 was authorized by user node 104 who was authorized by owner node 102 who is the root-of-authority, therefore this request is attested. In certain examples, user node 106 may be a server,], which signed a statement of work of the request for work (Goodman Pa. [0013]) [user node 104 may provide a signed certificate 150 to user node 106 via control plane node 114. In an example, certificate 150 may authorize user 106 to request that one or more services or operations be performed in endpoint 110. For example, certificate 150 may authorize user 106 to do anything in endpoint node 112. Certificate 150 may include a key signature 154 that was generated from user private key 152]; and substitute a first certificate of the failed cryptographic chain of authorization with a second certificate that includes the delegation of authority to the first node (Goodman Pa. [0033]) [Endpoint node 112 may provide user node 110 with a new request for the certificates associated with the hash identifiers. User node 110 may then provide these certificates to endpoint node 112. In response to the reception of these new certificates (read substitute cryptographic chain), processor 120 of endpoint node 112 may attest that user node 110 is authorized to perform the operation so that the operation is permitted and performed.]
As to claim 14, the combination of Goodman and Bailey teaches wherein the substitute cryptographic chain of authorization omits at least one certificate that is included in the failed cryptographic chain of authorization (Goodman Pa. [0033]) [Endpoint node 112 may provide user node 110 with a new request for the certificates associated with the hash identifiers. User node 110 may then provide these certificates to endpoint node 112. In response to the reception of these new certificates (read substitute cryptographic chain), processor 120 of endpoint node 112 may attest that user node 110 is authorized to perform the operation so that the operation is permitted and performed.]
As to claim 15, the combination of Goodman and Bailey teaches wherein the computer-readable instructions that cause the IHS to transmit the message include computer-readable instructions that cause the IHS to: transmit within the message a statement of work (Goodman Pa. [0018]) [cryptographic chains, such as the chain from certificate 140, to certificate 150, and to work order 160, may be used to attest the credentials and authorization of user node 106 to make a request, such as in a certificate-chain-based permissions model], signed by the initiator, which a first node that first issued the request for work, further wherein the statement of work is a same statement of work included in the request for work (Goodman Pa. [0013]) [user node 104 may provide a signed certificate 150 to user node 106 via control plane node 114. In an example, certificate 150 may authorize user 106 to request that one or more services or operations be performed in endpoint 110. For example, certificate 150 may authorize user 106 to do anything in endpoint node 112. Certificate 150 may include a key signature 154 that was generated from user private key 152]
As to claim 16, the combination of Goodman and Bailey teaches wherein the statement of work indicates a long-standing work item (Goodman Pa. [0047]) [The network resource can include another information handling system, a data storage system, another network, a grid management system, another suitable resource, or a combination thereof.]
As to claim 17, the combination of Goodman and Bailey teaches wherein the computer-readable instructions that cause the IHS to analyze the cached cryptographic authorizations includes computer-readable instructions that cause the IHS to: query a database of data associated with the cached cryptographic authorizations (Goodman Pa. [0025]) [a re-query is submitted such that user node 106 must return all the data in the complete certificate chain]
As to claim 21, claim 21 recites the claimed that contain respectively similar
limitations as claim 11, therefore, it is rejected under the same rationale.
As to claim 22, claim 22 recites the claimed that contain respectively similar
limitations as claim 12, therefore, it is rejected under the same rationale.
As to claim 23, claim 23 recites the claimed that contain respectively similar
limitations as claim 13, therefore, it is rejected under the same rationale.
As to claim 24, claim 24 recites the claimed that contain respectively similar
limitations as claim 14, therefore, it is rejected under the same rationale.
As to claim 25, claim 25 recites the claimed that contain respectively similar
limitations as claim 15, therefore, it is rejected under the same rationale.
As to claim 26, claim 26 recites the claimed that contain respectively similar
limitations as claim 16, therefore, it is rejected under the same rationale.
As to claim 27, claim 27 recites the claimed that contain respectively similar
limitations as claim 17, therefore, it is rejected under the same rationale.
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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) 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 EVANS DESROSIERS whose telephone number is (571)270-5438. The examiner can normally be reached Monday -Friday 8:00 am - 5:30 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, William Korzuch can be reached at (571)272-7589. 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.
/EVANS DESROSIERS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2491
