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 .
The following is a final office action in response to communications received 06/25/2026. Claims 21, 35 have been amended. Claims 1-20 have been previously cancelled. Therefore, claims 21-40 are pending and addressed below.
Response to Amendment
Applicant’s amendments and response to the claims are NOT sufficient to overcome the Double Patenting rejection set forth in the previous office action.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed 06/25/2026 have been fully considered. The amendments and remarks to claims 21, 35 are persuasive to withdraw the prior art(s) rejections, and therefore claims 21-27, 35-40 are not rejected under prior arts. However claim 28 is not amended and the only remarks applicant is presenting are with regards to transforming the object from the unmanaged state to the managed state responsive to a requirement, during execution of the application, by managed code to access the object. Claim 28 does not recite “…during execution of the application”. Therefore Examiner maintains the prior art(s) rejection for claims 28-34 as set forth in the previous office action.
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The USPTO Internet website contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit www.uspto.gov/patent/patents-forms. The filing date of the application in which the form is filed determines what form (e.g., PTO/SB/25, PTO/SB/26, PTO/AIA /25, or PTO/AIA /26) should be used. A web-based eTerminal Disclaimer may be filled out completely online using web-screens. An eTerminal Disclaimer that meets all requirements is auto-processed and approved immediately upon submission. For more information about eTerminal Disclaimers, refer to www.uspto.gov/patents/process/file/efs/guidance/eTD-info-I.jsp.
Claims 21-40 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-17 of U.S. Patent No. 11663321. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because Claims of patent application contain every element of claims above instant application or vice versa, and as such they anticipate or anticipated by Instant Application. As to Claims 1, 7, 13, of the Pat. *321 anticipates the claims of the instant application. By way of illustration, consider the respective claim 1 from each disclosure:
As to Claim 1, Pat. No. *321 discloses: A method comprising: executing, on one or more processors, an application comprising program instructions that implement managed code and unmanaged code; creating, responsive to a request from the managed code, an object accessible by the managed code in a managed state of a plurality of states including the managed state and an unmanaged state, wherein creating the object accessible in the managed state comprises: allocating managed memory for the object from a managed pool; and generating an unmanaged layout template for the object; and transforming, responsive to a requirement by the unmanaged code to access the object, the object to be accessible by the unmanaged code in the unmanaged state (see claims 21, 24 of current application: creating an object accessible in one of a plurality of states including a managed state and an unmanaged state, the object comprising a managed layout template; and transforming the object from the unmanaged state to the managed state responsive to a requirement by managed code to access the object, the transforming comprising: transforming one or more elements of the object into respective managed objects according to the managed layout template; and copying data from unmanaged memory for the object to managed memory for the object according to the managed layout template…claim 24: wherein the object is created accessible in the managed state, the creating further comprising allocating managed memory for the object from a managed pool, and wherein the method further comprises transforming the object from the managed state to the unmanaged state responsive to a requirement by unmanaged code to access the object).
Independent claims 21, 28, 35 of the instant application are substantially similar to independent claims 1, 7, 13, of the Pat. *321 and are rejected for substantially similar reasons as discussed supra. Likewise, dependent claims 22-27, 29-34, 36-40 of the instant application are substantially similar to dependent claims 2-6, 8-12, 14-17 (respectively) of the Pat. *321 and are rejected for substantially similar reasons as discussed supra.
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.
Claims 28-34 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Satish et al (Pat. No. US 7752242) in view of Kukoleca et al (Pub. No. US 2006/0251095).
As per claim 28, Satish discloses a system, comprising: one or more processors and a memory storing instructions (see fig.1) that when executed cause the one or more processors to implement an application runtime configured to: create an object accessible in one of a plurality of states including a managed state and an unmanaged state, the object comprising a managed layout template (…the transformation module includes a data storage module holding application definitions for use in creating managed assemblies from unmanaged code… see col.4 lines 43-67); and transform the object from the unmanaged state to the managed state responsive to a requirement by managed code to access the object (…application definitions are established for unmanaged code on the computer system…each application definition includes a manifest, an execution wrapper, and modification data describing how to modify the unmanaged code for the CLR…the transformation module activated in order to transform specific unmanaged code into a managed assembly…see col.6 lines 25-45…the CLR computes the effective permissions set based upon the manifest, the security policy,…and/or other information and creates a domain having the computed permissions…see col.7 lines 3-5), wherein to transform the object the application runtime is configured to: transform one or more elements of the object into respective managed objects according to the managed layout template (…the transformation module modifies the unmanaged code by altering its IAT to call managed APIs instead of unmanaged APIs and/or makes other modifications to the code as specified by the application definition…see col.6 lines 55-65). Satish does not explicitly disclose copy data from unmanaged memory for the object to managed memory for the object according to the managed layout template. However Kukoleca discloses copy data from unmanaged memory for the object to managed memory for the object according to the managed layout template (…the media buffer object provides methods for copying media buffers between managed and unmanaged memory…see par. 20…it copies from the passed buffer of unmanaged memory into the media buffer in managed memory…see Table 3A). Therefore one ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to use Kukoleca in Satish for including the above limitations because one ordinary skill in the art would recognize it would further improve techniques that would allow for the intercepting of content and providing of content in a uniform manner…see Kukoleca, par. 7.
As per claim 29, the combination of Satish and Kukoleca discloses wherein subsequent to the transforming, the object is no longer accessible in the unmanaged state (Satish: see col.6 lines 5-8).
As per claim 30, the combination of Satish and Kukoleca discloses wherein accesses by the managed code to the object accessible in the managed state are memory-safe (Satish: see col.6 lines 14-17).
As per claim 31, the combination of Satish and Kukoleca discloses wherein the object is created accessible in the managed state, the creating further comprising allocating managed memory for the object from a managed pool, and wherein the method further comprises transforming the object from the managed state to the unmanaged state responsive to a requirement by unmanaged code to access the object (Kukoleca: see par. 23). The motivation for claims 24, 31, 38 is the same motivation as in claims 21, 28, 35 above.
As per claim 32, the combination of Satish and Kukoleca discloses the transforming further comprising: transforming one or more managed objects of the created object from the managed state to respective elements of the created object the unmanaged state; and releasing the managed memory for the object (Kukoleca: see par. 23). The motivation for claims 25, 32, 39 is the same motivation as in claims 21, 28, 35 above
As per claim 33, the combination of Satish and Kukoleca discloses wherein the managed code comprises unmanaged program code executed in an emulation environment of a virtual machine (Satish: see col.5 lines 5-8).
As per claim 34, the combination of Satish and Kukoleca discloses executing an application comprising program instructions that implement the managed code and unmanaged code, wherein the creating is performed responsive to a request from the managed code (Satish: see col.7 lines 5-14).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure (see PTO-form 892).
The following Patents and Papers are cited to further show the state of the art at the time of Applicant’s invention with respect to executing applications containing both managed code and unmanaged code.
Bonagiri et al (Pat. No. US 9917888); “Data Integration Applications Execution Management”;
-Teaches Data integration applications or Extract, Transform and Load (ETL) jobs may be executed on a set of nodes which are specified in a node configuration file. A data integration application execution management system may provide a solution for running an ETL job on a combination of nodes in a hybrid cluster. When an execution request is detected, it may be assigned to either the set of managed nodes or the set of unmanaged nodes, col.1 lines 21-28.
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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 GHAZAL B SHEHNI whose telephone number is (571)270-7479. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 9am-5pm PCT.
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, Philip Chea can be reached at 5712723951. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/GHAZAL B SHEHNI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2499
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