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 .
1. Claims 1-20 are presented for examination.
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 filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
The USPTO Internet website contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit www.uspto.gov/patent/patents-forms. The actual 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/apply/applying-online/eterminal-disclaimer.
2. Claims 1-20 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-3, 5-11 and 13-17 of U.S. Patent No. US 12,218,797 B1. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because instant application claim 1-20 are anticipated by patent claims 1-3, 5-11 and 13-17.
Claim 1 of the above patent recites every element of claim 1 of the instant application.
Claim 1 of the above patent recites every element of claim 2 of the instant application.
Claim 1 of the above patent recites every element of claim 3 of the instant application.
Claim 2 of the above patent recites every element of claim 4 of the instant application.
Claim 3 of the above patent recites every element of claim 5 of the instant application.
Claim 5 of the above patent recites every element of claim 6 of the instant application.
Claim 6 of the above patent recites every element of claim 7 of the instant application.
Claim 7 of the above patent recites every element of claim 8 of the instant application.
Claim 8 of the above patent recites every element of claim 9 of the instant application.
Claim 9 of the above patent recites every element of claim 10 of the instant application.
Claim 9 of the above patent recites every element of claim 11 of the instant application.
Claim 9 of the above patent recites every element of claim 12 of the instant application.
Claim 10 of the above patent recites every element of claim 13 of the instant application.
Claim 11 of the above patent recites every element of claim 14 of the instant application.
Claim 13 of the above patent recites every element of claim 15 of the instant application.
Claim 14 of the above patent recites every element of claim 16 of the instant application.
Claim 15 of the above patent recites every element of claim 17 of the instant application.
Claim 16 of the above patent recites every element of claim 18 of the instant application.
Claim 17 of the above patent recites every element of claim 19 of the instant application.
Claim 17 of the above patent recites every element of claim 20 of the instant application.
Therefore, claims 1-3, 5-11 and 13-17 of the above patent are in essence a “species” of the generic invention of claims 1-20 of the instant application. It has been held that a generic invention is anticipated by a “species” within the scope of the generic invention. See In re Goodman, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993).
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.
3. Claim(s) 1-3, 10-12 and 19-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Woodworth et al., (hereafter, “Woodworth”), US 2023/0216738 A1, in view of Day-Richter et al., (hereafter, “Day-Richter”), US 2015/0199270 A1.
Regarding claim 1, Woodworth teaches a method (i.e., Fig. 3) comprising:
based at least in part on a change ticket, deploying, by a user, one or more changes at a network object (i.e., Woodworth, in page 3 paragraph [0045], discloses receives configuration change instructions from a network engineer using a computing device. Woodworth, in page 4 paragraph [0055], further discloses executes the configuration change instructions to implement the changes to the corresponding hardware and/or software of the network resource);
determining that at least one change of the one or more changes needs to be undone (i.e., determine whether to roll back the configuration change, page 7 paragraph [0077]);
based at least in part on the change ticket, determining, by the user, a plan to undo the at least one change of the one or more changes associated with the change ticket, wherein the plan includes one or more actions to undo only the at least one change of the one or more changes at the network object (i.e., rolls back the configuration change such as by executing configuration instructions that remove the previous settings (e.g., applying a declarative configuration corresponding to the state of the network resources prior to the configuration change instructions that cased the negative impact), page 7 paragraph [0077]); and
based at least in part on the plan, implementing, by the user, the one or more actions to undo only the at least one change of the one or more changes at the network object within a network controller of a network (i.e., executing configuration instructions that remove the previous settings (e.g., applying a declarative configuration corresponding to the state of the network resources prior to the configuration change instructions that cased the negative impact), page 7 paragraph [0077]).
Woodworth does not explicitly teach creating, by the user, a rollback ticket to implement the plan to undo the at least one change of the one or more changes at the object; and based at least in part on the rollback ticket, deploying, by the user, the one or more actions to undo only the at least one change of the one or more changes at the object.
Day-Richter teaches creating, by the user, a rollback ticket to implement the plan to undo the at least one change of the one or more changes at the object (i.e., user device generates a reverse delete instruction corresponding to the instruction to delete the object received from collaborative development service, and adds the reverse delete instruction to the undo stack… reverse delete instruction corresponding to a particular delete instruction includes information that enables the user device to restore the data that was deleted by the particular delete instruction, page 16 paragraph [0219]); and based at least in part on the rollback ticket, deploying, by the user, the one or more actions to undo only the at least one change of the one or more changes at the object (i.e., reverse delete instruction corresponding to a particular delete instruction includes information that enables the user device to restore the data that was deleted by the particular delete instruction, page 16 paragraph [0219]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the teachings of Woodworth to create, by the user, a rollback ticket to implement the plan to undo the at least one change of the one or more changes at the object; and based at least in part on the rollback ticket, deploy, by the user, the one or more actions to undo only the at least one change of the one or more changes at the object, as taught by Day-Richter. One would be motivated to do so to allow the user who has made a change to a particular object may select an undo option to reverse the change.
Regarding claim 2, Woodworth teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the user is a first user and the method further comprises: prior to deploying the one or more changes: creating, by the first user, the change ticket for making the one or more changes at the network object of the network; making, by the first user, the one or more changes within the network controller of the network; and submitting, by the first user to a second user, the change ticket for approval, wherein deploying the one or more changes at the network object is based at least in part on approval of the change ticket (i.e., receiving an approval of the configuration change instructions from the higher-level user account and executing the configuration change instructions based on the approval, page 1 paragraph [0012]).
Regarding claim 3, Woodworth teaches the method of claim 2, further comprising: prior to deploying the one or more actions, submitting, by the first user to the second user, the change ticket for approval (i.e., receiving an approval of the configuration change instructions from the higher-level user account; and executing the configuration change instructions based on the approval, page 1 paragraph [0012]),
Woodworth does not explicitly teach wherein deploying the one or more actions to undo only the at least one change of the one or more changes at the network object is based at least in part on approval of the rollback ticket.
Day-Richter teaches wherein deploying the one or more actions to undo only the at least one change of the one or more changes at the network object is based at least in part on approval of the rollback ticket (i.e., in response to the user’s undo request, processor determines that fingerprint is associated with the deletion…execute and remove any reverser instruction that includes fingerprint, page 17 paragraph [0229]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the teachings of Woodworth to deploy the one or more actions to undo only the at least one change of the one or more changes at the network object is based at least in part on approval of the rollback ticket, as taught by Day-Richter. One would be motivated to do so to allow the user who has made a change to a particular object may select an undo option to reverse the change.
Regarding claims 10-12, those claims recite a system comprising: one or more processors; and one or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform method claims 1-3, discussed above, same rationale of rejections is applied.
In addition, Woodworth discloses a system comprising: one or more processors; and one or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform the method (i.e., computing device may include at least one processing unit and a system memory…program modules stored in the memory…while executing on the processing unit, the program modules may perform the various processes, page 7 paragraph [0081]).
Regarding claims 19 and 20, those claims recite one or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform method claims 1-3, discussed above, same rationale of rejections is applied.
In addition, Woodworth teaches one or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform method (i.e., computing device may include at least one processing unit and a system memory…program modules stored in the memory…while executing on the processing unit, the program modules may perform the various processes, page 7 paragraph [0081]).
4. Claim(s) 4-5 and 13-14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Woodworth, in view of Day-Richter as applied to claims 2 and/or 11 above, and further in view of Kapadia et al., (hereafter, “Kapadia”)< US 2022/0014429 A1.
Regarding claim 4, Woodworth teaches the method of claim 2.
The combination of teachings of Woodworth and Day-Richter does not explicitly teach based at least in part on non-approval of the change ticket, sending, by the second user to the first user, the change ticket; editing, by the first user, the change ticket; and re-submitting, by the first user to the second user, the change ticket for approval.
Kapadia teaches based at least in part on non-approval of the change ticket, sending, by the second user to the first user, the change ticket; editing, by the first user, the change ticket; and re-submitting, by the first user to the second user, the change ticket for approval (i.e., when a change record has been marked a denied change, the change record may be returned and/or marked requesting additional changes and/or edits to the changes included in the change record by a user account configured as the stager role, page 2 paragraph [0028] and page 4 paragraph [0033]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the combination of teachings of Woodworth and Day-Richter to, based at least in part on non-approval of the change ticket, send, by the second user to the first user, the change ticket; edit, by the first user, the change ticket; and re-submit, by the first user to the second user, the change ticket for approval, as taught by Kapadia. One would be motivated to do so to allow the potential for improper deployment of configuration changes to be removed (i.e., Kapadia, page 1 paragraph [0005]).
Regarding claim 5, Woodworth teaches the method of claim 2.
The combination of teachings of Woodworth and Day-Richter does not explicitly teach based at least in part on non-approval of the change ticket, sending, by the second user to the first user, the change ticket; and deleting, by the first user, the change ticket.
Kapadia teaches based at least in part on non-approval of the change ticket, sending, by the second user to the first user, the change ticket; and deleting, by the first user, the change ticket (i.e., the second user may deny the change record including the first change when the change record is denied, the change record is canceled…the second user may request that the first user delete one or more changes from the change record, page 4 paragraph [0033]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the combination of teachings of Woodworth and Day-Richter to, at least in part on non-approval of the change ticket, send, by the second user to the first user, the change ticket; and delete, by the first user, the change ticket, as taught by Kapadia. One would be motivated to do so to allow the potential for improper deployment of configuration changes to be removed (i.e., Kapadia, page 1 paragraph [0005]).
Regarding claims 13-14, those claims recite limitations that are similar to claims 4-5, same rationale of rejections is applied.
5. Claim(s) 6-9 and 15-18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Woodworth, in view of Day-Richter as applied to claims 1 and/or 10 above, and further in view of Liang et al., (hereafter, “Liang”), US 2022/0179642 A1.
Regarding claim 6, Woodworth teaches the method of claim 1, wherein: the change ticket comprises multiple changes for the network object, and deploying the multiple changes at the network object (i.e., changes to settings in a router, page 4 paragraph [0050]).
The combination of teachings of Woodworth and Day-Richter does not explicitly teach serially deploying the multiple changes at the network object.
Liang teaches serially deploying the multiple changes at the object (i.e., changes the to-be-changed software code in the serial change mode, page 11 paragraph [0206]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the combination of teachings of Woodworth and Day-Richter to serially deploy the multiple changes at the object, as taught by Liang. One would be motivated to do so to provide an efficient change manner (i.e., Liang, page 1 paragraph [0005]).
Regarding claim 7, Woodworth teaches the method of claim 6, wherein determining that at least one change of the one or more changes needs to be undone comprises determining that only a last change of the one or more changes needs to be undone (i.e., determine whether the change can be undone…executing configuration instructions that remove the previous settings, page 7 paragraph [0077]).
Regarding claim 8, Woodworth teaches the method of claim 6, wherein determining that at least one change of the one or more changes needs to be undone comprises determining that all of the one or more changes need to be undone (i.e., execute the configuration change instructions to implement the changes to the corresponding hardware and/or software, page 4 paragraph [0055]).
Regarding claim 9, Woodworth teaches the method of claim 1, wherein: the change ticket comprises multiple changes for multiple network objects, and deploying the multiple changes at the multiple network objects (i.e., execute the configuration change instructions to implement the changes to the corresponding hardware and/or software of the network resources, page 4 paragraph [0055]).
The combination of teachings of Woodworth and Day-Richter does not explicitly teach deploying the multiple changes at the multiple network objects in parallel.
Liang teaches deploying the multiple changes at the multiple network objects in parallel (i.e., a plurality of changers simultaneously change to-be-changed software code, and then changed software code generated by all the changers by changing the to-be-changed software code is merged to generate final changed software code, page 4 paragraph [0065]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the combination of teachings of Woodworth and Day-Richter to deploy the multiple changes at the multiple network objects in parallel, as taught by Liang. One would be motivated to do so to provide an efficient change manner (i.e., Liang, page 1 paragraph [0005]).
Regarding claims 15-18, those claims recite limitations that are similar to claims 6-9, same rationale of rejections is applied.
Conclusion
6. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Franzen et al., US 20220222066 A1, discloses transmitting a command to rollback at least one changes associated with the at least one of the change indicators (i.e., page 11 paragraph [0094]).
Mir, US 6,938,081 B1, discloses a method for associating a change ticket including a change plan, wherein change categories corresponding to the type of change are described in the change plan (i.e., abstract).
Bhargava et al, US 2023/0224214 A1, discloses a method for provisioning a network comprising: with a network controller, identifying a first network intent of a computing network based at least in part on an execution of a user interface (UI) or API layer at a client device, and identifying a modification of at least one object within the first network intent within the UI or API layer at the client device as the first network intent is being modified (i.e., abstract).
Kennedy et al., US 8,880,690 B1, discloses a system and a method for implementing network changes (i.e., abstract).
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/OANH DUONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2441