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
Claim(s) 1-12, 14-19, 21 and 22 has/have been examined.Claim(s) 7 and 16 is/are objected to as containing novel subject matter while being dependent on rejected base claims.
Claim(s) 1-6, 8-12, 14, 15 and 17-19 has/have been rejected.
Novel Subject Matter
Claim(s) 7 and 16 is/are objected to as reciting novel subject matter while being dependent on rejected base claims.
Claim(s) 5-7, 10-12 and 14-19, 21 and 22 recite(s) novel subject matter while being rejected as being directed to non-statutory subject matter and/or being indefinite.
Response to Arguments
The arguments submitted June 16, 2026 have been fully considered but are not persuasive.
Regarding the 101 rejection, Applicant argues that claim 1 integrates the judicial exception because it improves the functioning of a data center. The examiner respectfully disagrees. The claim recites a sequence of steps that results in performing a repair action to repair the security vulnerability. Because the no specific repair action has been recited, this step appears to encompass sending an alert to a user (as in paragraph 43 of the specification). Generating an alert does not enact an improvement. Because the improvement has not been concretely claimed, the claimed process does not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. Applicant argues that the claims provide for significantly more than the judicial exception, based on the claims improving the functioning of a data center. The examiner respectfully disagrees. The claims do not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception for the same reason that they do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application, that is, the claims do not recite an improvement as enacted if the repair action includes generating an alert.
Regarding the 103 rejection, Applicant argues that Ladnai does not teach determining a first and second identifiers associated with a first resource utilizing a mapping of identifiers to resources. The rejection below elaborates on how Ladnai is interpreted as teaching generating a mapping (an inventory) of assets present in the enterprise facility and associated events mapped to the assets.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-6, 8-12, 14, 15, 17 and 22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Below is an evaluation using the 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance.
Regarding claim 1, Step 1 is satisfied because steps performed by a processor are a processes.
At step 2a prong 1, an abstract idea is recited: steps of the claim could be performed as a mental process. These steps include detecting a change in a configuration, determine, using a mapping of identifiers to resources, first and second identifiers associated with a resource, obtain a first dataset and a second dataset, generating aggregated data, determining a first resource fails to satisfy the first rule, and performing a repair action (the interpretation of a repair action is not limited in the claim or by the specification and can be broadly construed to include such actions as displaying an alert).
At step 2a prong 2, additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application are not recited. Recited details about the nature of the particular data are not additional elements but instead describe steps of the mental process. The claim recites a data center comprising a process and memory. These elements do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application because they only apply the mental process to a generic computer system. See MPEP §§ 2106.04(d), 2106.05(f)(2).
At step 2b, additional elements that may amount to significantly more than the judicial exception are not recited. The claim recites a data center comprising a process and memory. These elements do not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because they are conventional computing devices which are only generally linked to the abstract idea without meaningfully limiting the mental process. See MPEP § 2106.05(f)(1), 2106.05(f)(2).
Regarding claims 2-9 these claims recite additional limitations of the mental process but their inclusion does not push the mental process beyond what can practically be performed in the human mind, with or without the use of a physical aid such as pen and paper. See MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2)(III). The claims do not recite additional elements which must be evaluated in step 2a prong 2 or step 2b.
Regarding claim 10, this claim is directed to a method. Step 1 is satisfied because a method is a process. At step 2a prong 1, an abstract idea is recited because a similar steps as found in claim 1 are recited and could similarly be performed as a mental process. At step 2a prong 2, additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application are not recited. At step 2b, additional elements that may amount to significantly more than the judicial exception are not recited.
Regarding claims 11-12 and 14-17 these claims recite additional limitations of the mental process but their inclusion does not push the mental process beyond what can practically be performed in the human mind, with or without the use of a physical aid such as pen and paper. See MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2)(III). The claims do not recite additional elements which must be evaluated in step 2a prong 2 or step 2b.
Regarding claim 18, this claim is directed to a system comprising a repair subsystem performing steps. Step 1 is satisfied because steps performed by a processor are a processes. At step 2a prong 1, an abstract idea is recited because similar steps as found in claim 1 are recited and these steps could similarly be performed as a mental process.
At step 2a prong 2, additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application are not recited. The claim recites a plurality of servers and a repair subsystem, which the specification describes as being a processor and memory (paragraph 125). These elements do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application because they only apply the mental process to a generic computer system. See MPEP §§ 2106.04(d), 2106.05(f)(2).
At step 2b, additional elements that may amount to significantly more than the judicial exception are not recited. The claim recites a plurality of servers and a repair subsystem, which the specification describes as being a processor and memory (paragraph 125). These elements do not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because they are conventional computing devices which are only generally linked to the abstract idea without meaningfully limiting the mental process. See MPEP § 2106.05(f)(1), 2106.05(f)(2).
Regarding claims 19 and 22, these claims recite additional limitations of the mental process but their inclusion does not push the mental process beyond what can practically be performed in the human mind, with or without the use of a physical aid such as pen and paper. See MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2)(III). The claims do not recite additional elements which must be evaluated in step 2a prong 2 or step 2b.
Claim Objections
Claim 14 lines 1-2 recite “a first policy of the data center specifies the first policy”. This limitation appears redundant.
Claim 18 line 16 recites “interrupt a workload executed”. This is a bit ambiguous and would be better stated as “a workload being executed” or “a workload executing” because a workload that has already been executed cannot be interrupted.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112(b)
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim(s) 11, 12, 18, 19 and 21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Note that dependent claims not specifically addressed below inherit the deficiency of the parent claim and do not remedy the issue.
Claim 11 line 3 recite the limitation “the repair action specified”. This limitation lacks antecedent basis.
Claim 18 line 4 recites the limitation “the repair system”. This limitation lacks antecedent basis and should recite “repair subsystem”.
Claim 18 line 12 recites the limitation “the first resource”. This limitation lacks antecedent basis.
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 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 1, 2, 8 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ladnai (PG-PUB 2020/0076835).
Regarding claim 1, Ladnai discloses
An automatic repair system of a data center comprising:
a processor (paragraph 190); and
memory storing programming instructions (paragraph 190) structured to cause the processor to:
automatically detect a change in a configuration of a first resource of the data center (paragraphs 61-63, events related to a compute instance within an enterprise are collected; paragraph 50, as an example, a client’s firewall being of an incorrect version or being disabled is detected),
determine, utilizing a mapping of identifiers to resources of the data center, a first identifier associated with the first resource (paragraph 59, assets present in the enterprise facility are discovered and thus identified for monitoring; the assets are therefore identified and thus mapped to identifiers) and a second identifier associated with the first resource (paragraphs 60 and 61, events are collected that are associated with the assets of an enterprise; the events are therefore mapped to the asset identifiers),
obtain, utilizing the first identifier, a first dataset representative of a resource inventory of the data center specifying at least the first resource (paragraph 59, assets present in the enterprise facility are discovered),
obtain, utilizing the second identifier, a second dataset representative of a security vulnerability of the data center (Figure 10, suspicious items are reported and their features maps that characterize their threat behavior (paragraph 147)),
generate aggregated data based at least on the first dataset and the second dataset (paragraphs 47 and 48, multiple rules or policies are associated with multiple resources; Figure 10 and paragraph 147, a user interface is provided with a report that has aggregated multiple processes (data processes of the system, as determined by the claimed first dataset) and their vulnerabilities (indicating the claimed second data set),
determine the first resource fails to satisfy a first rule of the data center based at least on the change in the configuration (paragraph 50) and the aggregated data (paragraph 50, a determination that the configuration of an application is incorrect is based on the aggregation of detected components (as in paragraph 59), their current versions, and required versions), and
automatically perform, based on the first resource failing to satisfy the first rule, a repair action with respect to the first resource to repair the security vulnerability (paragraph 50, remediation of improper configurations is performed).
Ladnai teaches managing security threats to an enterprise network and does not expressly disclose repairing systems in a data center.
The examiner takes official notice that a data center is a well-known type of facility.Prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify the enterprise network issue detection and correction system, as taught by Ladnai, such that the enterprise facility incorporates and monitors a data center. This modification would have been obvious because, as would be clear to one of ordinary skill in the art, a data center facility may host very large scale storage or computing resources and provides advantages of efficiency gained by scaling up infrastructure required to sustain the resources. See attached reference of Wikipedia’s Data Center for related facts that would be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art.
Regarding claims 2, 8, 9, Ladnai discloses
2. The automatic repair system of claim 1, wherein the first rule specifies a pattern of a performance issue in resources, and to determine the first resource fails to satisfy the first rule, the programming instructions are further structured to cause the processor to:
determine, based at least on the aggregated data or the change in the configuration, a level of similarity between the pattern of the performance issue and a pattern of a performance of the first resource satisfies a similarity criterion (paragraph 147 and Figure 10, a set of similar safe threat samples and a set of similar unsafe samples are determined; a similarity criterion is implied by the determination that other resources are the three most similar known bad and known good).
8. The automatic repair system of claim 1, wherein to generate the aggregated data, the programming instructions are further structured to cause the processor to:
generate, based on the first and second datasets, a graph comprising a plurality of nodes and relationships between nodes of the plurality of nodes, the plurality of nodes comprising a first node representative of the first resource (Figure 5 and paragraphs 85-95, an event graph is generated; the nodes are devices and resources (paragraph 109) while the edges are resource relationships (paragraph 94)).
9. The automatic repair system of claim 8, wherein to determine the first resource fails to satisfy the first rule, the programming instructions are further structured to cause the processor to:
utilize the graph to determine the first resource fails to satisfy the first rule based at least on a relationship between the first node and a second node representative of a second resource of the resources of the data center (paragraph 94, the event graph is traversed backward to identify a root cause of an event; the graph is constructed based on relationships between resources and determining that an edge is activated is based on the relationships).
Claim 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ladnai in view of Shao (TW 202141263A).
Ladnai discloses the automatic repair system of claim 2. Ladnai does not expressly disclose the repair system wherein the programming instructions are further structured to cause the processor to:
determine the pattern of the performance issue based at least on a version of a firmware of a second resource failing to satisfy the first rule; and
to determine the level of similarity satisfies the similarity criterion, the programming instructions are further structured to cause the processor to:
determine a version of a firmware of the first resource is the same as the version of the firmware of the second resource.
Shao teaches a system for monitoring nodes of a wireless local area network (see abstract). The system compares firmware versions of a wireless node to other wireless nodes of the same company and product identification (third paragraph of section Mode-For-Invention). When a firmware version of a wireless node is determined to be lower, it is upgraded by a master node (fourth paragraph of section Mode-For-Invention).
Shao thus teaches determining that a version of a firmware of the first resource is the same as the version of the firmware of the second resource, and using firmware version comparison as a basis for an upgrade policy determination. Ladnai teaches using a similarity criterion to indicate similar faulty resources (as described for claim 2, above).
Prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify the data center issue detection and correction system, as taught by Ladnai, such that monitoring policies are used to determine that a wireless node has an old firmware version that needs to be updated based on a mismatch of similar nodes, as taught by Shao. This modification would have been obvious because a firmware upgrade allows a wireless node to be repaired to be upgraded with new functions (Shao, Background Art section).
Claims 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ladnai in view of Carteri (PG-PUB 2008/0109791).
Ladnai discloses the automatic repair system of claim 1, wherein the programming instructions are further structured to cause the processor to:
determine a severity score based at least on the first resource failing to satisfy the first rule (paragraph 115, threats are sorted into safe, unsafe and intermediate; and paragraph 123, human user’s attention is directed toward riskier items).
Ladnai does not expressly disclose the automatic repair system wherein the programming instructions are structured to cause the processor to cause the repair action to be performed responsive to the severity score satisfying a severity threshold.
Carteri teaches a software application error modeling system in which a criticality index calculated to quantify impact of an error on different aspects of a software application (paragraph 48). The system will calculate a global criticality index of an error by sum of criticality indexes of all the artifacts (paragraph 48). Repair work is performed based on the criticality index (paragraph 48). A criticality index of other repair operations can be considered a criticality threshold, which a new issue must surpass to elicit prioritized repair work.
Prior to the effective filing date of the claimed invention it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify the data center issue detection and correction system, as taught by Ladnai, such that issue repair is performed based on a threat level, as taught by Carteri. This modification would have been obvious because the prioritized repair works allows implementation of an algorithm for scheduling treatment of errors (Carteri paragraph 48) and, as would be clear to one of ordinary skill in the art, performing earlier repair of more critical issues may allow the system to return to a functional state before time is spent on less critical repair work.
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.
This action is a final rejection and closes the prosecution of this application. Applicant’s reply under 37 CFR 1.113 to this action is limited to an appeal to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, an amendment complying with the requirements set forth below, or a request for continued examination (RCE) to reopen prosecution where permitted. Please note that the Office also offers initiatives that are available to applicants after the close of prosecution. See https://www.uspto.gov/patents/initiatives/uspto-patent-applications-iniatives-timeline for more information.
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The application will become abandoned unless a Notice of Appeal, an after final reply that places the application in condition for allowance, or an RCE has been filed properly within the period for reply, or any extension of this period obtained under either 37 CFR 1.136(a) or (b).
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOSEPH SCHELL whose telephone number is (571) 272-8186. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday through Friday 9AM-5:00PM (Pacific Time).
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ashish Thomas can be reached at (571) 272-0631. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. The fax phone number for the examiner is 571-273-8186. The examiner may be e-mailed at joseph.schell@uspto.gov though communications via e-mail are not permitted without a written authorization form (see MPEP 502.03).
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JS/JOSEPH O SCHELL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2114
Prosecution Insights