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 present application is being examined under the pre-AIA first to invent provisions. 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.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim(s) 5, 6, 13, 14, 18 and 19 objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Interview
On, July 7 2026, Attorney Erika HAMMER and I discussed potential amendments directed towards expediting prosecution. No agreement was reached. See Attached Interview Summary for more details.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
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) 2 and 10 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 pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Claim(s) 2 and 10 recite(s) the acronym "SGT". Acronyms are ambiguous in meaning, and therefore indefinite. Appropriate correction is required.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 3, 4, 7-9, 11, 12, 15-17, and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent No. / U.S. Pre-Grant Publication US-20210397588-A1 to Keller et al. (“Keller”) in view of U.S. Patent No. / U.S. Pre-Grant Publication US-20040205693-A1 to Alexander et al. (“Alexander”).
As to claim 1, Keller disclose(s) a method of providing tag normalization of network elements in a multi-cloud network (Keller; fig. 1; 100 cloud service providers), comprising:
identifying a first tag of a first network element in the MCN, the first network element being associated with a cloud account of the MCN; (Keller; fig. 1; 135a resource)(Keller; resources have tags; [0041])
identifying a second tag of a second network element in the MCN, the second network element being associated with the cloud account; (Keller; fig. 1; 135a resource) (Keller; resources have tags; [0041])
determining that the first tag corresponds to the second tag; (Keller; mapping rule; [0016]; fig. 6; 606)(Keller; fig. 3, mapping service; 315; [0050])
determining, based at least in part on the first tag corresponding to the second tag, a tag mapping including an indication of the first tag and the second tag; (Keller; fig. 3, mapping service; 315; [0050])(See also Table 1)
and sending the tag mapping to a service within the MCN. (Keller; fig. 3; tag service 340a)
Keller does not expressly disclose the service being a virtual point of presence.
Alexander discloses virtual point of presence services. (Alexander; fig. 1)
At the time of invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to combine the tagging of multicloud service resources of Keller and the Virtual POPs of Alexander. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings as both are concerned with multiple service providers. Using the Virtual POPs were a well-known to those in the art at the time of invention as a means to allow clients to access multiple service providers. Using Virtual PoPs would give the clients of Keller a well-known method to access the multiple cloud providers.
Accordingly, the prior art references teach all of the claimed elements.
Furthermore, it would have been obvious to combine the teachings as all the claimed elements were known in the prior art and one skilled in the art could have combined the elements as claimed by known methods with no change in their respective functions, and the combination would have yielded nothing more than predictable results to one of ordinary skill in the art. “The combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results." See MPEP 2141(I) and (III) quoting Supreme Court decision KSR.
As to claim 3, Keller-Alexander disclose(s) the method of claim 1, wherein the first tag and second tag comprise at least one of a tag name, a tag value, a time stamp, an object identifier, an entity identifier, or a nonce value. (Keller; [0042]; tag value)
As to claim 4, Keller-Alexander disclose(s) the method of claim 1, wherein the first network element and second network element comprise one of a virtual private cloud, a virtual network, a network interface, an instance, or a subnet associated with the cloud account. (Keller; resources include virtual networks; [0036])
As to claim 7, Keller-Alexander disclose(s) the method of claim 1, further comprising:
identifying a third network element in the MCN, the third network element being associated with the cloud account; (Keller; fig. 1; 135c; resource)
identifying a third tag of the third network element; (Keller; fig. 1; 135c resource)(Keller; resources have tags; [0041])
determining that the third tag corresponds to the first tag and the second tag; (Keller; mapping rule; [0016]; fig. 6; 606)(Keller; fig. 3, mapping service; 315; [0050])
and updating the tag mapping to include an indication of the third tag. (Keller; fig. 3, mapping service; 315; [0050])(See also Table 1)
As to claim 8, Keller-Alexander disclose(s) the method of claim 1, wherein the first tag is generated by a first application associated with a first cloud service provider of the cloud account, and wherein generating the first tag further comprises receiving input via the first application comprising values associated with the first tag. (Keller-Alexander; generate tags using API;[0050])
As to claim 9, Keller-Alexander disclose(s) a system comprising:
one or more processors;
and one or more computer-readable media storing instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:
identifying a first tag of a first network element in a multi-cloud network , the first network element being associated with a cloud account of the MCN;
identifying a second tag of a second network element in the MCN, the second network element being associated with the cloud account;
determining that the first tag corresponds to the second tag;
determining, based at least in part on the first tag corresponding to the second tag, a tag mapping including an indication of the first tag and the second tag;
and
sending the tag mapping to a virtual point of presence within the MCN.
See similar rejection and motivation to claim 1.
As to claim 11, Keller-Alexander disclose(s) the system of claim 9, wherein the first tag and second tag comprise at least one of a tag name, a tag value, a time stamp, an object identifier, an entity identifier, or a nonce value.
See similar rejection and motivation to claim 3.
As to claim 12, Keller-Alexander disclose(s) the system of claim 9, wherein the first network element and second network element comprise one of a virtual private cloud, a virtual network, a network interface, an instance, or a subnet associated with the cloud account.
See similar rejection and motivation to claim 4.
As to claim 15, Keller-Alexander disclose(s) the system of claim 9, the operations further comprising:
identifying a third network element in the MCN, the third network element being associated with the cloud account;
identifying a third tag of the third network element;
determining that the third tag corresponds to the first tag and the second tag;
and updating the tag mapping to include an indication of the third tag.
See similar rejection and motivation to claim 7.
As to claim 16, Keller-Alexander disclose(s) the system of claim 9, wherein the first tag is generated by a first application associated with a first cloud service provider of the cloud account, and wherein generating the first tag further comprises receiving input via the first application comprising values associated with the first tag.
See similar rejection and motivation to claim 8.
As to claim 17, Keller-Alexander discloses one or more non-transitory computer-readable media maintaining instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, program the one or more processors to perform operations comprising:
identifying a first tag of a first network element in a multi-cloud network , the first network element being associated with a cloud account of the MCN;
identifying a second tag of a second network element in the MCN, the second network element being associated with the cloud account;
determining that the first tag corresponds to the second tag;
determining, based at least in part on the first tag corresponding to the second tag, a tag mapping including an indication of the first tag and the second tag;
and sending the tag mapping to a virtual point of presence within the MCN.
See similar rejection and motivation to claim 1.
As to claim 20, *** disclose(s) the one or more non-transitory computer-readable media of claim 17, the operations further comprising:
identifying a third network element in the MCN, the third network element being associated with the cloud account;
identifying a third tag of the third network element;
determining that the third tag corresponds to the first tag and the second tag;
and updating the tag mapping to include an indication of the third tag.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BRYAN LEE whose telephone number is (571)270-5606. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon-Fri 9am-5pm.
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/BRYAN Y LEE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2445
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