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 .
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 1-4 and 6-15 are allowed.
Claims 20-22 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if the below rejections for claim 17 are overcome.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
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.
Claims 5, 16, and 17 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.
Claims 5 and 16 recite “obtaining, by the cloud management platform, a resource pool type, resource pool location information, resource pool virtual private cloud (VPC) information, resource pool subnet information, interface information about an interface for a resource pool inter-domain gateway, and virtual local area network (VLAN) information” and “wherein the one or more processors are further configured to execute the instructions to cause the cloud management platform to obtain a resource pool type, resource pool location information, resource pool virtual private cloud (VPC) information, resource pool subnet information, interface information about an interface for a resource pool inter-domain gateway, and virtual local area network VLAN information”.
It is unclear how the claimed data types impart any further limit upon the method steps and/or structure of claims 1 and 12 from which they depend. The claims only require obtaining/receipt of the claimed data types, but never captures what the data influences when used or how it is utilized to further limit any functional step or structural element’s operation.
Claim 17 recites “a computing device cluster comprising: at least one computing device configured to”, however, this is redundant as the name itself “computing device cluster” already captures that the “cluster” is a “cluster” of “computing device(s)”. This language fails to capture the actual structural element(s) that make up the “computing device”, thereby making the claim indefinite with respect to the metes and bounds of what the “computing device” is comprised of.
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.
Claim 17 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because while the claim appears to be intended as drawn towards a machine, the claim language only captures “computing device” without further capturing what that device is comprised of. This leaves the scope of “computing device” broad including non-statutory subject matter such as software per se. Claim 17 is rejected as being drawn to software per se.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Guan et al. (US 20160134472)
Aoki et al. (WO 2020116222 A1)
Ozkan et al. (US 11212171 B1)
Thakkar et al. (US 20210135957 A1)
Jacob et al. (US 20160043968)
Ranjbar et al. (WO 2019177502 A1)
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/OSCAR A LOUIE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2445