WDETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The Action is res e present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
The Action is responsive to the Application filed 10/14/2025.
Please note claims 1-17 are pending and stand objected to in which claims 1 and 16-17 are independent.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements filed 10/14/2025 are compliant with 37 CFR 1.97(c) and herein have been considered. Its corresponding PTO-1449 have been electronically signed as attached.
Claim Interpretation
A “patent is invalid for indefiniteness if its claims, read in light of the specification delineating the patent, and the prosecution history, fail to inform, with reasonable certainty, those skilled in the art about the scope of the invention.” Nautilus, Inc. v. Biosig Instruments, Inc., 134 S.Ct. 2120, 2124, 110 USPQ2d 1688 (2014). The Office does not interpret claims when examining patent applications in the same manner as the courts. The Office construes claims by giving them their broadest reasonable interpretation during prosecution in an effort to establish a clear record of what the applicant intends to claim. See, MPEP 2173.02 (Determining Whether Claim Language is Definite). Such claim construction during prosecution may effectively result in a lower threshold for ambiguity than a court's determination. Id. However, Applicant has the ability to amend the claims during prosecution to ensure that the meaning of the language is clear and definite prior to issuance or provide a persuasive explanation (with evidence as necessary) that a person of ordinary skill in the art would not consider the claim language unclear. Id. (citing In re Buszard, 504 F.3d 1364, 1366 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (claims are given their broadest reasonable interpretation during prosecution “to facilitate sharpening and clarifying the claims at the application.
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 16-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter.
As per claim 16, the claim recites "A distributed computing system providing a distributed shared-nothing database environment, comprising:
a plurality of computing instances connected over a network, at least some of which host data records of a left relation and a right relation of a database".
As such, claim 16 recites a system comprising of computing instances. Further based on Specification, computing nodes are also referred to computing instances. (See Page 1, "computing nodes ( also referred to herein as computing instances) in which each computing node is independent from the other.").
As generally comprehended, a computing node or computing instance (also being interpreted as compute node or compute instance, respectively) can be software or hardware, in which computing instance may be a virtual machine running on remote cloud hardware that provides on-demand processing power, memory, and storage. However, a software implemented virtual machine running on hardware does not make the hardware including its memory and storage as components of the node or instance.
A system comprising of software which may be implemented modules or models as virtual engine, modules and model as data structures capable of performing specific functions of method steps that does not place the system as a physically structured computer system equipped with memory, processor or any physically structured hardware as component(s).
Accordingly, the modules and model are clearly not a machine or an article of manufacture having physical supporting structure, are not a series of steps or act as a processor, nor a combination of chemical compounds to be a composition of matter. As such, they fail to fall within a statutory category. They are, at best, functional descriptive material per se.
Descriptive material can be characterized as either “functional descriptive material” or “nonfunctional descriptive material.” Both types of “descriptive material” are non-statutory when claimed as descriptive material per se, 33 F.3d at 1360, 31 USPQ2d at 1759. When functional descriptive material is recorded on some computer-readable medium, it becomes structurally and functionally interrelated to the medium and will be statutory in most cases since use of technology permits the function of the descriptive material to be realized. Compare In re Lowry, 32 F.3d 1579, 1583-84, 32 USPQ2d 1031, 1035 (Fed. Cir. 1994).
Merely claiming non-functional descriptive material, i.e., even if stored on a computer-readable medium, in a computer, executed by a processor, or on an electromagnetic carrier signal, abstract ideas does not make it statutory. See Diehr, 450 U.S. at 185-86, 209 USPQ at 8: (noting that the claims for an algorithm in Benson were unpatentable as abstract ideas because “the sole practical application of the algorithm was in connection with the programming of a general purpose computer”).
As generally practiced, a processor and a memory are interpreted as hardware components.
Should a computing instance comprising of processor(s) and/or memory, would overcome the non-statutory issue.
As per claims 17, the claim recites a computer program product comprising instructions for execution by one or more computing instances of a distributed computing system providing a distributed shared-nothing database environment.
However, a computer product comprising of instructions which are not physically structured components. The instructions may be software implemented as software modules or models.
Accordingly, the modules and models are clearly not a machine or an article of manufacture having physical supporting structure, are not a series of steps or act as a processor, nor a combination of chemical compounds to be a composition of matter. As such, they fail to fall within a statutory category. They are, at best, functional descriptive material per se.
Descriptive material can be characterized as either “functional descriptive material” or “nonfunctional descriptive material.” Both types of “descriptive material” are non-statutory when claimed as descriptive material per se, 33 F.3d at 1360, 31 USPQ2d at 1759. When functional descriptive material is recorded on some computer-readable medium, it becomes structurally and functionally interrelated to the medium and will be statutory in most cases since use of technology permits the function of the descriptive material to be realized. Compare In re Lowry, 32 F.3d 1579, 1583-84, 32 USPQ2d 1031, 1035 (Fed. Cir. 1994).
Merely claiming non-functional descriptive material, i.e., even if stored on a computer-readable medium, in a computer, executed by a processor, or on an electromagnetic carrier signal, abstract ideas does not make it statutory. See Diehr, 450 U.S. at 185-86, 209 USPQ at 8: (noting that the claims for an algorithm in Benson were unpatentable as abstract ideas because “the sole practical application of the algorithm was in connection with the programming of a general purpose computer”).
Should the product comprise of non-transitory storage medium having the instructions stored therein and when the instruction executed by processor, causing operations performed by the instructions would overcome the non-statutory issue.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 16-17 are objected to as being no-statutory but would be allowable, along together with claims 1-15, if claims 16 and 17 rewritten in statutory forms.
The instant application is dedicated to an efficient partitioning of records for join operations in a distributed shared-nothing database, mainly by a join operation on a join key between a left relation and a right relation in a distributed shared-nothing database environment, in which the left relation comprises of data tables each comprising a respective set of records and each being partitioned on the join key according to a respective table partitioning function, and the right relation comprises the plurality of data records being partitioned on the join key.
A reference was made to the W.I.P.O. application PCT/EP2023/059801 to which the instant is the U.S. staged application. The Written Opinion on PCT /EP2023/059801 which asserted claims 1-17 of novelty.
After a thorough search and examination of the instant application, including searches conducted on domains (PE2E, Similarity searches, NPL-ACM, Google, Google Patents and Scholar, IP Discovery, NPL-IEEE, WIPO Patent Scope, etc.), a few references obtained as listed in the attached PTO-892 Notice of References Cited.
However, the Examiner is persuaded that features identified in claim 1 are distinct from prior art and is among the merits of allowable subject matters, particularly the subject matters of partitioning of records for join operations by a join operation on a join key between a left relation and a right relation on tables and a right relation on data records.
The application would be allowable should the rejections made to claims 16-17 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as the claimed invention being directed to non-statutory subject matter be overcome by amendments.
Related Prior Arts
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure can be found in the PTO-892 Notice of Reference Cited.
Conclusion
Examiner has cited particular columns and line numbers in the references applied to the claims above for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings of the art and are applied to specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested from the applicant in preparing responses, to fully consider the references in entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the Examiner. SEE MPEP 2141.02 [R-5] VI. PRIOR ART MUST BE CONSIDERED IN ITS ENTIRETY, INCLUDING DISCLOSURES THAT TEACH AWAY FROM THE CLAIMS: A prior art reference must be considered in its entirety, i.e., as a whole, including portions that would lead away from the claimed invention. W.L. Gore & Associates, Inc. v. Garlock, Inc., 721 F.2d 1540, 220 USPQ 303 (Fed. Cir. 1983), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 851 (1984) In re Fulton, 391 F.3d 1195, 1201, 73 USPQ2d 1141, 1146 (Fed. Cir. 2004). >See also MPEP §2123.
In the case of amending the Claimed invention, Applicant is respectfully requested to indicate the portion(s) of the specification which dictate(s) the structure relied on for proper interpretation and also to verify and ascertain the metes and bounds of the claimed invention.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KUEN S LU whose telephone number is (571)272-4114. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F, 8-19, Mid-Flex 2 hours.
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, Mr. Aleksandr Kerzhner can be reached on 571-270-1760. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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KUEN S LU /Kuen S Lu/
Art Unit 2165
Primary Patent Examiner
September 6, 2026
Prosecution Insights