DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . Claims 17, 19-23 were cancelled prior to first office action. Clams 1-9 were non-elected in a restriction response. Therefore, Claims 10-16, 18, and 24-26 are pending and subject to examination.
Priority
This application is claiming the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 62/977,380, filed on February 16, 2020, which is incorporated by reference.
Response to Restriction Election
Applicant’s election without traverse of invention II (claims 10-16, 18, and 24-26) in the reply filed on 11/28/2025 is acknowledged.
Claims 1-9 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b), as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Applicant timely traversed the restriction (election) requirement in the reply filed on 11/28/2025.
Claim Objections
Claim 24 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 24 ends with a semicolon. This seems like an inadvertent typographical error. Thus, Claim 24 does not end in a period contrary as required in the EMPEP 608.01(m) and which requires “Each claim begins with a capital letter and ends with a period”.
Appropriate correction is required.
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 13 and 26 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.
Claim 13 recites “provisioning the cloud customers services on servers”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. Also, the term “the cloud customers or the cloud customer services is unclear and confusing because claim 10 recites “a cloud customer” and it is unclear if the recited term in claim 13 refers back to the recited term in claim 10.
For purposes of Examination claim 13 will be interpreted as:
“wherein operating carbon capture apparatus comprises provisioning services for the cloud customer on servers whose waste-heat is being used to capture carbon dioxide”.
Claim 26 recites “b) estimating the approximate energy used by the cloud customer, and c) allocating the energy used by the cloud customer against the input energy for operating carbon capture apparatus”. These limitations as recited are unclear for the following reasons. The invention is about allowing a customer to buy server services (memory, execution, etc.) over the internet and/or remotely and buy carbon offset credits/carbon negative related to the services. It is unclear if the estimated energy used of the cloud customer is for its installation or for services provided. Also, allocating “the energy used” by the cloud customer against the input energy for operating carbon capture apparatus it is unclear since it is unclear how this function is performed since step B) the energy is an estimation of energy used and allocating energy suggests allocating/distributing an amount of physical energy. As recited, the limitation requires that an amount of energy estimated for the cloud customer is allocated (distributed) to the input energy for operating the carbon apparatus. The limitation C) will be interpreted in the BRI in light of the disclosure as using the waste heat of the data center (waste heat is energy used and output), when providing/executing customer services, as input energy for operating the carbon heat apparatus, wherein the waste heat is generated from the energy consumed for providing the customer services.
For purposes of Examination claim 26 will be interpreted in the BRI in light of the disclosure as:
“b) estimating an approximate energy amount used by services provided for the cloud customer, and
c) allocating energy used by the by services provided for the cloud customer against input energy used for carbon capture”.
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 10-16 and 18 are 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 the claims are directed to a carbon negative cloud service or simply a service which is not a process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter.
6. Claims 10-16, 18, and 24-26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract without significantly more.
The claims 10 and 24, recite in part “offering a carbon negative option to a cloud customer”.
Under the broadest reasonable interpretation, the terms of the claim are presumed to have their plain meaning consistent with the specification as it would be interpreted by one of ordinary skill in the art. See MPEP 2111.
The claims recite at least one step or act, including offering a carbon negative option to a customer, thus, these limitations as drafted are a process that under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers “commercial or legal interactions” which is identified as an example of “certain methods of organizing human Activities” grouping of abstract ideas and/or mental processes steps. For instance, this step of offering a carbon negative option is a step of offering a service for commercial or legal interaction. This step can be performed via a computer or performed via a person during a sale transaction. Thus, These limitations as drafted are a process that under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers “commercial or legal interactions” which is identified as an example of “certain methods of organizing human Activities” grouping of abstract ideas and/or mental processes steps.
The judicial exceptions above are not integrated into a practical application because claim 10 recites additional elements such as “a cloud operator and the cloud operator operating carbon capture apparatus. In the broadest reasonable interpretation in light of disclosure the cloud operator has been defined a business entity such as GOOGLE, Amazon services, and Microsoft, wherein these operators include data center/servers (see published disclosure [0023]), and which additional elements are recited in high level of generality, that represents no more than instructions “to apply” the abstract idea on a system or to generally linking the use of the judicial exception to the technological environment or field of use of data centers and cannot provide an inventive concept as stated by the courts (see MPEP 2106.05(f) and 2106.05(h)). The additional element “the cloud operator operating carbon capture apparatus” is a tangential limitation that does not limit the bounds of the abstract idea and is recited at a high level of generality. As it is clarified in the disclosure, offering a carbon negative option/contract to a customer, does not require the operation of carbon capture apparatus. Even if the customer accepts a contract of the offer of negative carbon option, still that represents no more than instructions “to apply” the abstract idea on a system or to generally linking the use of the judicial exception to the technological environment or field of use of operation of carbon capture apparatus and cannot provide an inventive concept as stated by the courts (see MPEP 2106.05(f) and 2106.05(h)). Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea.
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional elements of a cloud operator and the cloud operator operating carbon capture apparatus recited a high level of generality represents no more than instructions “to apply” the abstract idea on a system or to generally linking the use of the judicial exception to the technological environment or field of use of cloud operator business including data centers and including the operation of carbon capture apparatus and cannot provide an inventive concept as stated by the courts (see MPEP 2106.05(f) and 2106.05(h)). Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application, do not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, and do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Therefore, the claims are not patent eligible.
Claims 11-16, 18, 25-26 depend from claims 10 and 24, respectively, and thus recite the limitations and the abstract ideas of their parent claims.
Claims 11-12 further recite the additional elements of “11 wherein the cloud operator is a data center operator and the cloud customer is a data center customer”, “12 wherein the cloud operator is a cloud service provider”, recited at high level of generality and simply tries to defines the terms of the participants and does not limit the boundaries of the abstract idea. The cloud operator being a data center operator or being a cloud services operators does not limit the boundaries of the abstract idea. Selling or offering a service between an operator such as data operator or service provider and a client covers “commercial or legal interactions” which is identified as an example of “certain methods of organizing human Activities” grouping of abstract ideas and/or mental processes steps. Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application, do not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, and do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Therefore, the claims are not patent eligible.
claim 13, further recites the additional elements of “wherein operating carbon capture apparatus comprises provisioning the cloud customers services on servers whose waste-heat is being used to capture carbon dioxide”, which are recited at high level of generality, refers to providing services on specific servers, wherein the specific server includes servers whose waste heat is used to capture CO2. These limitations as drafted are a process that under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers “commercial or legal interactions” which is identified as an example of “certain methods of organizing human Activities” grouping of abstract ideas. For instance, this step of providing services on a specific computer such as the one described previously, simply provides process services for future needs. Thus, these limitations involve an abstract idea of itself. Using a computer/server whose heat is utilized for CO2 capture simply represents no more than instructions “to apply” the abstract idea on a system or to generally linking the use of the judicial exception to the technological environment or field of use of a server and CO2 capture system and cannot provide an inventive concept as stated by the courts (see MPEP 2106.05(f) and 2106.05(h)). Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application, do not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, and do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Therefore, the claims are not patent eligible.
Claim 14, further recites “wherein operating carbon capture apparatus comprises provisioning the cloud customers services on servers within a first data center and operating carbon capture apparatus using waste-heat from a second data center” which are recited at high level of generality. These limitations do not integrate the abstract idea of claim 10 into a practical limitation because these are tangential limitations that does not put any limits on the abstract idea. Thus, provisioning services of the cloud customers on servers within a first data center and operating carbon capture apparatus using waste-heat from a second data center simply represents no more than instructions “to apply” the abstract idea on a system or to generally linking the use of the judicial exception to the technological environment or field of use of a server and linking a second server to a CO2 capture system and cannot provide an inventive concept as stated by the courts (see MPEP 2106.05(f) and 2106.05(h)). Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application, do not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, and do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Therefore, the claims are not patent eligible.
Claim 15, further recites the additional limitations of “wherein operating carbon capture apparatus comprises contracting carbon capture operation to a 3rd party”. Contracting a carbon capture operation to 3rd party is a step or process that under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers “commercial or legal interactions” which is identified as an example of “certain methods of organizing human Activities” grouping of abstract ideas. Thus, it is an abstract idea of itself. Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea of claim 10 or 15 into a practical application, do not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, and do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Therefore, the claims are not patent eligible.
Claim 16, further recites the additional limitations of “wherein operating carbon capture apparatus comprises contracting carbon offsetting to a 3rd party”. Contracting a carbon offsetting operation to 3rd party is a step or process that under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers “commercial or legal interactions” which is identified as an example of “certain methods of organizing human Activities” grouping of abstract ideas. Thus, it is an abstract idea of itself. Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea of claim 10 or 16 into a practical application, do not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, and do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Therefore, the claims are not patent eligible.
Claim 18, further recites the additional limitations of “wherein the offering a carbon negative option to a cloud customer comprises offering to remove an amount of carbon dioxide”, which is a step or process that under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers “commercial or legal interactions” which is identified as an example of “certain methods of organizing human Activities” grouping of abstract ideas. Thus, it is an abstract idea of itself. Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea of claim 10 or 18 into a practical application, do not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, and do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Therefore, the claims are not patent eligible.
Claim 25, further recites the additional limitations of “b) provisioning the cloud customers services on a server whose waste-heat is being used for carbon capture”, which are recited at high level of generality, refers to providing services on specific servers, wherein the specific server includes servers whose waste heat is used to capture CO2. These limitations as drafted are a process that under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers “commercial or legal interactions” which is identified as an example of “certain methods of organizing human Activities” grouping of abstract ideas. For instance, this step of providing services on a specific computer such as the one described previously, simply provides process services for future needs. Thus, these limitations involve an abstract idea of itself. Using a computer/server whose heat is utilized for CO2 capture simply represents no more than instructions “to apply” the abstract idea on a system or to generally linking the use of the judicial exception to the technological environment or field of use of a server and CO2 capture system and cannot provide an inventive concept as stated by the courts (see MPEP 2106.05(f) and 2106.05(h)). Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application, do not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, and do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Therefore, the claims are not patent eligible.
Claim 26 further recites the additional limitations of “b) estimating the approximate energy used by the cloud customer, and; c) allocating the energy used by the cloud customer against the input energy for operating carbon capture apparatus”. The step or limitation of “estimating the approximate energy used by the cloud customer”, these limitations as drafted are a process that under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers mathematical relationships which is identified as an example of mathematical concepts grouping of abstract ideas. The additional element “allocating the energy used by the cloud customer against the input energy for operating carbon capture apparatus” recited at a high level of generality represents a tangential limitation that does not place any limit on the abstract idea of claim 24. Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application, do not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, and do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Therefore, the claims are not patent eligible.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 24 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Fargano et al (US 20110055092).
As per claim 24, teaches A computer-implemented method that includes the step of (see Fig. 2, Fig. 4 , and Fig, 6; also, see [0050] and [0055] “FIG. 6 shows a diagrammatic representation of one embodiment of a machine in the exemplary form of a computer system 600 within which a set of instructions for causing the device to perform any one or more of the aspects and/or methodologies of the present disclosure may be executed” also, see claim 10 on page 7):
a) offering a carbon negative option to a cloud customer (see cloud operator or service provider 204 offering a carbon negative option to a cloud customer 260, 262, 264, see [0044] “the service provider might agree to provide a certain number of carbon offset credits and allow the customer to select which particular credit is purchased by the service provider. This type of system can be combined with a company's overall corporate strategy and goals for carbon reduction; also, see [0015]; also, see [0037], [0043] ).
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) 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fargano et al (US 20110055092) in view of Avery et al (US 20110096503) and Gebald et al (US 10279306).
As per claim 10, Fargano teaches a carbon negative cloud service (the term carbon negative cloud service has been interpreted in the broadest reasonable interpretation as “carbon reduction service”, wherein cloud service interpreted as being or accessed in the internet; also, see system service 200), the carbon negative cloud service (see [0015]and see Fig. 2; also, see [0037], [0043]) comprising:
a) a cloud operator offering a carbon negative option to a cloud customer (see Fig. 2 cloud operator or service provider 204 offering a carbon negative option to a cloud customer 260, 262, 264, see [0044] “the service provider might agree to provide a certain number of carbon offset credits and allow the customer to select which particular credit is purchased by the service provider. This type of system can be combined with a company's overall corporate strategy and goals for carbon reduction; also, see [0015]; also, see [0037], [0043]), and
While Fargano teaches a cloud operator device and method offering carbon credits option generated from producing energy from renewal energy, efficiency projects including waste heat usage, green projects (see [0008] and [0041] planting trees cause the removal of carbon) or methane/carbon containment (0029), But Fargano does not explicitly teach b) the cloud operator operating carbon capture apparatus.
However, Avery teaches a system and method comprising a data center capturing the waste heat from a data center (see [0010-0011] and [0013] “No other device, method, process or application has been identified where such low quality waste heat can be utilized as a meaningful work input to drive a heat driven chiller or heat pump.), wherein the waste heat is input to a heat pump (see [0010-0011] and [0013]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to which said subject matter pertains to have modified Fargano’s invention to include a data center capturing the waste heat from a data center wherein the waste heat is input to a heat pump as taught by Avery in order to use the heat output of the heat pump to increase the efficiency of a data center system (see [0011] “Alternatively, the waste heat from the equipment in a data center may be combined with other sources of heat to drive a heat driven chiller or heat pump, thereby reducing the overall load on the alternate heat sources and improving the efficiency of the facility's systems”).
However, Fargano-Avery still does not explicitly teach b) the cloud operator operating carbon capture apparatus.
However, Gebald teaches a system and method comprising operating a carbon capture apparatus using waste heat (see Col 3 lines 1-60 which describes a carbon capture process; Col 17 lines 3-8 “FIG. 8 shows an embodiment integrating the steam generation and condensation heat exchanger inside the unit and coupling them with a heat pump to recover heat of condensation to steam generation. In this case, the steam generation 5 and condensation 8 heat exchangers are integrated into the unit and connected with a heat pump 10…”; also, see Col 7 line 59 to col 8 line 14 “… Steam originating from injected steam and desorbed water originating from the input gas mixture, in a mixture with gaseous carbon dioxide extracted from the unit in step (b), preferably in steps (b2), (b3), (b4) and (b5), can be condensed in a condensation heat exchanger separating the carbon dioxide at least partly from the condensed water. The condensation heat generated in the condensation heat exchanger can be used, if need be after further increase of the temperature by means of a heat pump, for generating the steam for use in step (b)…”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to which said subject matter pertains to have modified Fargano-Avery’s combination to include operating a carbon capture apparatus using waste heat as taught by Gebald in order to reduce carbon emission in the atmosphere (see Col 1 lines 24-54 “ The specific advantages of CO2 capture from the atmosphere include: (i) DAC can address the emissions of distributed sources (e.g. cars, planes), which account for a large portion of the worldwide greenhouse gas emissions and can currently not be captured at the site of emission in an economically feasible way; (ii) DAC can address emissions from the past and can therefore create truly negative emissions; (iii) DAC systems do not need to be attached to the source of emission but are rather location independent and can for example be located at the site of further CO2 processing; and (iv) if CO2 that was captured from the atmosphere is used for the production of synthetic hydrocarbon fuels from renewable energy sources, truly non-fossil fuels for the transportation sector can be obtained, that create no or very few net CO2 emissions to the atmosphere”) and combine it with the data center and waste heat collected from the data center of Fargano-Avery to improve the efficiency of the data center and reduce the CO2 of the atmosphere as suggested by Gebald.
Claim(s) 11-14 and 25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fargano et al (US 20110055092) in view of Avery et al (US 20110096503) and Gebald et al (US 10279306) as applied to claim 10 above, and further in view of Ryan et al (US 9674108).
As per claim 11, Fargano-Avery-Gebald teaches the carbon negative cloud service of claim 10, while Fargano teaches the cloud operator or service provider as a server offering the carbon negative option, and Avery teaches a Data center connected to waste heat pump, Fargano does not explicitly teach wherein the cloud operator is a data center operator and the cloud customer is a data center customer.
Ryan teaches a system comprising a cloud operator which is a data center operator and a cloud customer which is a data center customer (see Fig. 8 data center operator 835 and data center customer 850 and see Col 24 line 35 to Col 25 line 32).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to which said subject matter pertains to have modified Fargano-Avery-Gebald to include a cloud operator which is a data center operator and a cloud customer which is a data center customer as taught by Ryan in order to provide a cloud based computing platform that facilitate a scalable allocation of computing resources, such as processing resources, storage resources, routing resources, or the like to a cloud customer by providing a data center operator (see Col 2 lines 59-Col 3 line 26) and/or apply the cloud offering service, and the carbon capture apparatus combination system of Fargano-Avery-Gebald as disclosed in claim 10 to the system of Ryan to provide a system that increases the efficiency of the system as a whole and helps in the reduction of carbon in the atmosphere.
As per claim 12, Fargano-Avery-Gebald teaches the carbon negative cloud service of claim 10, Fargano teaches the cloud operator 204 is a service provider that provides services over the internet, but Fargano does not explicitly teach wherein the cloud operator is a cloud service provider (the disclosure does not explicitly teach or explicitly define the term cloud service provider. This term will be interpreted in the broadest reasonable interpretation as company or system that provides computing resources—servers, storage, databases, applications, networking).
Ryan teaches a system comprising a cloud operator, wherein the cloud operator is a cloud service provider (see Fig. 8 data center operator 835 provides services Col 24 line 35 to Col 25 line 32).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to which said subject matter pertains to have modified Fargano-Avery-Gebald to include a cloud operator which is a data center operator, wherein the cloud operator is a cloud service provider as taught by Ryan in order to provide a cloud based computing platform that facilitate a scalable allocation of computing resources, such as processing resources, storage resources, routing resources, or the like to a cloud customer by providing a data center operator (see Col 2 lines 59-Col 3 line 26) and/or apply the cloud offering service, and the carbon capture apparatus combination system of Fargano-Avery-Gebald as disclosed in claim 10 to the system of Ryan to provide a system that increases the efficiency of the system as a whole and helps in the reduction of carbon in the atmosphere.
As per claim 13, Fargano-Avery-Gebald teaches the carbon negative cloud service of claim 10, Fargano teaches servers providing services (see Fig. 2), Avery teaches a data center comprising servers capable of providing services and collecting heat to be used in a further process (see Fig. 2-3), and Gebald teaches a carbon capture apparatus using collected heat to capture carbon dioxide (Fig. 6 and Fig. 8, see the Abstract and see also, see Col 7 line 59 to col 8 line 14), Thus, Fargano-Avery-Gebald teaches operating carbon capture apparatus comprises
However, Fargano Avery-Gebald does not explicitly teach provisioning the cloud customers services on servers whose waste-heat is being used to capture carbon dioxide (this has been interpreted in the BRI as executing application/cloud services in data centers with servers and a carbon capture capturing carbon dioxide, also, see Col 7 line 59 to col 8 line 14).
Ryan teaches system comprising a cloud operator provisioning the cloud customers services on servers of a data center (see Col 6 line 61-Col 7 line 9 and see Col 7 lines 53-61 “Operator core data center 180 may include one or more data centers operated by the operator of the web platform. For example, the operator may utilize a set of operator data centers 160 that communicate directly with cloud network 120, cloud network 130, or the like and a set of operator core data centers 180 that provide backend services for operator data centers 160. In some implementations, operator core data center 180 may include a set of computing resources (e.g., a gateway device, “Servers 1-P,” or the like)…” ; also, see Col 14 lines 56-Col 15 line 6; also, see Col 24 lines 42-56 “ Operator data center 835 may include one or more data centers associated with an operator of public cloud network 815. In some implementations, operator data center 835 may correspond to operator data center 160 shown in FIG. 1. For example, a first entity (e.g., an operator) may request that a second entity (e.g., a public cloud provider) provide access to computing resources designated as public cloud network 815, and operator data center 835 may operate and/or control the computing resources. In this case, operator data center 835 may be utilized for promoting program code that is executed by the computing resources; providing support services, such as maintaining functionality of the computing resources,…”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to which said subject matter pertains to have modified Fargano-Avery-Gebald’s combination as taught above to include a cloud operator provisioning the cloud customers services on servers as taught by Ryan and provision/provide/assign the cloud customers services on servers of the apparatus/system of Fargano-Avery-Gebald as taught above including a datacenter whose waste-heat is being used to capture carbon dioxide (see claim 10) in order to provide a system that increases the efficiency of the system as a whole and helps in the reduction of carbon in the atmosphere.
As per claim 14, Fargano-Avery-Gebald teaches the carbon negative cloud service of claim 10, Fargano-Avery-Gebald teaches wherein operating carbon capture apparatus comprises (see Claim 10 above Avery teaches a system and method comprising a data center capturing the waste heat from a data center (see [0010-0011] and [0013]) and Gebald teaches operating a carbon capture apparatus using waste heat (see Col 3 lines 1-60 which describes a carbon capture process; Col 17 lines 3-8).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to which said subject matter pertains to have modified Fargano-Avery-Gebald’s combination to include operating a carbon capture apparatus using waste heat as taught by Gebald in order to reduce carbon emission in the atmosphere (see Col 1 lines 24-54 “ The specific advantages of CO2 capture from the atmosphere include: (i) DAC can address the emissions of distributed sources (e.g. cars, planes), which account for a large portion of the worldwide greenhouse gas emissions and can currently not be captured at the site of emission in an economically feasible way; (ii) DAC can address emissions from the past and can therefore create truly negative emissions; (iii) DAC systems do not need to be attached to the source of emission but are rather location independent and can for example be located at the site of further CO2 processing; and (iv) if CO2 that was captured from the atmosphere is used for the production of synthetic hydrocarbon fuels from renewable energy sources, truly non-fossil fuels for the transportation sector can be obtained, that create no or very few net CO2 emissions to the atmosphere”) and combine it with the data center and waste heat collected from the data center of Fargano-Avery to improve the efficiency of the data center and reduce the CO2 of the atmosphere as suggested by Gebald.
Fargano-Avery-Gebald does not explicitly teach provisioning the cloud customers services on servers within a first data center.
Ryan teaches system comprising a cloud operator or management device 820 provisioning the cloud customers services on a first data center (see Fig. 8 and see Col 24 lines 1-Col 25 line 18 “..public cloud network 815 may utilize traffic management device 820 (e.g., an Azure traffic manager, an Amazon AWS elastic load balancer, or the like) to perform traffic management services (e.g., load balancing, redundancy routing, etc.) for public cloud network 815… Operator data center 835 may include one or more data centers associated with an operator of public cloud network 815. In some implementations, operator data center 835 may correspond to operator data center 160 shown in FIG. 1. For example, a first entity (e.g., an operator) may request that a second entity (e.g., a public cloud provider) provide access to computing resources designated as public cloud network 815,… ; also, see Col 6 line 61-Col 7 line 9 and see Col 7 lines 53-61 “Operator core data center 180 may include one or more data centers operated by the operator of the web platform. For example, the operator may utilize a set of operator data centers 160 that communicate directly with cloud network 120, cloud network 130, or the like and a set of operator core data centers 180 that provide backend services for operator data centers 160. In some implementations, operator core data center 180 may include a set of computing resources (e.g., a gateway device, “Servers 1-P,” or the like)…” ; also, see Col 14 lines 56-Col 15 line 6; also, see Col 24 lines 42-56 “ Operator data center 835 may include one or more data centers associated with an operator of public cloud network 815. In some implementations, operator data center 835 may correspond to operator data center 160 shown in FIG. 1. For example, a first entity (e.g., an operator) may request that a second entity (e.g., a public cloud provider) provide access to computing resources designated as public cloud network 815, and operator data center 835 may operate and/or control the computing resources. In this case, operator data center 835 may be utilized for promoting program code that is executed by the computing resources; providing support services, such as maintaining functionality of the computing resources,…”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to which said subject matter pertains to have modified Fargano-Avery-Gebald’s combination as taught above to include a cloud operator provisioning the cloud customers services on a first data center from a plurality of data centers and facilitate improved information security, cloud-based computing platform control, or the like relative to another connection configuration, (see Col 3 lines 9-25 “…facilitate improved information security, cloud-based computing platform control, or the like relative to another connection configuration…”).
As per claim 25, Fargano teaches the computer-implemented method of claim 24 further comprising the steps of: but it does not explicitly teach b) provisioning the cloud customers services on a server whose waste-heat is being used for carbon capture.
However, Avery teaches a system and method comprising a data center capturing the waste heat from a data center (see [0010-0011] and [0013] “No other device, method, process or application has been identified where such low quality waste heat can be utilized as a meaningful work input to drive a heat driven chiller or heat pump.), wherein the waste heat is input to a heat pump (see [0010-0011] and [0013]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to which said subject matter pertains to have modified Fargano’s invention to include a data center capturing the waste heat from a data center wherein the waste heat is input to a heat pump as taught by Avery in order to use the heat output of the heat pump to increase the efficiency of a data center system (see [0011] “Alternatively, the waste heat from the equipment in a data center may be combined with other sources of heat to drive a heat driven chiller or heat pump, thereby reducing the overall load on the alternate heat sources and improving the efficiency of the facility's systems”).
However, Avery does not explicitly teach the waste heat collected from a data center is used for a carbon capture apparatus.
However, Gebald teaches a system and method comprising operating a carbon capture apparatus using waste heat (see Col 3 lines 1-60 which describes a carbon capture process; Col 17 lines 3-8 “FIG. 8 shows an embodiment integrating the steam generation and condensation heat exchanger inside the unit and coupling them with a heat pump to recover heat of condensation to steam generation. In this case, the steam generation 5 and condensation 8 heat exchangers are integrated into the unit and connected with a heat pump 10…”; also, see Col 7 line 59 to col 8 line 14 “… Steam originating from injected steam and desorbed water originating from the input gas mixture, in a mixture with gaseous carbon dioxide extracted from the unit in step (b), preferably in steps (b2), (b3), (b4) and (b5), can be condensed in a condensation heat exchanger separating the carbon dioxide at least partly from the condensed water. The condensation heat generated in the condensation heat exchanger can be used, if need be after further increase of the temperature by means of a heat pump, for generating the steam for use in step (b)…”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to which said subject matter pertains to have modified Fargano-Avery’s combination to include operating a carbon capture apparatus using waste heat as taught by Gebald in order to reduce carbon emission in the atmosphere (see Col 1 lines 24-54 “ The specific advantages of CO2 capture from the atmosphere include: (i) DAC can address the emissions of distributed sources (e.g. cars, planes), which account for a large portion of the worldwide greenhouse gas emissions and can currently not be captured at the site of emission in an economically feasible way; (ii) DAC can address emissions from the past and can therefore create truly negative emissions; (iii) DAC systems do not need to be attached to the source of emission but are rather location independent and can for example be located at the site of further CO2 processing; and (iv) if CO2 that was captured from the atmosphere is used for the production of synthetic hydrocarbon fuels from renewable energy sources, truly non-fossil fuels for the transportation sector can be obtained, that create no or very few net CO2 emissions to the atmosphere”) and combine it with the data center and waste heat collected from the data center of Fargano-Avery to improve the efficiency of the data center and reduce the CO2 of the atmosphere as suggested by Gebald.
Fargano-Avery-Gebald still does not explicitly teach provisioning the cloud customers services on servers whose waste-heat is being used to capture carbon dioxide (this has been interpreted in the BRI as executing application/cloud services in data centers with servers and a carbon capture capturing carbon dioxide, also, see Col 7 line 59 to col 8 line 14).
Ryan teaches system comprising a cloud operator provisioning the cloud customers services on servers of a data center (see Col 6 line 61-Col 7 line 9 and see Col 7 lines 53-61 “Operator core data center 180 may include one or more data centers operated by the operator of the web platform. For example, the operator may utilize a set of operator data centers 160 that communicate directly with cloud network 120, cloud network 130, or the like and a set of operator core data centers 180 that provide backend services for operator data centers 160. In some implementations, operator core data center 180 may include a set of computing resources (e.g., a gateway device, “Servers 1-P,” or the like)…” ; also, see Col 14 lines 56-Col 15 line 6; also, see Col 24 lines 42-56 “ Operator data center 835 may include one or more data centers associated with an operator of public cloud network 815. In some implementations, operator data center 835 may correspond to operator data center 160 shown in FIG. 1. For example, a first entity (e.g., an operator) may request that a second entity (e.g., a public cloud provider) provide access to computing resources designated as public cloud network 815, and operator data center 835 may operate and/or control the computing resources. In this case, operator data center 835 may be utilized for promoting program code that is executed by the computing resources; providing support services, such as maintaining functionality of the computing resources,…”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to which said subject matter pertains to have modified Fargano-Avery-Gebald’s combination as taught above to include a cloud operator provisioning the cloud customers services on servers of a data center as taught by Ryan and provision/provide/assign the cloud customers services on servers of the apparatus/system of Fargano-Avery-Gebald as taught above including a datacenter whose waste-heat is being used to capture carbon dioxide (see claim 10) in order to provide a system that increases the efficiency of the system as a whole and helps in the reduction of carbon in the atmosphere.
Claim(s) 15-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fargano et al (US 20110055092) in view of Avery et al (US 20110096503) and Gebald et al (US 10279306) as applied to claim 10 above, and further in view of Jabbar et al (US 20210151202).
As per claim 15, Fargano-Avery-Gebald teaches the carbon negative cloud service of claim 10, Fargano further teaches that the offered carbon offsets are sold by third party (see [0027], [0047], and [0049]), But it does not explicitly teach wherein operating carbon capture apparatus comprises contracting carbon capture operation to a 3rd party.
However, Jabbar teaches a system comprising contracting carbon capture operation to a 3rd party (see [0004] “… Entities having exceeded their cap, will through this scheme be obliged to compensate by purchasing a similar amount of allowances from entities having emitted a lower amount of CO2e than allowed by their cap. (ii) the voluntary market, on the other hand is unregulated, and based on a project logic. Here compensation happens by investing in projects that have mitigated an equivalent amount of CO2e as the entity wishing to offset has emitted….” And see [0007]; also, see [0029] “…Collectively, this data makes up a time sequence of purchase orders denominated in grams of CO2e to be offset automatically through the micro carbon offsets generated by renewable energy installations in developing countries as generally described in paragraph”. ; also, see Fig. 9 third party Co2 comprises carbon offsetting projects including carbon capture/sequestration projects and see [0033] “Fig. 9 illustrates an embodiment of the method that make up the present invention, in which data representing pre-issued carbon offsets is transferred (904) to the DLT/Blockchain from carbon offsetting projects (902) that have been verified or certified, and issued onto a registry by an established carbon verification/certification body (300). Examples of this include, but are not limited to, third-party standard setting organizations that operate carbon registries onto which they issue the carbon offset credits associated with … carbon capture/sequestration projects that they themselves have verified/certified, or that other accredited organizations have verified/certified on their behalf.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to which said subject matter pertains to have modified Fargano-Avery-Gebald’s combination as taught above to include contracting carbon capture operation to a 3rd party as taught by Jabbar in order to allow a cloud service provider or data center operator to buy/purchase carbon offsets generated from carbon capture devices from third party providers in a safe and secure manner (see [0009] “…Today, Blockchain is an umbrella term for IT systems with wide areas of application that combine elements of (i) a replicated and shared distributed ledger, (ii) cryptographically secure transactions,…”; also, see [0018-0019], [0028], and [0031-0032]).
As per claim 16, Fargano-Avery-Gebald teaches the carbon negative cloud service of claim 10, Fargano further teaches that the offered carbon offsets are sold by third party (see [0027], [0047], and [0049]), But it does not explicitly teach wherein operating carbon capture apparatus comprises contracting carbon offsetting to a 3rd party.
However, Jabbar teaches a system comprising contracting carbon offsetting to a 3rd party (see [0004] “… Entities having exceeded their cap, will through this scheme be obliged to compensate by purchasing a similar amount of allowances from entities having emitted a lower amount of CO2e than allowed by their cap. (ii) the voluntary market, on the other hand is unregulated, and based on a project logic. Here compensation happens by investing in projects that have mitigated an equivalent amount of CO2e as the entity wishing to offset has emitted….” And see [0007]; also, see [0029] “…Collectively, this data makes up a time sequence of purchase orders denominated in grams of CO2e to be offset automatically through the micro carbon offsets generated by renewable energy installations in developing countries as generally described in paragraph”. ; also, see Fig. 9 third party Co2 comprises carbon offsetting projects including carbon capture/sequestration projects and see [0033] “Fig. 9 illustrates an embodiment of the method that make up the present invention, in which data representing pre-issued carbon offsets is transferred (904) to the DLT/Blockchain from carbon offsetting projects (902) that have been verified or certified, and issued onto a registry by an established carbon verification/certification body (300). Examples of this include, but are not limited to, third-party standard setting organizations that operate carbon registries onto which they issue the carbon offset credits associated with … carbon capture/sequestration projects that they themselves have verified/certified, or that other accredited organizations have verified/certified on their behalf.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to which said subject matter pertains to have modified Fargano-Avery-Gebald’s combination as taught above to include contracting carbon offsetting to a 3rd party as taught by Jabbar in order to allow a cloud service provider or data center operator to buy/purchase carbon offsets generated from carbon capture devices from third party providers in a safe and secure manner (see [0009] “…Today, Blockchain is an umbrella term for IT systems with wide areas of application that combine elements of (i) a replicated and shared distributed ledger, (ii) cryptographically secure transactions,…”; also, see [0018-0019], [0028], and [0031-0032]).
Claim(s) 18 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fargano et al (US 20110055092) in view of Avery et al (US 20110096503) and Gebald et al (US 10279306) as applied to claim 10 above, and further in view of Palanchian (US 20180232811).
As per claim 18, Fargano-Avery-Gebald teaches the carbon negative cloud service of claim 10, While Fargano teaches a system for offering a carbon negative option such as selling carbon credits which represents an amount of reduction in carbon dioxide (Co2), Fargano does not explicitly teach wherein the offering a carbon negative option to a cloud customer comprises offering to remove an amount of carbon dioxide.
Palanchian teaches a system and method comprising wherein offering a carbon negative option to a cloud customer comprises offering to remove an amount of carbon dioxide (see [0029] “…the term “carbon offset(s)” is intended to mean market-based instruments created by the development or management of offset projects whose purpose are to reduce, avoid or capture greenhouse gases. Such projects include production of renewable energy, afforestation, capture and destruction of methane and other greenhouse gases and energy-efficiency projects”; also, see [0076] “…to have those entities include offers involving the trust, offers for RECs, or other carbon offsets in their course of business. For example, offers for RECs may be incorporated into a utility company's billing system and sent to consumers along with their utility bills. RECs may be also incorporated into a manufacturer, distributor or retailer's computer system so that at the point of purchase customers are given an option to “Make it Green” by purchasing the necessary amount of RECs to compensate for the carbon footprint of the item or service purchased”, thus, users are given the option to buy a specific amount of offset credits (removal of carbon Co2), corresponding to a specific amount of Co2); also, see [0084]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to which said subject matter pertains to have modified Fargano-Avery-Gebald’s combination to include offering a carbon negative option to a cloud customer comprises offering to remove an amount of carbon dioxide as taught by Palanchian in order to allow a user or customer to buy only the necessary amount of carbon offsets/credits to compensate for a carbon footprint of the service purchased (see 0076 “at the point of purchase customers are given an option to “Make it Green” by purchasing the necessary amount of RECs to compensate for the carbon footprint of the item or service purchased”).
Claim(s) 26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fargano et al (US 20110055092) in view of Mullins et al (US 8756441), Avery et al (US 20110096503) and Gebald et al (US 10279306).
As per claim 26, Fargano teaches the computer-implemented method of claim 24 further comprising the steps of: Fargano does not explicitly teach b) estimating the approximate energy used by the cloud customer, and;
c) allocating the energy used by the cloud customer against the input energy for operating carbon capture apparatus.
Mullings teaches a system and method estimating the approximate energy used by the cloud customer (see Col 4 lines 48-60 “ the power usage information may be calculated in different ways such as per machine, per application, and per virtual machine. In further embodiments, power usage may be measured by who is using the power such as a particular user or company. In at least some embodiments, the usage data processing may be measured per cloud using the data center power. In certain embodiments, the power usage of the cloud may be calculated although the cloud may be using resources of several different data centers. In further embodiments, data storage usage may be measured in relation to processor performance, capacity, power consumption, temperature of the stat storage, humidity, and carbon credits”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to which said subject matter pertains to have modified Fargano’s invention to include estimating the approximate energy used by the cloud customer as taught by Mullins in order to report to a customer the estimated energy used for services provided (see Col 2 lines 46-58 “..display the monitored power consumption information to a user), and allow the system to move cloud services to leverage carbon credits or power costs (see Col 5 lines 56-58), and correlate the power usage to carbon credits (see Claim 8).
Fargano-Mullins does not explicitly teach allocating the energy used by the cloud customer against the input energy for operating carbon capture apparatus (limitation C) will be interpreted in the BRI in light of the disclosure as using the waste heat of the data center when providing/executing customer service as input energy for operating the carbon heat apparatus, wherein the waste heat is generated from the energy consumed and estimated for providing the customer services).
However, Avery teaches a system and method comprising a data center capturing a waste heat from a data center and allocating energy used in the data center for operating a heat pump (see [0010-0011] and [0013] “No other device, method, process or application has been identified where such low quality waste heat can be utilized as a meaningful work input to drive a heat driven chiller or heat pump”, allocating the energy of the data center has been interpreted as using the waste heat for producing another energy such as energy for a heat pump).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to which said subject matter pertains to have modified Fargano’s combination to include a data center capturing a waste heat from a data center and allocating energy used in the data center for operating a heat pump as taught by Avery in order to use the heat output of the heat pump to increase the efficiency of a data center system (see [0011] “Alternatively, the waste heat from the equipment in a data center may be combined with other sources of heat to drive a heat driven chiller or heat pump, thereby reducing the overall load on the alternate heat sources and improving the efficiency of the facility's systems”).
Fargano-Mullins-Avery still does not explicitly teach allocating the energy used or waste heat against the input energy for operating a carbon capture apparatus
However, Gebald teaches a system and method comprising operating a carbon capture apparatus using allocated waste heat (see Col 3 lines 1-60 which describes a carbon capture process; Col 17 lines 3-8 “FIG. 8 shows an embodiment integrating the steam generation and condensation heat exchanger inside the unit and coupling them with a heat pump to recover heat of condensation to steam generation. In this case, the steam generation 5 and condensation 8 heat exchangers are integrated into the unit and connected with a heat pump 10…”; also, see Col 7 line 59 to col 8 line 14 “… Steam originating from injected steam and desorbed water originating from the input gas mixture, in a mixture with gaseous carbon dioxide extracted from the unit in step (b), preferably in steps (b2), (b3), (b4) and (b5), can be condensed in a condensation heat exchanger separating the carbon dioxide at least partly from the condensed water. The condensation heat generated in the condensation heat exchanger can be used, if need be after further increase of the temperature by means of a heat pump, for generating the steam for use in step (b)…”).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to which said subject matter pertains to have modified Fargano-Avery’s combination to include operating a carbon capture apparatus using allocated waste heat as taught by Gebald in order to reduce carbon emission in the atmosphere (see Col 1 lines 24-54 “ The specific advantages of CO2 capture from the atmosphere include: (i) DAC can address the emissions of distributed sources (e.g. cars, planes), which account for a large portion of the worldwide greenhouse gas emissions and can currently not be captured at the site of emission in an economically feasible way; (ii) DAC can address emissions from the past and can therefore create truly negative emissions; (iii) DAC systems do not need to be attached to the source of emission but are rather location independent and can for example be located at the site of further CO2 processing; and (iv) if CO2 that was captured from the atmosphere is used for the production of synthetic hydrocarbon fuels from renewable energy sources, truly non-fossil fuels for the transportation sector can be obtained, that create no or very few net CO2 emissions to the atmosphere”) and combine it with the data center and waste heat collected from the data center of Fargano-Mullins-Avery to improve the efficiency of the data center and reduce the CO2 of the atmosphere as suggested by Gebald.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon, as cited in PTO form 892, is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Hur (US 20120240113) teaches a system and method for controlling data centers, wherein energy usage of data centers is calculated (0020) and determine a carbon cost/footprint based on energy usage (0046), wherein workload is allocated or balanced among several locations.
Akira et al (JP 2007093085) teaches operating a carbon capture apparatus using waste heat (see Abstract).
NPL References:
Breyer et al (Direct Air Capture of CO2: A Key Technology for Ambitious Climate
Change Mitigation) teaches the direct capture of Co2 using waste heat with low and high temperature (see page 2023 Col 3).
Liu et al "Justification of CO2 as the working fluid for a compressed gas energy storage system: A thermodynamic and economic study" teaches a system of a CO2 capture device using waste heat (see page 3).
Deng, "Systems Support for Carbon-Aware Cloud Applications, teaches a method comprising the determination of estimating energy consumption or carbon footprint of a data center when providing services (see page 14 and 19), and providing an optimization algorithm wherein application are allocated or distributed to the best performance host (see page 104 and 112).
MacKerron "Willingness to pay for carbon offset certification and co-benefits among (high-)f lying young adults in the UK", teaches a system for offering customer carbon the option for offset/reduction (see Fig. 1).
Examiner respectfully requests, in response to this Office action, support be shown for language added to any original claims on amendment and any new claims. That is, indicate support for newly added claim language by specifically pointing to page(s) and line number(s) in the specification and/or drawing figure(s). This will assist Examiner in prosecuting the application.
When responding to this Office Action, Applicant is advised to clearly point out the patentable novelty which he or she thinks the claims present, in view of the state of the art disclosed by the references cited or the objections made. Applicant must also show how the amendments avoid or differentiate from such references or objections. See 37 CFR 1.111 (c).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to OLVIN LOPEZ ALVAREZ whose telephone number is (571) 270-7686 and fax (571) 270-8686. The examiner can normally be reached Monday thru Friday from 9:00 A.M. to 6:00 P.M.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Robert Fennema, can be reached at (571) 272-2748. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/O. L./
Examiner, Art Unit 2117
/ROBERT E FENNEMA/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2117
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