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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This action is a non-final First Office Action.
This action is in response to communications filed on 10/17/2022 and 06/05/2024.
Claims 1-15 are pending and have been considered.
Claims 1- 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter, a judicial exception, an abstract idea (mental process and mathematical concepts, and in addition mental process), without significantly more.
Claims 1-4, 12-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102 (a)(1) as being anticipated by Moncorge et al, ‘Sequential fully implicit formulation for compositional simulation using natural variables’ Journal of Computational Physics 371, pp690-711, 2018 (“MON”).
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Moncorge et al, ‘Sequential fully implicit formulation for compositional simulation using natural variables’ Journal of Computational Physics 371, pp690-711, 2018 (“MON”), in view of Klemetsdal, et al, Efficient reordered nonlinear Gauss-Seidel solveres with high order black-oil models, January 6, 2020 wa_https://arxiv.org/pdf/2001.01630 , (“KLE”).
Claim 6-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Moncorge et al, ‘Sequential fully implicit formulation for compositional simulation using natural variables’ Journal of Computational Physics 371, pp690-711, 2018 (“MON”), in view of Klemetsdal, et al, Efficient reordered nonlinear Gauss-Seidel solveres with high order black-oil models, January 6, 2020 _https://arxiv.org/pdf/2001.01630 , (“KLE”) in further view of Mikyška, Implementation of higher-order methods for robust and efficient compositional simulation, Journal of Computational Physics 229 (2010) 2898–2913 (“MIK”)
Priority
The application claims priority to the PCTUS2127808, filed on 04/16/2021, with a provisional application 63/011,414 filed on 04/17/2020. The priority is acknowledged.
Information Disclosure Statement (IDS)
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 10/17/2022 and 06/05/2024 is/are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97.
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 are analyzed under the Alice/Mayo framework to determine whether the claims are directed to an ineligible judicial exception. The number in the parenthesis, next to a claim number, is the number of the parent claim. Recitation of judicial exceptions are highlighted in bold font. Paraphrased language, shown in italics, is used to simplify reference. Claims with similar limitations, although not verbatim identical, that share the same rationale under Alice/Mayo steps Step 1 (S1) and Steps 2 Prongs A1, A2 and B (S2A1, S2A2, S2B) are grouped. The analysis is performed on a representative claim of each group. An additional analysis is performed if any claims in the group includes additional limitations.
Claims 1-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter, a judicial exception (abstract idea, mental process and mathematical concepts) without significantly more.
(S1) Prima facie, claims 1-15 are each directed to a statutory category of invention: process (Claims 1-11 directed to a method), machine (claims 12-13 directed to an system) and manufacture (claims 14-15 directed to a non-transitory computer readable medium).
INDEPENDENT CLAIMS
(S2A1)
Claim 1, representative for claims 12, 14, recites recite an abstract idea, shown in bold below:
[A] computing, sequentially, for the plurality of cells 1) pressure, 2) saturation, 3) component balance, and 4) phase equilibrium to solve for movement of liquid and gas phases over a series of time-steps in the plurality of cells to represent fluid flow within the subterranean reservoir
In broadest reasonable interpretation and in view of the specification the claim recites a process aimed at: “computing sequentially for each cell in a grid, compositional/physical properties of a fluid in motion”
The combination covers iterative mathematical calculations, which are Mathematical Concepts (see MPEP 2106.04(a)(2) subsection I) ) In principle these can also be solved by a person with pen and paper which characterize a mental process.
Accordingly, claims 1, 12, 14 recite an abstract idea.
(S2A2) (S2B)
The identified abstract idea is not integrated into a practical application because there are no additional elements in the claims that could do so, and thus the claim is directed to an abstract idea. Similarly there are no additional elements to provide significantly more.
Therefore, it is concluded that claims 1, 12, 14 are ineligible.
DEPENDENT CLAIMS
Claim 2, 13, 15 further recites:
wherein computing over the series of time-steps is repeated until a convergence criteria is satisfied.
The claims continue to recite, and further reinforces/elaborates on the abstract idea in the parent claim. The limitation merely specifies additional mathematical parameters and constraints within the mathematical model. Such refinement of the mathematical calculations constitutes further recitation of the abstract mathematical concept itself, and there are no additional elements to integrate the exception into a practical application or provide significantly more. The claims are ineligible.
Claims 3-11 further recite
3) wherein all molecular components in each of the liquid and gas phases are fixed to move with an equivalent phase velocity.
4) further comprising updating the saturation based on the computed phase equilibrium.
5) further comprising reordering the plurality of cells based on upwind direction to define a permutation matrix; wherein the 2) saturation, 3) component balance, and 4) phase equilibrium are computed, sequentially, using the permutation matrix to solve for the movement of the liquid and gas phases in each of the plurality of cells.
6) wherein thermodynamic fluxes for each of the plurality of cells are accounted for when computing the phase equilibrium.
7) wherein the thermodynamic fluxes between adjacent cells are computed based on a difference between fluid volume and pore volume.
8) wherein an Equation of State (EoS) is used for computing the phase equilibrium.
9) wherein fluid density is modified to conserve mass and volume while computing the phase equilibrium.
10) wherein the phase equilibrium is only solved for in phase transition cells, cells in a two-phase region, or cells during a first iteration in a time-step.
11) wherein a multiscale finite volume framework is utilized for partitioning the model of the subterranean reservoir and solving for the movement of the liquid and gas phases.
Claims 3-11 continue to recite, and further reinforce/elaborate on the abstract idea in the independent/parent claim. Each of the respective limitations merely specifies additional modeling assumptions/constraints within the mathematical model and simulation. The same analysis as for claim 2 applies to all.
Such refinements of the mathematical calculations constitute further recitation of the abstract mathematical concept itself, and there are no additional elements to integrate the exception into a practical application or provide significantly more. Any benefit provided by these additional limitations relates only to refinement or increased accuracy of the mathematical model itself and computation of the model, rather than an improvement in the functioning of a computer or any other technology.
Improvements directed to the judicial exception – in this case improvements to the abstract mathematical modeling/calculations/computations - do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. There are no additional elements to provide significantly more.
Thus, claims 3-11 are found ineligible.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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 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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims that share substantially similar limitations (even though not verbatim) are grouped and analyzed together; the analysis is done on the claim with most comprehensive limitations. The parenthesis following a claim number indicates the parent claim.
Claim(s) 1-2, 12-15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102 (a)(1)as being anticipated by Moncorge et al, ‘Sequential fully implicit formulation for compositional simulation using natural variables’ Journal of Computational Physics 371, pp690-711, 2018 (“MON”).
Regarding Claim(s) 1, 12, 14 MON discloses
computing, sequentially, for the plurality of cells 1) pressure, 2) saturation, 3) component balance, and 4) phase equilibrium to solve for movement of liquid and gas phases over a series of time-steps in the plurality of cells to represent fluid flow within the subterranean reservoir {[Abstract] The Sequential Fully Implicit (SFI) method was proposed [12], in the context of a Multiscale Finite Volume (MSFV) formulation, to simulate coupled immiscible multiphase fluid flow in porous media. Later, Lee et al. [15]extended the SFI formulation to the black-oil model, whereby the gas component is allowed to dissolve in the oil phase. Most recently, the SFI approach was extended to fully compositional isothermal displacements by Moncorgé etal. [21]. SFI schemes solve the fully coupled system in two steps: (1) Construct and solve the pressure equation (flow problem). (2) Solve the coupled species transport equations for the phase saturations and phase compositions. The first step consists of forming and solving a nonlinear pressure equation, which is a weighted sum of all the component mass conservation equations. A Newton-based scheme is used to iterate out all the pressure dependent nonlinearities in both the accumulation and flux terms of the overall-volume balance equation. The resulting pressure field is used to compute the Darcy phase velocities and the total-velocity. The second step of the new SFI scheme entails introducing the overall-mass density as a degree-of-freedom, and solving the full set of component conservation equations cast in the natural-variables form (i.e., saturations and phase compositions). During the second step, the pressure and the total-velocity fields are fixed. [p696 first paragraph] a phase-split computation is performed for each cell. [p693 top] The nh+5constraint equations involve variables in the control-volume (cell) under consideration…The remaining constraints represent thermodynamic phase equilibrium for each hydrocarbon component (nhe quations).
Regarding claims 2(1), 13(12), 15(14) MON discloses the limitations of the parent claim. MON further discloses:
wherein computing over the series of time-steps is repeated until a convergence criteria is satisfied.{see at least p696 2.2.3 recomputing all the variable by phase-split computations…After convergence of the coupled system of component conservation equations…; Here, we propose to converge the system as in the first class of methods…At convergence, all the components are conserved to the prescribed tolerance; [p697] The first strategy consists of continuing with outer iterations until the dimensionless residuals |Rthermo|∞and |Rut|∞(infinity norm) fall below a tight tolerance. For strongly coupled flow and transport, even a tolerance of 0.01 may take many outer iterations, or no convergence may be achieved at all. This strategy is not practical, as it requires too many iterations in order to be competitive with methods like mSFI [21]. The second strategy consists of relaxing the tolerances of |Rthermo|∞and |Rut|∞in order to achieve convergence with less outer iterations (Qt)j,iare the total volumetric rate from celljto celli(positive if entering celli, negative if leaving celli), (VP)ithe pore volume of cell iand _tthe discretized timestep… From this point on, we can accept the timestep with the converged accumulation terms computed with the quantities ξcand ξw.}
Regarding claim 3(2) MON discloses the limitations of the parent claim. MON further discloses:
3(2) wherein all molecular components in each of the liquid and gas phases are fixed to move with an equivalent phase velocity. {[[p692 2.1.1. The conservation of a hydrocarbon component, c, and of the water component, w, can be written as:… The velocity of each phase p ∈{g, o, w}is given by Darcy’s law [p696] 2.2.3. Compositional system. The second step of the sequential implicit method consists of freezing the pressure and total-velocity fields and advecting the components. For this purpose, we use the transport form of the conservation equations (i.e., Eqs.(7)and (28)).
Regarding claim 4(3) MON discloses the limitations of the parent claim. MON further discloses:
further comprising updating the saturation based on the computed phase equilibrium. {
[p693 top] The nh+5constraint equations involve variables in the control-volume (cell) under consideration….; eq 9-13; The remaining constraints represent thermodynamic phase equilibrium for each hydrocarbon component (nhequations). These local equilibrium constraints are applied only when both hydrocarbon phases (oil and gas) are present in the control volume. Eq 14-21; To compute the thermodynamic values of the saturations and the mole-fractions, we first compute the overall mole-fractions with (15)and (16), we then solve the phase-split system to get the thermodynamic values of the mole-fractions ycand xc. Finally, we use the βpto compute the normalized thermodynamic values of the saturations (normalized values needed for the relative permeabilities and the capillary pressures functions) }
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) are summarized as follows:
i. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
ii. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
iii. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
iv. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims that share substantially similar limitations (even though not verbatim) are grouped and analyzed together; the analysis is done on the claim with most comprehensive limitations. The parenthesis following a claim number indicates the parent claim.
Claim 5(4) are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Moncorge et al, ‘Sequential fully implicit formulation for compositional simulation using natural variables’ Journal of Computational Physics 371, pp690-711, 2018 (“MON”), in view of Klemetsdal, et al, Efficient reordered nonlinear Gauss-Seidel solveres with high order black-oil models, January 6, 2020 _https://arxiv.org/pdf/2001.01630 , (“KLE”).
Regarding claim 5(4), MON discloses the limitations of parent claim, including calculations for saturation, component balance and phase equilibrium to solve for themovement of liquid and gas phases in each of the plurality of cells. MON does not disclose, however KLE discloses:
further comprising reordering the plurality of cells based on upwind direction to define a permutation matrix; wherein the 2) saturation, 3) component balance, and 4) phase equilibrium are computed, sequentially, using the permutation matrix to solve for the movement of the liquid and gas phases in each of the plurality of cells. {[Abstract] This solver uses intercell fluxes to reorder the grid cells according to their upstream neighbors, and groups cells that are mutually dependent because of counter-current flow into local clusters. The cells and local clusters can then be solved in sequence, starting from the inflow and moving gradually downstream, since each new cell or local cluster will only depend on upstream neighbors that have already been computed.; [p6 5.1 Reordering based on intecell fluxes, right col, top : acyclic graph (DAG) induced by the intercell fluxes and use this to reorder the cells, we can solve the transport equations cell-by-cell by traversing the sorted graph. The algebraic interpretation of this is the following: If we linearize the nonlinear transport equations for all cells simultaneously, and permute the system according to the topological order, we obtain a lower-triangular matrix}
In addition, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to combine the teachings of MON with KLE. One would have been motivated to do so, in order to obtain the advantage of reducing expensive computation. As KLE discloses [page 6 right col] “If we linearize the nonlinear transport equations for all cells simultaneously, and permute the system according to the topological order, we obtain a lower-triangular matrix. Note, however, that we never assemble the discretization matrix for the full system in the reordering solution procedure. Instead we solve the nonlinear transport equations Rα,i = 0 cell-by-cell. This way, we avoid expensive linearizations of large systems of nonlinear equations.”
Accordingly, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious over MON in view of KLE.
Claim 6-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being obvious over Moncorge et al, ‘Sequential fully implicit formulation for compositional simulation using natural variables’ Journal of Computational Physics 371, pp690-711, 2018 (“MON”), in view of Klemetsdal, et al, Efficient reordered nonlinear Gauss-Seidel solveres with high order black-oil models, January 6, 2020 _https://arxiv.org/pdf/2001.01630 , (“KLE”) in further view of Mikyška, Implementation of higher-order methods for robust and efficient compositional simulation, Journal of Computational Physics 229 (2010) 2898–2913 (“MIK”)
Regarding claim 6(5) MON/KLE discloses the limitations of the parent claim. The combination does not disclose, however MIK discloses:
wherein thermodynamic fluxes for each of the plurality of cells are accounted for when computing the phase equilibrium. {[p2899 bottom] The splitting of components between the phases is given by the following thermodynamic equilibrium equations; [p 2905 5. Computational algorithm] (c) Calculate fluxes using the procedure described in Section 4.3.(d) Compute new overall composition using one explicit Euler time step of the DG scheme (32) or FV-MUSCL scheme.; g) Perform the phase stability analysis and flash calculation to obtain number of phases and phase composition at the new pressure, temperature and overall composition at element centers and at element faces. [2904] , the five flashes at every elements are performed to obtain equilibrium compositions xa;i;K at element centers (using the average element pressure and overall composition) and xai;K;E at element faces (using the traces of pressures, and overall composition evaluated at element faces evaluated in terms of the average values and reconstructed slopes). The values xai;K;E are then used to evaluate xgai;K;E needed in (33) using upwinding (31). } Mikyska algorithm steps describe calculation of fluxes, updating cell composition and subsequent flash calculation. Because the phase equilibrium is computed after and based on flux-updated cell state, the thermodynamic (mass/component) fluxes for each cell are necessarily a accounted for which computing the phase equilibrium.
In addition, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, to combine the teachings of MON/KLE with MYK. One would have been motivated to do so, in order to obtain the advantage of capturing the effect f phase equilibrum in confined space and improve numerical convergence educing expensive computation.
Accordingly, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious over MON/KLE in further view of MYK.
Regarding claim 7(6) MON/KLE/MIK discloses the limitations of the parent claim. The combination does not disclose, however MON further discloses:
wherein the thermodynamic fluxes between adjacent cells are computed based on a difference between fluid volume and pore volume. { [p694 2.1.3. Thermodynamic volume equation] It is the volume of phase pdivided by the pore-volume. At convergence, the sum of the thermodynamic volumes of the fluid phases must equal the pore volume} Before convergence the volumes were different and their difference (in form of ratio, till ration becomes 1, was used in computation.
Accordingly, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious over MON/KLE/MYK.
Regarding claim 8(7) MON/KLE/MIK discloses the limitations of the parent claim. The combination does not disclose, however MON further discloses:
wherein an Equation of State (EoS) is used for computing the phase equilibrium. {MON [693 2.1.2. ] The remaining constraints represent thermodynamic phase equilibrium for each hydrocarbon component (nhequations). These local equilibrium constraints are applied only when both hydrocarbon phases (oil and gas) are present in the control volume. Existing formulations can be based on black-oil, or K-value correlations [7], as well as the Peng–Robinson [28], Redlich–Kwong [29]and Soave–Redlich–Kwong [30]cubic equations of state (EOS) models. }
Accordingly, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious over MON/KLE/MYK.
Regarding claim 9(8) MON/KLE/MIK discloses the limitations of the parent claim. The combination does not disclose, however MON further discloses:
wherein fluid density is modified to conserve mass and volume while computing the phase equilibrium. { [p692 2.1. ]The overall density, ρt, is used as an additional global variable. [p696 2.2.3]… the moles (mass) of each component are conserved Upon convergence, the mass conservation equation of each of the components is satisfied subject to the desired tolerance; however, some discrepancies in the overall-volume balance and the total-velocity persist. Only the overall-volume balance splitting error has been defined in these previous works. Attempts to reduce this volume splitting error have been done in Acs et al., Trangenstein andBell, Pau et al., Faigle et al. and Doster et al. by using a local relaxation term to keep the error bounded in time or by local smoothing[8]. They all result in local changes relaxing the mass balance equations. However, these volume splitting errors are very local and have rarely large effect on the overall flow. On the contrary, the total-velocity splitting error, has never been documented before and has a much larger support. We show that we need to control this second splitting error to recover the fully-implicit solution}
Accordingly, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious over MON/KLE/MYK.
Regarding claim 10(9) MON/KLE/MIK discloses the limitations of the parent claim. The combination does not disclose, however MON further discloses:
wherein the phase equilibrium is only solved for in phase transition cells, cells in a two-phase region, or cells during a first iteration in a time-step.{ [MON 696 bottom] Namely, we better control the nonlinearities with the saturations as variables and we compute the phase-split calculations only when a new phase is detected.}
Accordingly, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious over MON/KLE/MYK.
Regarding claim 11(10) MON/KLE/MIK discloses the limitations of the parent claim. The combination does not disclose, however MON further discloses:
wherein a multiscale finite volume framework is utilized for partitioning the model of the subterranean reservoir and solving for the movement of the liquid and gas phases. {[Mon p 691 bottom 1. Introduction] The Sequential Fully Implicit (SFI) method was first proposed to model multiphase fluid flow without mass exchange in the context of the Multiscale Finite Volume (MSFV) method; [694 bottom] We use a finite-volume method with single-point upstream weighting for the spatial discretization and a first-order implicit (backward Euler) scheme for the integration in time.}
Accordingly, the claimed subject matter would have been obvious over MON/KLE/MYK.
Additional References Cited
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
AU 2011332274 A1
EP 1792053 B1
US 20020177986 A1
US 20020177986 A1
US 20100004908 A1
Conclusion
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/A.S./Examiner, Art Unit 2188
/RYAN F PITARO/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2188