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
The instant application having Application No. 18/006,763 filed on 1/25/2023 is presented for examination.
Examiner Notes
Examiner cites particular columns and line numbers in the references as applied to the claims below for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings in the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested that, in preparing responses, the applicant 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.
Priority
Acknowledgement is made of applicant’s claim for priority based on applications CN202111383522.0 filed in the PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA on 11/22/2021.
Receipt is acknowledged of papers submitted under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d), which papers have been placed of record in the file.
Drawings
The applicant’s drawings submitted are acceptable for examination purposes.
Authorization for Internet Communications
The examiner encourages Applicant to submit an authorization to communicate with the examiner via the Internet by making the following statement (from MPEP 502.03):
“Recognizing that Internet communications are not secure, I hereby authorize the USPTO to communicate with the undersigned and practitioners in accordance with 37 CFR 1.33 and 37 CFR 1.34 concerning any subject matter of this application by video conferencing, instant messaging, or electronic mail. I understand that a copy of these communications will be made of record in the application file.”
Please note that the above statement can only be submitted via Central Fax, Regular postal mail, or EFS Web.
Information Disclosure Statement
As required by M.P.E.P. 609, the applicant’s submissions of the Information Disclosure Statement dated 4/06/2023 and 6/30/2023 are acknowledged by the examiner and the cited references have been considered in the examination of the claims now pending.
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)(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 18, 20-35 and 37 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Van Milligan (US 2011/0249668).
As per claim 18, Van Milligan discloses a process scheduling method, comprising:
obtaining, by a terminal device, a process set of a target application running in the foreground (Paragraph 22 “Referring to FIG. 1, in one embodiment background threads may be assigned a priority from a band of priorities that overlaps in part with those priority levels assigned to foreground threads.”);
obtaining, by the terminal device, a first tag of a first process (Paragraph 22 “a band of priorities”) when the first process in the process set is instructed to be scheduled (Paragraph 22 The overlapping priority bands increase the likelihood that a background process/thread will make progress (i.e., execute) even when there is a foreground process/thread running.”);
identifying, by the terminal device, the first tag (Paragraph 28 “suspended state”); and
when the first tag is used to indicate that scheduling of the first process is prohibited, prohibiting, by the terminal device, the scheduling of the first process (Paragraph 28 “As used herein, the "suspended state" is a condition in which a process is not permitted to schedule threads for execution, but whose state is retained in main memory.”);
As per claim 20, Van Milligan further discloses wherein before the obtaining, by a terminal device, a process set of a target application running in the foreground, the method further comprising:
marking, by the terminal device, the first tag for the first process (Paragraph 38).
As per claim 21, Van Milligan further discloses wherein the marking, by the terminal device, the first tag for the first process comprises:
determining, by the terminal device, whether a hardware module of the terminal device needs to be invoked to execute the first process; and
marking, by the terminal device when the hardware module does not need to be invoked, the first tag of the first process to indicate that scheduling is prohibited (Paragraph 38 “The Task Completion service provides a process with the limited ability to complete a task begun in the foreground state while in the background state. In one embodiment, background processes (i.e., processes executing in the background state) are throttled to avoid interfering with foreground processes. Illustrative tasks that are well suited to use this service are network upload and download operations, disk storage and retrieval operations and image processing operations (e.g., those operations that do not require specialized graphics hardware such as GPU). In one embodiment, a background process is permitted to continue processing (i.e., receiving CPU time in accordance with its scheduling priority as discussed above) until a specified event occurs. Illustrative events include a system timer (giving the process a specified amount of time to complete processing, e.g., 5 to 30 minutes of "clock time" or 5 millisecond of CPU time), loss of external power to the device, or activation of a primary or secondary display.”).
As per claim 22, Van Milligan further discloses wherein the method further comprises: obtaining, by the terminal device, an operating parameter of the first process when the hardware module needs to be invoked; and setting, by the terminal device, the first tag to a priority lower than a preset threshold when the operating parameter meets a preset condition (Paragraph 39).
As per claim 23, Van Milligan further discloses wherein when the terminal device determines that the hardware module is a communication module, the operating parameter is a data transmission rate when the first process is executed (Paragraph 38 “Illustrative tasks that are well suited to use this service are network upload and download operations, disk storage and retrieval operations and image processing operations (e.g., those operations that do not require specialized graphics hardware such as GPU).”); and
the setting, by the terminal device, the first tag to a priority lower than a preset threshold when the operating parameter meets a preset condition comprises:
obtaining, by the terminal device, a type of the target application (Paragraph 38);
when the type of the target application is not an instant chat application, determining, by the terminal device, whether the data transmission rate is lower than a preset rate threshold (Paragraph 38); and
when the data transmission rate is lower than the preset rate threshold, setting, by the terminal device, the first tag to a priority lower than the preset threshold (Paragraph 38 “In one embodiment, background processes (i.e., processes executing in the background state) are throttled to avoid interfering with foreground processes”.).
As per claim 24, Van Milligan further discloses wherein the method further comprises:
obtaining, by the terminal device, a first tag of a second process when the second process in the process set is instructed to be scheduled;
identifying, by the terminal device, the first tag of the second process; and
when the first tag of the second process is used to indicate that scheduling of the second process is prohibited, prohibiting, by the terminal device, the scheduling of the second process (Paragraph 42).
As per claim 25, Van Milligan further discloses wherein the method further comprises:
updating, by the terminal device, the first tag when the first tag is used to indicate that scheduling of the first process is prohibited, and a quantity of times the first process is instructed to be invoked is greater than a preset threshold, wherein the updated first tag is used to indicate a priority (Paragraph 39); or
updating, by the terminal device, the first tag when the first tag is used to indicate that a priority is lower than a preset threshold, and a quantity of times the first process is instructed to be invoked is greater than a preset threshold, wherein a priority indicated by the updated first tag is higher than the preset threshold (Paragraph 39); and
wherein the first process is instructed to be invoked is user-triggered (Paragraph 39).
As per claim 26, Van Milligan further discloses wherein the first process is a keep-alive process, or a message receiving process of a non-instant chat application (Paragraph 48 “heartbeat”).
As per claim 27, Van Milligan further discloses wherein before the obtaining, by a terminal device, a process set of a target application running in the foreground, the method further comprises:
marking, by the terminal device, the first tag for the first process in response to an operation of a user (Paragraph 39 “Referring to FIG. 2, illustrative Task Completion operation 200 begins when notice that a non-foreground user application (SECOND APP) is to be brought into the foreground (block 205). This may result from, for example, a user's request to start a second user application or an incoming call to a VOIP user application.”).
As per claim 28, it is a method claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 25 and is thus rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 29, it is a method claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 21 and is thus rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 30, it is a method claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 25 and is thus rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 31, it is a method claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 21 and is thus rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 32, it is a method claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 22 and is thus rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 33, it is a method claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 23 and is thus rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 34, it is a method claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 25 and is thus rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 35, it is a device claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 18 and is thus rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 37, it is a device claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 20 and is thus rejected under the same rationale.
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.
Claims 19 and 36 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Van Milligan in view of Lin (US 9,588,811).
As per claim 19, Van Milligan in view of Lin further discloses wherein the first tag is a TASK_INTERRUPTIBLE identifier, a TASK_STOPPED identifier, or a TASK_TRACED identifier, and the TASK_INTERRUPTIBLE identifier, the TASK_STOPPED identifier, or the TASK_TRACED identifier is used to indicate that scheduling of the first process is prohibited (Lin, column 3, lines 24-60 shows that the above identifiers are common in the Linux operating system and are related to the waking up of threads from suspended states. In light of the disclosure of Van Milligan, one of ordinary skill would recognize that it would be possible to used the tags of Lin to create the above claimed limitation.).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to modify the method of Van Milligan to include the teachings of Lin because it provides for the purpose of allowing threads to be woken up based on the tag that was assigned to it when it was suspended. In this way, the combination benefits from decreased energy usage.
As per claim 36, it is a device claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 19 and is thus rejected under the same rationale.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to TIMOTHY A MUDRICK whose telephone number is (571)270-3374. The examiner can normally be reached 9am-5pm Central Time.
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, Kevin Young can be reached at (571) 270-3180. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/TIMOTHY A MUDRICK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2194 10/08/2025