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 .
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.
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“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.”
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Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed November 11, 2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant argues that the claims are allowable because:
“amendment further clarifies that a node-resident relay dispatches only to its own host
system, not to any remote system. Neither reference discloses nor suggests this local-dispatch behavior. No teaching or suggestion of "local-only" dispatch. Kowalski uses a centralized job manager to coordinate timing and target platforms. Job scheduling agents (JSAs) do not both (i) acquire qualifying job data and (ii) dispatch execution requests solely to their own host. Chess is built around global placement/migration (APC, flow controller, suspend/restore). Node agents act under centralized decisions; they are not constrained to local-only output.” (Applicant’s Remarks, Pg. 5).
Examiner respectfully disagrees. In response to Applicant's argument that the references fail to show certain features of the invention, it is noted that the features upon which applicant relies (i.e., “a node-resident relay dispatches only to its own host system, not to any remote system”) are not recited in the rejected claims. Although the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are not read into the claims. See In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 26 USPQ2d 1057 (Fed. Cir. 1993). Furthermore, Chess teaches that a node agent is included in the job execution system. ([0010], A first domain of the plurality of domains may comprise a node agent in communication with the placement controller and the job scheduler... node agent provides job management functionality within the heterogeneous server machine through interaction with the machine agent).
Applicant also argues that the claims are allowable because:
“No motivation to combine to reach the claimed configuration. Kowalski seeks temporal smoothing via central orchestration; Chess seeks spatial optimization via cross-node placement/migration. A person of ordinary skill in the art would lack a reasoned motivation to impose a local-only dispatch constraint on a node agent; doing so would run counter to Chess's global placement/migration model and Kowalski's centralized coordination (see KSR-a combination requires a rationale consistent with the teachings).” (Applicant’s Remarks, Pg. 5).
Examiner respectfully disagrees. In response to Applicant’s argument that there is no teaching, suggestion, or motivation to combine the references, the examiner recognizes that obviousness may be established by combining or modifying the teachings of the prior art to produce the claimed invention where there is some teaching, suggestion, or motivation to do so found either in the references themselves or in the knowledge generally available to one of ordinary skill in the art. See In re Fine, 837 F.2d 1071, 5 USPQ2d 1596 (Fed. Cir. 1988), In re Jones, 958 F.2d 347, 21 USPQ2d 1941 (Fed. Cir. 1992), and KSR International Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 82 USPQ2d 1385 (2007). In this case, both Kowalski and Chess are related to job scheduling using scheduling agents. It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention that based on the combination, Kowalski’s job scheduling system that includes a job scheduling agent would be modified to include Chess’ known scheduling coordination mechanism between its “machine agent” and “node agent” resulting in a system that coordinates job scheduling between a job scheduling agent and a job execution component.
“Even if combined, the result still lacks the claimed arrangement. At most, the
combination yields a central scheduler (Kowalski) plus global placement/migration (Chess). It does not produce a relay that (a) acquires job data satisfying a condition and (b) outputs the execution request to its own host system-i.e., a local-acquisition + local-dispatch pipeline.
Examiner respectfully disagrees. In response to Applicant's argument that the references fail to show certain features of the invention, it is noted that the features upon which applicant relies (i.e., “a relay that ... (b) outputs the execution request to its own host system-i.e., a local-acquisition + local-dispatch pipeline”) are not recited in the rejected claims. Although the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are not read into the claims. See In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 26 USPQ2d 1057 (Fed. Cir. 1993).
“Claim 1 further recites that a predetermined event at one system triggers fan-out execution of multiple relays on multiple other systems, with each relay dispatching only locally. Kowalski's centralized rescheduling and Chess's migration merely reassign/move work; they do not disclose a fan-out trigger or preservation of local-only dispatch.
Examiner respectfully disagrees. In response to applicant's argument that the references fail to show certain features of the invention, it is noted that the features upon which applicant relies (i.e., “predetermined event at one system triggers fan-out execution of multiple relays on multiple other systems, with each relay dispatching only locally”) are not recited in the rejected claim(s). Although the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are not read into the claims. See In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 26 USPQ2d 1057 (Fed. Cir. 1993). Applicant’s claims require:
“wherein the operations further comprise executing control so that, in response to occurrence of a predetermined event in one of the plurality of job execution systems in which a plurality of the job relays are executed, the plurality of the job relays are executed in a plurality of other job execution systems in a distributed manner.” (Applicant’s Remarks, Pg. 5).
Both Kowalski and Chess teach this feature:
Kowalski: (Column 7, Lines 21-30, the client may indicate a set of job iteration prerequisites in addition to the iteration scheduling requirements or rules. Client-specified prerequisites may include, for example,… a requirement that some other program must have completed successfully prior to the start of the job iteration under consideration; and Column 14, Line 59-Column 15, Line 10, the service may examine, as a group, a collection of jobs targeted for execution (based on nominal execution times) within the next 12 hours at all the instances and at the VMSS of a given virtualization host... clients may be able to specify a set of jobs whose start times are to be determined based on analyzing the jobs' requirements as a group.—that is, clients may delineate the grouping of jobs for scheduling purposes)
Chess: ([0010], the machine agent is capable of at least one of creating and configures a virtual machine image for a new domain, copying files from the second domain to another domain, starting a process in another domain; [0028], The managed system includes a set of heterogeneous server machines, referred to henceforth as node 1 202, node 2 204 and node 3 206. Web applications, app A 208, app B 210, which are served by application servers, are replicated across nodes to form application server clusters. Requests to these applications arrive at an entry request router 212 which may be either an L4 or L7 gateway that distributes requests to clustered applications 208, 210 according to a load balancing mechanism. Long-running jobs are submitted to a job scheduler 214, placed in its queue, and dispatched from the queue based on the resource allocation decisions of the management system; and [0055], An image that is either running or paused may also be resource controlled. Migration may be used to transfer the image to another node. A suspend-move-and-restore mechanism has been implemented by which the domain is suspended on one machine, the checkpoint and image files are copied to another node, and the domain is restored on the new host node).
“Claim 2 recites that each relay acquires job data linked to a location associated with that relay. Neither reference discloses job-data/location binding at the relay-much less in combination with the claimed local-only dispatch.”
Examiner respectfully disagrees. In response to Applicant's argument that the references fail to show certain features of the invention, it is noted that the features upon which applicant relies (i.e., “job-data/location binding at the relay”) are not recited in the rejected claims. Although the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are not read into the claims. See In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 26 USPQ2d 1057 (Fed. Cir. 1993). The limitation at issue in claim 2 recites: “wherein the job relay... is linked to the location data indicating the location associated with the job relay.” Kowalski teaches this feature. (Column 9, Lines 31-34, Job descriptor elements may include, for example, …data sources and/or destinations; and Column 13, Lines 53-61, resources of the provider network may be organized into a hierarchy that may include geographical regions, data centers within geographical regions, and/or fault-isolation containers called “availability zones”. The target instances for the jobs of list entries 410 and 414 in FIG. 4 are specified using both an instance identifier and an availability zone identifier; in other implementations, region names/identifiers and/or data center names/identifiers may also be provided).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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 for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-3 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kowalski et al. (US 10394597) in view of Chess et al. (US 2008/0270199).
As per claim 1, Kowalski teaches the invention substantially as claimed including a job control system (Column 6, Lines 20-24, the job scheduling service may manage job executions at a large number of execution platforms of the provider network, such as a collection of compute instances and/or virtualization management software stacks at numerous virtualization hosts), comprising:
job data storage for storing job data indicating a job to be executed (Column 7, Lines 45-50, executable programs/scripts, prerequisites and/or other elements of the job descriptors may be stored in a job database or repository of the provider network in some embodiments. Prerequisites may also be specified for bound jobs in one embodiment; and Column 9, Lines 12-18, Information regarding job descriptors (including, for example, the names of the executable programs or scripts involved, or the actual executable programs/scripts themselves), temporal load distribution policies that may be applied to various categories of jobs, and various metrics collected for job iterations may be stored in job service database 182 in the depicted embodiment); and
a plurality of job execution systems each configured to execute at least a part of the job data stored in the job data storage (Column 6, Lines 20-24, the job scheduling service may manage job executions at a large number of execution platforms of the provider network, such as a collection of compute instances and/or virtualization management software stacks at numerous virtualization hosts; and Column 9, Lines 44-46, Each execution platform may be expected to implement a plurality of jobs),
each of the plurality of job execution systems including:
at least one processor (Column 19, Lines 20-21, computing device 3000 includes one or more processors 3010 coupled to a system memory 3020); and
at least one memory device (Column 19, Lines 20-21, computing device 3000 includes one or more processors 3010 coupled to a system memory 3020) storing instructions which, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the at least one processor to perform operations comprising:
executing at least one job relay means (Column 8, Lines 9-10, Job scheduling agents may be instantiated at the external execution platforms; and Column 8, Lines 58-59, the JSS may include local components called job scheduling agents (JSAs) at the execution platforms) each associated with a condition (Column 6, Lines 54-57, The JSA may initiate the executable operations required for the iteration at the selected execution platform, in accordance with the target start time indicated in the job execution request; Column 7, Lines 21-30, the client may indicate a set of job iteration prerequisites in addition to the iteration scheduling requirements or rules. Client-specified prerequisites may include, for example, an operating system version, a requirement that a software program or programming environment be installed at or accessible from the execution platform, a requirement that some other program must have completed successfully prior to the start of the job iteration under consideration, specified performance capabilities of the execution platforms, and so on; and Column 7, Lines 32-35, other jobs that are tied to specific compute instances or toed to other execution platforms, which may be referred to as “bound” jobs); and
receiving a job execution request to execute a job (Column 6, Lines 29-30, a job execution request or command indicating the start time may be sent to the JSA at a selected execution platform) and executing the job (Column 8, Lines 48-51, Batch jobs whose execution timing is managed by a job scheduling service (JSS) of the provider network may be executed at VMSSs 125 and/or at the compute instances 135; and Column 9, Lines 44-46, Each execution platform may be expected to implement a plurality of jobs),
wherein the job relay is configured to acquire the job data which is stored in the job data storage (Column 6, Lines 31-38, the JSA at a given execution platform may also (or instead) query or poll the job scheduling service to obtain information about jobs to be scheduled at that execution platform. Thus, in various embodiments, the transmission of various types of iteration scheduling information (including for example an indication of iteration start times) may be initiated by either the job manager, by the JSAs, or both the job manager and the JSAs), and satisfies the condition associated with the job relay (Column 6, Lines 54-57, The JSA may initiate the executable operations required for the iteration at the selected execution platform, in accordance with the target start time indicated in the job execution request; and Column 7, Lines 37-45, Specific execution platforms may be selected for unbound jobs as needed, based on analysis of the prerequisites specified for the jobs, their scheduling requirements, and the temporal load distribution policy in effect. In at least some embodiments, an unbound job may be executed at the same platform as one or more jobs that are bound to (i.e., scheduled explicitly for) the execution platform; thus, execution platforms need not be dedicated exclusively for only unbound jobs or only unbound jobs),
wherein the operations further comprise executing control so that, in response to occurrence of a predetermined event in one of the plurality of job execution systems in which a plurality of the job relays are executed, the plurality of the job relays are executed in a plurality of other job execution systems (Column 7, Lines 21-30, the client may indicate a set of job iteration prerequisites in addition to the iteration scheduling requirements or rules. Client-specified prerequisites may include, for example,… a requirement that some other program must have completed successfully prior to the start of the job iteration under consideration; and Column 14, Line 59-Column 15, Line 10, the service may examine, as a group, a collection of jobs targeted for execution (based on nominal execution times) within the next 12 hours at all the instances and at the VMSS of a given virtualization host. Each of the jobs of such a group may be expected to use at least some resources of the given virtualization host, such as its CPUs or cores, its memory, its storage devices, or the VMSS itself. As such, overlapping job execution periods may lead to resource contention that could impact the performance of the jobs, as well as the performance of other applications running at the virtualization host. In at least some embodiments, when determining target start times, the service may also take into account the expected application workload (as opposed to the scheduled job workload) at the execution platforms. In at least one implementation, clients may be able to specify a set of jobs whose start times are to be determined based on analyzing the jobs' requirements as a group.—that is, clients may delineate the grouping of jobs for scheduling purposes) in a distributed manner (Column 3, Lines 35-46, A given provider network may include numerous data centers (which may be distributed across different geographical regions) hosting various resource pools, such as collections of physical and/or virtualized computer servers, storage servers with one or more storage devices each, networking equipment and the like, needed to implement, configure and distribute the infrastructure and services offered by the provider. A number of different hardware and/or software components, some of which may be instantiated or executed at different data centers or in different geographical regions, may collectively be used to implement each of the services in various embodiments).
Kowalski fails to specifically teach, wherein the job relay is configured to output a job execution request in accordance with the acquired job data to the job execution of one of the plurality of job execution systems in which the job relay means is included.
However, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include this step because Kowalski teaches that JSA agents can request local execution. (Column 9, Lines 25-26, a given JSA may be configured to handle local job-related operations at a plurality of execution platforms; and Column 9, Lines 47-52, shared resources utilized or accessed for executing various types of jobs may include local, on-host resources such as resource 121A (e.g., a local processing element such as a core or a CPU, local memory, a local storage device such as a disk, or a local logical resource such as a lock) at host 115A and resource 121K at host 115B).
Furthermore, Chess teaches, wherein the job relay means is configured to output a job execution request in accordance with the acquired job data to the job execution system ([0060], node agent 310 creates (or obtains a pre-created) image in which to run the job…Then it asks machine agent 302 to copy corresponding process binaries to the new image and to boot the image) that includes the job relay ([0010], A first domain of the plurality of domains may comprise a node agent in communication with the placement controller and the job scheduler... node agent provides job management functionality within the heterogeneous server machine through interaction with the machine agent).
Chess also teaches, a plurality of job execution systems each configured to execute at least a part of the job data stored in the job data storage ([0028], The managed system includes a set of heterogeneous server machines, referred to henceforth as node 1 202, node 2 204 and node 3 206), each of the plurality of job execution systems including:
at least one job relay ([0060], node agent 316, which provides the job management functionality. It provides operations to start, pause, resume, suspend, restore, and resource control a job); and
receiving a job execution request to execute a job and executing the job ([0047], user-level code can execute in guest VMS, called domains; and [0061], a job is placed in its own domain);
wherein the operations further comprise executing control so that, in response to occurrence of a predetermined event in one of the plurality of job execution systems in which a plurality of the job relay are executed, the plurality of the job relay are executed in a plurality of other job execution systems ([0010], the machine agent is capable of at least one of creating and configures a virtual machine image for a new domain, copying files from the second domain to another domain, starting a process in another domain; and [0055], An image that is either running or paused may also be resource controlled. Migration may be used to transfer the image to another node. A suspend-move-and-restore mechanism has been implemented by which the domain is suspended on one machine, the checkpoint and image files are copied to another node, and the domain is restored on the new host node) in a distributed manner ([0028], The managed system includes a set of heterogeneous server machines, referred to henceforth as node 1 202, node 2 204 and node 3 206. Web applications, app A 208, app B 210, which are served by application servers, are replicated across nodes to form application server clusters. Requests to these applications arrive at an entry request router 212 which may be either an L4 or L7 gateway that distributes requests to clustered applications 208, 210 according to a load balancing mechanism. Long-running jobs are submitted to a job scheduler 214, placed in its queue, and dispatched from the queue based on the resource allocation decisions of the management system).
Kowalski and Chess are analogous because they are each related to job scheduling. Kowalski teaches a method of distributed job scheduling based on job requirements (Abstract, Methods and apparatus for flexible batch job scheduling in virtualization environments are disclosed. A descriptor for a batch job requested by a client is received at a job scheduling service; Column 6, Lines 20-24, the job scheduling service may manage job executions at a large number of execution platforms of the provider network, such as a collection of compute instances and/or virtualization management software stacks at numerous virtualization hosts; and Column 8, Lines 57-62, the JSS may include local components called job scheduling agents (JSAs) at the execution platforms. In at least some embodiments, the virtual machine images used for at least some compute instances 135 may be pre-configured or pre-built to use the JSS ). Kowalski also teaches job scheduling agents for scheduling jobs at each distributed computing instance. (Column 6, Lines 54-57, The JSA may initiate the executable operations required for the iteration at the selected execution platform, in accordance with the target start time indicated in the job execution request). Chess also teaches distributed job scheduling and includes a job scheduling agent (i.e. node agent) that sends execution commands to an execution component of a compute instance. (Abstract, A plurality of control functions are determined that are provided by virtualizations on one or more containers in which one or more of the plurality of heterogeneous workloads run. An expected utility of a plurality of settings of at least one of the plurality of control functions is determined in response to the plurality of high-level quality of service goals. At least one of the plurality of control functions is exercised in response to the expected utility to effect changes in the behavior of the system; and [0060], node agent 310 creates (or obtains a pre-created) image in which to run the job…Then it asks machine agent 302 to copy corresponding process binaries to the new image and to boot the image). It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention that based on the combination, Kowalski’s job scheduling system that includes a job scheduling agent would be modified to include Chess’ machine agent resulting in a system that coordinates job scheduling between a job scheduling agent and a job execution component. Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine the teachings of Kowalski and Chess.
As per claim 2, Kowalski teaches, wherein the job data is linked to location data indicating a location (Column 7, lines 51-56, in addition to specifying the executable programs and the kinds of prerequisites/requirements discussed above, data sources and/or destinations (e.g., one or more directories or folders, or objects of a storage service implemented at the provider network) may also be specified for various jobs by the clients; and Column 8, Lines 13-18, when making decisions about scheduling a given job iteration, the job scheduling service may be able to consider descriptors for a set of jobs that include some jobs targeted for execution at client premises, and other jobs targeted for execution within the provider network),
wherein the job relay is associated with the location (Column 6, Lines 31-34, the JSA at a given execution platform may also (or instead) query or poll the job scheduling service to obtain information about jobs to be scheduled at that execution platform), and
wherein the job relay is configured to acquire the job data which is stored in the job data storage means (Column 6, Lines 31-38, the JSA at a given execution platform may also (or instead) query or poll the job scheduling service to obtain information about jobs to be scheduled at that execution platform. Thus, in various embodiments, the transmission of various types of iteration scheduling information (including for example an indication of iteration start times) may be initiated by either the job manager, by the JSAs, or both the job manager and the JSAs), and is linked to the location data indicating the location associated with the job relay (Column 9, Lines 31-34, Job descriptor elements may include, for example, …data sources and/or destinations; and Column 13, Lines 53-61, resources of the provider network may be organized into a hierarchy that may include geographical regions, data centers within geographical regions, and/or fault-isolation containers called “availability zones”. The target instances for the jobs of list entries 410 and 414 in FIG. 4 are specified using both an instance identifier and an availability zone identifier; in other implementations, region names/identifiers and/or data center names/identifiers may also be provided).
As per claim 3, this is the “method claim” corresponding to claim 1 and is rejected for the same reasons. The same motivation used in the rejection of claim 1 is applicable to the instant claim.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new grounds of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MELISSA A HEADLY whose telephone number is (571)272-1972. The examiner can normally be reached Monday- Friday 9-5:30pm.
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/MELISSA A. HEADLY/
Examiner Art Unit 2197
/BRADLEY A TEETS/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2197