DETAILED ACTION
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 .
This is a Final Office Action responsive to Applicant’s reply filed 5/7/2026.
Claims 1-9, 11-25 are pending.
Response to Amendment
Applicant has amended the claims to include the limitations of previously presented claim 10 into the independent claims. Claim 10 has now been cancelled.
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) 1-9, 11-25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Bernat et al. (US 2020/0285523).
With respect to claim 1, Bernat discloses: receiving, from another networked processing unit, workload information for a workload, the workload including respective tasks to be processed among distributed computing entities (Fig. 10, 1002, Fig. 3, [0106]), wherein the workload information is received via the network interface from another networked processing unit located at a base station, on-premises server, or data center server (Fig. 3-5);
performing an analysis of network conditions for a predicted execution of the workload, based on the workload information, to analyze network availability among the distributed computing entities (Fig. 3, 324, 326);
performing an analysis of compute conditions for the predicted execution of the workload, based on the workload information, to analyze processing availability among the distributed computing entities (Fig. 4, 348, 350); and
identifying locations of the distributed computing entities to deploy the workload, based on the analysis of network conditions and the analysis of compute conditions (Fig. 5).
With respect to claim 2, Bernat discloses: causing activation of the identified locations of the distributed computing entities to enable execution of the workload (Figs. 3-5, if nodes need to be augmented the orchestrator provides connection data usable to couple to other resources, therefore, they must be activated prior to communication).
With respect to claim 3, Bernat discloses: wherein the network availability relates to a measurement of congestion, priority, and latency of network connections used among the distributed computing entities (Fig. 3, 324, 326).
With respect to claim 4, Bernat discloses: wherein the processing availability relates to a measurement of compute resources located among the distributed computing entities (Fig. 3, 310, 312, 314, 316).
With respect to claim 5, Bernat discloses: wherein the compute resources include: at least a first plurality of central processing unit (CPU) cores located at a first computing node and at least a second plurality of CPU cores located at a second computing node (Fig. 5, 366, 368, Fig. 7, 702, 704).
With respect to claim 6, Bernat discloses: wherein the compute resources include: at least a first plurality of accelerators located at a first computing node and at least a second plurality of accelerators located at a second computing node (id.).
With respect to claim 7, Bernat discloses: performing an analysis of power usage and power availability among the distributed computing entities; wherein identifying the locations in the distributed computing entities to deploy the workload is further based on the analysis of power usage and power availability (Figs. 3-5).
With respect to claim 8, Bernat discloses: causing a change to at least one power state at the identified locations of the distributed computing entities during deployment of the workload ([0129],[0130]).
With respect to claim 9, Bernat discloses: wherein the analysis of network conditions and the analysis of compute conditions each include evaluation of at least one priority of the workload and evaluation of at least one characteristic of a service level agreement for the workload ([0022], [0051], [0084]).
With respect to claim 11, Bernat discloses: providing commands to cause a network switch or gateway to control network traffic to the identified locations of the distributed computing entities during deployment of the workload (Fig. 3-5, [0136]).
With respect to the remaining claims, they recite similar limitations as claims 1-9, and 11, and are therefore rejected under the same citations and rationale.
Response to Arguments
Applicant further alleges that Bernat does not contain network processing units. The “compute device” in Bernat is being mapped to the NPU. Fig. 2 in Bernat clearly
illustrates that the “compute device” contains a processor. Without further narrowing
what a NPU includes, under the broadest reasonable interpretation the “compute
device” can be interpreted to be a processing unit as it contains everything a computer
usually has (processor, memory, etc.). Further, fig. 1 illustrates that the “compute
devices” are connected to the “orchestrator logic unit” via a network. It is therefore
reasonable to interpret the compute device to be a networked device that includes a
processor, i.e., a networked processing unit.
The rejection, respectfully, is maintained.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 WISSAM RASHID whose telephone number is (571)270-3758. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8:00 am-5:00 pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Aimee Li can be reached at (571)272-4169. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/WISSAM RASHID/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2195
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