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 .
Claims 1-8 are currently amended. No claims have been canceled. Claims 9-19 have been newly added. Claims 1-19 are currently pending for examination.
Response to Arguments
As per applicant’s arguments, pgs.10-11, the examiner has carefully considered these arguments, and does not find them to be persuasive. The claim limitation in question specifically states: “a device including circuitry configured to receive a list of tasks for each of the plurality of applications, each of the list of tasks including tasks... requested to be executed by a respective application.” It is not stated in this limitation that the device which receives the list of tasks is the same device which executes the applications, therefore, Neginhal’s “queue management service” (120) equates to a device including circuitry configured to receive a list of tasks (see [0022], tasks 164 are received ; see [0017], task execution data specifies an execution engine, i.e., an application).
As per applicant’s arguments, pg.11, that the applied references fail to disclose the amended limitation of “task detail information…. Includes a URL…”, the examiner concedes. As such the new grounds of rejection rely upon Okamoto (US 20220174178 A1) to disclose this limitation.
Regarding the rejection of the instant application under 35 USC 112, the amendments made to claims 3 and 4 provide clarity to the limitations. As such, the rejection under 35 USC 112 is withdrawn.
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 1, 7, 8, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yada (US 20220247817 A1) in view of Neginhal (US 20210286647 A1) in further view of Okamoto (US 20220174178 A1).
As per claim 1, Yada discloses:
An information processing system comprising: a cloud system including circuitry configured to: store in response to an operation on an administrator terminal, execution requests for executing a plurality of tasks in a first memory (“A management system includes a first communication device configured to access a cloud storage, and a second communication device that is configured to access the cloud storage and is communicably connected to a first terminal device or provided in a second terminal device. The first communication device is configured to execute a first writing processing of writing task request data into the cloud storage", abstract ; “The master 2 receives an instant task execution request operation from the main administrator in accordance with an operation signal from the main administrator via the input unit 14 (S12). The master 2 generates data indicating an instant task entity in accordance with the execution request operation of the main administrator and transmits the data to the cloud server 6, so that the instant task entity can be registered in the first storage 93 (S13)”, 0115 ; Examiner Note: a management system equates to an information processing system, the cloud storage system equates to a cloud system, the execution request operation of the main administrator via input unit 14 equates to the operation on the administrator terminal)
Yada discloses the above limitation of claim 1, but does not disclose a device including circuitry configured to receive a list of tasks for a plurality of applications.
However, Neginhal discloses:
a device on which a plurality of applications are installed and configured to execute the plurality of tasks, the device including circuitry configured to: receive a list of tasks for each of the plurality of applications, each of the lists of tasks including tasks, of the plurality of tasks, requested to be executed by a respective application of the plurality of applications (“The present disclosure relates to distributed application management using an embedded persistent queue framework.”, 0008 ; see fig.1 - node 109 contains task execution engines 173 and respective applications 171 ; "The local monitor 176 for a node 109 can retrieve the tasks 164 within its persistent queue 163, or all persistent queues 163 for the task execution engines 173 on the node 109.", 0022 ; "The queue management service 120 can include a scheduler that assigns tasks 164 to task execution engines 173 for execution using resources represented by the nodes 109.", 0013 ; “Task execution data 136 can represent information related to a task execution engine 173 of a distributed application process 171 executing on a node 109. A node 109 can execute multiple distributed application processes 171. The task execution engines 173 for each distributed application process 171 can collect or otherwise identify task execution data 136 and can transmit the task execution data 136 to the queue management service 120.”, 0017)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to combine the teachings of Yada and Neginhal in order to provide a cloud system which considers all the tasks being executed on each node or host in the processing and allocation of distributed applications, thereby avoiding load imbalances and optimizing performance of the system (Neginhal, [0008])
Yada in view of Neginhal discloses the above limitations of claim 1, but does not disclose the task detail information for a respective task including a URL of execution data.
However, Okamoto discloses:
When the task detail information for a respective task includes a URL of execution data, transmit an execution data acquisition request for requesting the execution data for the respective task to the cloud system ; acquire the execution data for the respective task from the cloud system. (“In the present illustrative embodiment, the execution information includes URL information for download of the target application TA. The mobile terminal 20 can access the application server 50 by using the URL, and download the target application TA (App Clips).”, 0064 ; Examiner Note: the execution information for a task equates to task detail information, and the target application- which is digital information required to run the application- equates to execution data as claimed)
Although the Application server from which the execution data of Okamoto is acquired is not a cloud system, Neginhal discloses a cloud computing system. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date to combine the teachings of Yada in view of Neginhal with those of Okamoto by known methods in order to yield predictable results. The systems of Yada and Neginhal would both be capable of performing the actions of the method of Okamoto, and in the combined system the transmitting of the detailed information and execution data would be to the same effect. The result of this combination could be recognized as predictable by one of ordinary skill in the art.
As per claim 7, it is an information processing method claim with substantially the same limitations as claim 1, and as such, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
As per claim 8, it is a non-transitory recording medium (Yada: “The controller 51 includes a CPU 61 and a memory 62. The memory 62 may include a nonvolatile memory such as a flash memory in addition to a RAM, and can store a computer program, setting data, and the like in the nonvolatile memory.”, 0042) claim with substantially the same limitations as claim 1, and as such, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
As per claim 18, Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto fully disclose the limitations of claim 1.
Furthermore, Yada discloses:
the plurality of tasks include at least one of a device setting change, a firmware update, a reboot process, a certificate update, an installation of an application, or an uninstallation of an application. ("For example, when the instant task is to update firmware in the terminal devices 4 and 5, the master 2 stores an update file necessary for the update of the firmware in the second storage 94 (S14). ", 0120)
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yada (US 20220247817 A1) in view of Neginhal (US 20210286647 A1) in further view of Okamoto (US 20220174178 A1) in further view of Shiraishi (US 20220076214 A1) in further view of Kojima (US 20180054347 A1).
As per claim 2, Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto fully discloses the limitations of claim 1, but does not disclose storing schedule setting information, or storing a task in response to the determination that the current time has passed the time specified by the schedule setting information.
However, Shiraishi discloses:
the circuitry of the cloud system is further configured to: store in a second memory, schedule setting information in which a schedule of the plurality of tasks is set in response to the operation on the administrator terminal (“The information processing device has a storage unit configured to store schedule information in which a task related to the maintenance is registered, and thus enables to perform maintenance work by an administrator by changing setting values of image forming devices from terminal devices.", advantage ; “FIG. 11 is a flowchart representing an example of a procedure or operation by which the DFE registers a task on a schedule, according to operations of an administrator”, 0016)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to combine the teachings of Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto with those of Shiraishi by known methods in order to yield predictable results. The systems of Yada, Neginhal, and Okamoto would be capable of performing the actions of the method of Shiraishi, and in the combined system the storing of schedule setting information in response to an operation on an admin terminal would be to the same effect. The result of this combination could be recognized as predictable by one of ordinary skill in the art.
Shiraishi discloses the above limitation of claim 2 but does not disclose the storing of a task in response to the determination that the current time has passed the time specified by the schedule setting information.
However, Kojima discloses:
determine whether a current time has passed a time of the schedule in the schedule setting information; and based on a determination that the current time has passed the time of the schedule in the schedule setting information, store the plurality of tasks corresponding to the schedule setting information in the first memory. ("In step S219 subsequent to step S215 or S217, the main control unit 101 determines whether the current time has passed the end time based on the operation schedule information. If the current time is before the end time, the main control unit 101 returns to step S205 and then executes a process subsequent to step S205. If the current time has passed the end time, the main control unit 101 also executes a process of step S225.", 0043)
The combination of Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto in further view of Shiraishi in further view of Kojima would provide a system capable of storing a task corresponding to a schedule setting information in memory based on the determination that the current time has passed the time set in the schedule setting information, see Yada, [abstract].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to combine the teachings of Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto in further view of Shiraishi with those of Kojima by known methods in order to yield predictable results. The systems of Yada, Neginhal, Okamoto, and Shiraishi would be capable of performing the actions of the method of Kojima, and in the combined system the determination that the current time has passed the scheduled time would be to the same effect. The result of this combination could be recognized as predictable by one of ordinary skill in the art.
Claim 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yada (US 20220247817 A1) in view of Neginhal (US 20210286647 A1) in further view of Okamoto (US 20220174178 A1) in further view of Shiraishi (US 20220076214 A1) in further view of Kojima (US 20180054347 A1) in further view of Ohdachi (US 20040021582 A1) in further view of SiMa (US 20110271184 A1).
As per claim 3, Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto in further view of Shiraishi in further view of Kojima fully discloses the limitations of claim 2, but does not disclose storing notification destination information in response to an operation on an administrator terminal.
However, Ohdachi discloses:
the circuitry of the cloud system is further configured to: store, in the second memory, and in response to the operation on the administrator terminal, notification destination information of an execution result of the plurality of tasks ("In the notification apparatus as recited in the preceding items (1), (2), (3), (4), (5), (6), (7), (8), (9), (10), (11), (12), or (13), the storage means stores thereinto notification destination information indicative of a notification destination to which the notification means notifies the identification result in correspondence with the registered point information; and the notification means notifies the identification result to the notification destination which is indicated by the notification destination information", 0022 ; Examiner Note: storing in the notification apparatus equates to storing in a second memory )
The combination of Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto in further view of Shiraishi in further view of Kojima in further view of Ohdachi would be capable of storing notification destination information in response to an operation on the administrator terminal.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to combine the teachings of Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto in further view of Shiraishi in further view of Kojima with those of Ohdachi in order to provide a system wherein the notification destination information can be changed at any time, thereby providing better, more user-friendly conditions (Ohdachi, [0233])
Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto in further view of Shiraishi in further view of Kojima in further view of Ohdachi discloses the above limitations of claim 3, but does not disclose receiving execution results of tasks from an application, nor notifying the notification destination in response.
However, SiMa discloses:
receive the execution result of at least one of the tasks from the device; and notify a notification destination indicated by the notification destination information corresponding to the at least one of the tasks of the lists of tasks of the execution result of the at least one of the tasks received from the device ("The processing unit may then send a request to execute the at least one exposed function to the at least one browser-based application, receive a result from the at least one browser-based application associated with the request to execute the at least one exposed function by the at least one browser-based application, display a notification associated with the received result to the user of the client-based application, and determine whether the client-based application comprises a post-execution function associated with the at least one exposed function. If so, the processing unit may be operative to execute the post-execution function", 0043 ; Examiner Note: displaying a notification associated with the received result equates to notifying the notification destination indicated by the notification destination information corresponding to the task.)
The system of Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto in further view of Shiraishi in further view of Kojima in further view of Ohdachi in further view of SiMa would be capable of notifying the notification destination indicated in the notification destination information stored in the second memory.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to combine the teachings of Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto in further view of Shiraishi in further view of Kojima in further view of Ohdachi with those of SiMa in order to yield predictable results. The systems of Yada, Neginhal, Okamoto, Shiraishi, Kojima, and Ohdachi would be capable of performing the actions of the method of SiMa, and in the combined system the receipt of execution results and subsequent notification of a specified destination would be to the same effect. The result of this combination could be recognized as predictable by one of ordinary skill in the art.
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable Yada (US 20220247817 A1) in view of Neginhal (US 20210286647 A1) in further view of Okamoto (US 20220174178 A1) in further view of Shiraishi (US 20220076214 A1) in further view of Kojima (US 20180054347 A1) in further view of Ohdachi (US 20040021582 A1) in further view of SiMa (US 20110271184 A1) in further view of Shibata (US 11729333 B2).
As per claim 4, Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto in further view of Shiraishi in further view of Kojima in further view of Ohdachi in further view of SiMa fully discloses the limitations of claim 3, but does not disclose the notification destination information indicating a notification destination which is to be sent information regarding success or failure of a task.
However, Shibata discloses:
the notification destination information is set according to at least one of a success of a respective one of the plurality of tasks or a failure of the respective one of the plurality of tasks and a content of the failure of the respective one of the plurality of tasks (“the error notification transmission process including transmission of a notification indicating the occurrence of the error to a second notification destination associated with the data", clm.10 ; " For example, after data transfer is successfully completed, a process for notifying the user of the completion of the data transfer may be performed.", col.1, lines 39-46 ; "The email address to which an email is transmitted is an example of a “notification destination associated with the data”. The notification process may be any other process as long as a user is notified of information related to data transfer. ", col.20, lines 49-53)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to combine the teachings of Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto in further view of Shiraishi in further view of Kojima in further view of Ohdachi in further view of SiMa with those of Shibata in order to yield predictable results. The systems of Yada, Neginhal, Okamoto, Shiraishi, Kojima, Ohdachi, and SiMa would be capable of performing the actions of the method of Shibata, and in the combined system the notification destination information indicating a destination for information regarding success or failure of a task would be to the same end. The result of this combination could be recognized as predictable by one of ordinary skill in the art.
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yada (US 20220247817 A1) in view of Neginhal (US 20210286647 A1) in further view of Okamoto (US 20220174178 A1) in further view of Toritani (US 20220212346 A1) in further view of Shinohara (US 20190251410 A1).
As per claim 5, Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto fully discloses the limitations of claim 1, but does not disclose the storing of execution statuses indicating whether the task has been started or completed.
However, Toritani discloses:
the circuitry of the device is further configured to: store, in a third memory and in response to a start of the execution of at least one of the tasks of the list of tasks, an execution status indicating that the execution of the at least one task of the lists of tasks is started; store, in the third memory and in response to a completion of the at least one of the tasks of the lists of tasks, the execution status indicating that the execution of the at least one of the tasks of the lists of tasks is completed (“When the navigation device 50 according to the present embodiment receives the execution status notification sent from each of the robot systems and indicating the task is started, in execution, or ended, the navigation device 50 stores the execution status of the task in the storage unit in association with identification information of the corresponding robot system.", 0128)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to combine the teachings of Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto with those of Toritani in order to provide the ability to perform integrated work progress management for each application or system performing a task (Toritani, [0128]).
Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto in further view of Toritani fully discloses the above limitations of claim 5, but does not disclose the re-execution of a task which has a status of “started” at startup.
However, Shinohara discloses:
re-execute the at least one task of the lists of tasks in a case that the execution status of the atleast one of the tasks of the lists of tasks remaining in the third memory at startup indicates that the execution of the at least one of the tasks is started (“For example, when the initial setting for the IC-chip-based application A is incomplete (for example, when the initial setting has not been started for any one of the IC-chip-based applications A and B), the processing advances to the process of Step S43 to be restarted from the initial setting for the IC-chip-based application A... The execution status information may include information indicating whether or not the post-registration process has been completed, and the processing may advance to the process of Step S45 when the post-registration process for the IC-chip-based application A has not been completed, and advance to the process of Step S46 when the post-registration process for the IC-chip-based application B has not been completed.", 0131 ; see fig.7- this process is enacted at launch, or startup ; Examiner Note: an initial setting for the IC-chip-based application A being incomplete equates to the task being in execution status of "started" at startup)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to combine the teachings of Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto in further view Toritani with those of Shinohara in order to provide enhanced reliability of the application, as processing may be restarted for the task (Shinohara, [0132])
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yada (US 20220247817 A1) in view of Neginhal (US 20210286647 A1) in further view of Okamoto (US 20220174178 A1) in further view of O'Toole (US 7185077 B1) in further view of Bellows (US 20110161943 A1).
As per claim 6, Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto fully discloses the limitations of claim 1, but does not disclose a measurement of latency of transmission or predetermined conditions associated with latency.
However, O’Toole discloses:
the circuitry of the cloud system is further configured to: measure latency of transmission of the task detail information and the execution data; store the latency in a fourth memory; ("In an additional example, the network metric 38 measures the latency for a transmission between two nodes (e.g., the amount of time for data to travel between node 22X and 22A). In a further example, the network metric 38 can measure the hop count (i.e., number of intermediate routers or hops) between two nodes. For example, the connecting node 22X can invoke a trace route utility to determine the number of hops between two nodes 22. In one embodiment, a node 22 can store more than one network metric 38 in the memory 32 for that node 22.", col.8, lines 49-59)
The system of Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Yoshitomi in further view of O’Toole would be capable of measuring the latency of a transmission of the detailed information and execution data.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to combine the teachings of Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Yoshitomi with those of O’Toole in order to yield predictable results. The networks of Yada, Neginhal, and Yoshitomi would be capable of performing the actions of the method of SiMa, and in the combined system the measurement of latency and storage of said measurement would be to the same effect. The result of this combination could be recognized as predictable by one of ordinary skill in the art.
Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Yoshitomi in further view of O’Toole discloses the above limitations of claim 6, but does not disclose the determination of whether or not the latency satisfies a predetermined condition nor subsequent acquisition of tasks.
However, Bellows discloses:
determine whether the latency satisfies a predetermined condition; and acquire one or more of the plurality of tasks based on a determination that the predetermined condition is satisfied (“GCQ logic compares the latency of operations to a pre-set low threshold latency and determines at decision block 1508 whether processing node's latency is greater than the pre-et threshold latency. If the latency is not greater than the threshold latency, the GCQ logic provides a standard (or requested) chunk size of work in response to the work request from the processing node, as shown at block 1510. The GCQ logic then enables low latency retrieval of work by the processing node from the GCQ as regular chunks of work, as provided at block 1512.", 0125)
The system of Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Yoshitomi in further view of O’Toole in further view of Bellows would be capable of retrieving work in response to the determination that the transmission latency, rather than processing latency, is below a predetermined threshold.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to combine the teachings of Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Yoshitomi in further view of O’Toole with those of Bellows in order to ensure a lower latency retrieval of tasks (Bellows, [0125]).
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yada (US 20220247817 A1) in view of Neginhal (US 20210286647 A1) in further view of Okamoto (US 20220174178 A1) in further view of Sahoo (US 11108884 B1)
As per claim 9, Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto fully discloses the limitations of claim 1, but does not disclose a customer network with a firewall.
However, Sahoo discloses:
the device is located within a customer network, and the customer network includes a firewall configured to restrict communication initiated from the cloud system to the device. ("An administrator for a customer may want to control or manage one of the appliances. However, the customer network may include a firewall that prevents incoming communications to the appliances, such that a cloud services provider infrastructure (CSPI) cannot initiate a connection with the appliances.", 0007)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to combine the teachings of Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto with those of Sahoo in order to provide the system with a scalable and secure way to route customer requests for controlling or managing on-premises network appliances (Sahoo, [0010]).
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yada (US 20220247817 A1) in view of Neginhal (US 20210286647 A1) in further view of Okamoto (US 20220174178 A1) in further view of Stokes ( US 20120099146 A1)
As per claim 10, Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto fully discloses the limitations of claim 1, but does not disclose a receiving the lists of tasks through periodic polling of a cloud system.
However, Stokes discloses:
the circuitry of the device is further configured to receive the lists of tasks by periodically polling the cloud system ("Network scanner 108 polls for new print jobs 302 by fetching a list of print jobs 302 from cloud print service 106 at 614”, 0031)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to combine the teachings of Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto with those of Stokes in order to allow the system to poll for tasks/jobs from any resource connected to the cloud, including local resources such as a local office scanner, as well as remote resources such as a user's home scanner while the user is traveling on another continent (Stokes, [0018]).
Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yada (US 20220247817 A1) in view of Neginhal (US 20210286647 A1) in further view of Okamoto (US 20220174178 A1) in further view of Stokes ( US 20120099146 A1) in further view of KIM (US 20220229607 A1)
As per claim 11, Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto in further view of Stokes fully discloses the limitations of claim 10, but does not disclose transmitting device information during polling.
However, Kim discloses:
the circuitry of the device is further configured to transmit device information, including a list of the plurality of applications, to the cloud system during the periodic polling ("the management system 1000 performs a synchronization operation by sequentially transmitting the device information and the application information received between a plurality of image forming apparatuses and thus, if the server is connected to an external network which is different from that of the plurality of image forming apparatuses, the network traffic for transmitting the above-identified information may be reduced.", 0040)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to combine the teachings of Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto in further view of Stokes with those of Kim in order to reduce network traffic when transmitting device and application information (Kim, [0040]).
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yada (US 20220247817 A1) in view of Neginhal (US 20210286647 A1) in further view of Okamoto (US 20220174178 A1) in further view of Siddappa (US 20210034416 A1)
As per claim 12, Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto fully discloses the limitations of claim 1, but does not disclose the lists of tasks including task identifiers.
However, Siddappa discloses:
the lists of tasks include one or more task identifier. ("The task ready list may include identifiers of activities (e.g., tasks) that are ready for execution.", 0014)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to combine the teachings of Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto with those of Siddappa in order to provide task identifiers within a system that brings down the cache miss probability (Siddappa, [0013]).
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yada (US 20220247817 A1) in view of Neginhal (US 20210286647 A1) in further view of Okamoto (US 20220174178 A1) in further view of Siddappa (US 20210034416 A1) in further view of Hirata (US 20130003117 A1)
As per claim 13, Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto in further view of Siddappa fully discloses the limitations of claim 12, but does not disclose assigning tasks to applications by notifying the applications of the task identifier.
However, Hirata discloses:
the circuitry of the device is further configured to assign the tasks of the lists of tasks to the respective applications by notifying the respective applications of the one or more task identifier ("In step S1300, the print server 104 receives the print data acquisition request (step 1003) from the pull printing application 304 to receive the client job ID 814, the device job ID 815, and the authentication token 816. Although not illustrated, the print server 104 checks the validity of the received authentication token 816 with the authentication service 308. When the authentication token 816 is valid, the print server 104 performs processing from step S1301.", 0101 ; “When the print server determines that there is any of the client job IDs 516 matches the client job ID 814 (YES in step S1304), the processing proceeds to step S1305.”, 0106 ; Examiner Note: the job ID equates to a task identifier, and the print server equates to an application.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to combine the teachings of Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto in further view of Siddappa with those of Hirata in order to provide the system with a convenient method to assign a list of jobs/tasks to the applications that will run them (Hirata, [0063]).
Claim 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yada (US 20220247817 A1) in view of Neginhal (US 20210286647 A1) in further view of Okamoto (US 20220174178 A1) in further view of Siddappa (US 20210034416 A1) in further view of Hirata (US 20130003117 A1) in further view of Lee (US 20220035586 A1)
As per claim 14, Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto in further view of Siddappa in further view of Hirata fully discloses the limitations of claim 13, but does not disclose requesting task detail information using a task identifier.
However, Lee discloses:
the circuitry of the device is further configured to request the task detail information using a respective one of the one or more task identifier ("the second image forming apparatus 100-2 may request information corresponding to the job ID to the image forming apparatus 100-1 and receive proceeding history information, accounting information, and printing data as mentioned above.", 0100)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to combine the teachings of Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto in further view of Siddappa in further view of Hirata with those of Lee in order to provide convenient method for determining whether additional accounting is needed for a task/job based on the received task information (Lee, [0101]).
Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yada (US 20220247817 A1) in view of Neginhal (US 20210286647 A1) in further view of Okamoto (US 20220174178 A1) in further view of Sarrazin-Boucher (US 20180131756 A1)
As per claim 15, Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto fully discloses the limitations of claim 1, but does not disclose task detail information including a type of task.
However, Sarrazin-Boucher discloses:
the task detail information includes at least one of a type of task or a setting value used for execution ("At step 206, the task information is extracted from the task request. Task information includes at least the type of task, and a device identifier that identifies the device on which the task is to be performed.", 0026)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to combine the teachings of Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto with those of Sarrazin-Boucher in order to provide a system which attaches information to tasks which aides in the increasing server availability (Sarrazin-Boucher, [0034]).
Claims 16 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yada (US 20220247817 A1) in view of Neginhal (US 20210286647 A1) in further view of Okamoto (US 20220174178 A1) in further view of Featonby (US 11487591 B1)
As per claim 16, Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto fully discloses the limitations of claim 1, but does not disclose the execution data being larger in capacity than the task detail information.
However, Featonby discloses:
the execution data is larger in capacity than the task detail information ("the container service 140 reports additional image execution data, which may include details of the task execution, to the compute optimization service 136.", 0051 ; Examiner Note: details of task execution equate to task detail information, and the execution data including the task detail information requires execution data to be larger in capacity)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to combine the teachings of Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto with those of Featonby in order significantly reduce the amount of time and effort expended by the user in preparation for launching a task (Featonby, [0016]).
As per claim 17, Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto fully discloses the limitations of claim 1, but does not the execution data including at least one of a file or a program.
Furthermore, Featonby discloses:
the execution data includes at least one of a file or a program ("The image execution data 138 may indicate the performance metrics (e.g., configurations, peak resource usage, average resource usage, error rates, load spikes, etc.) associated with prior executions of a plurality of container images.", 0024; Examiner Note: configurations must be stored in a file)
Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yada (US 20220247817 A1) in view of Neginhal (US 20210286647 A1) in further view of Okamoto (US 20220174178 A1) in further view of Yang (US 20170063615 A1)
As per claim 19, Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto fully discloses the limitations of claim 1, but does not disclose a task acquisition application which is distinct from the other applications.
However, Yang discloses:
the circuitry of the device is configured to receive the lists of tasks as a task acquisition application, and the plurality of applications are distinct from the task acquisition application ("SDI request controller module 602 is the internal request processing engine in SDI module 206 and includes capabilities for performing asynchronous request processing, concurrent request processing, concurrent task processing, fault tolerant and recovery and plug-in support related to the order requests. In one embodiment, SDI request controller module 602 accepts each step of the business process associated with the order from SDI-WS module 600 and submits the step to SDI task manager module 604.", 0108 ; "For instance, executor 814 may be configured to pick up a first task identified in a list of tasks associated with the request", 0128 ; Examiner Note: an SDI request controller module equates to a task acquisition application.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to combine the teachings of Yada in view of Neginhal in further view of Okamoto with those of Yang in order to provide a task acquisition application capable of processing concurrent and asynchronous requests in a manner which is fault tolerant (Yang, [0128]).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Scarfutti (US 20210064419 A1) – discloses a service management platform which can implement functionality for one or more services, each of which can be independently used by a plurality of clients. A hub server can assign a set of tasks to individual nodes for execution.
Lu (US 20230205583 A1) - discloses a method and system for determining a set of estimated task execution times for tasks assigned to a computing resource.
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) 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.
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/R.M.V./
Examiner, Art Unit 2196
/APRIL Y BLAIR/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2196