DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
2. Claims 1–18 and 22–23 are pending for examination in the response filed on 04/27/2026. Claims 19–21 and 24–25 are WITHDRAWN.
Drawings
3. The drawings (replacements) were received on 03/10/2023. These drawings are acceptable.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
4. Claims 1–18 and 22–23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
5. As to independent claim 1, the claim recites:
“determine an interdependency between at least two resources of the computing system required for the execution of the task based on the SLA; and
schedule the execution of the task based on the interdependency between the at least two resources.”
As to independent claim 22, it recites similar language of commensurate scope as claim 1.
These limitations, as currently drafted and within their respective claim, represent processes that, under a broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance in the mind (including observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion, etc.) but for the recitation of generic computer components.
That is, other than reciting the use of
“processing circuitry” (claim 1) to perform these steps, nothing in the claim element precludes the step from practically being performed in the mind or using pencil and paper (see MPEP 2106.04(a)(2) – Examples of Concepts The Courts Have Identified As Abstract Ideas, discussing abstract ideas or concepts relating to organizing or analyzing information in a way that can be performed mentally or is analogous to human mental work).
For example, but for the use of generic computers,
the performance of these steps in the context of the claims reasonably encompasses the user mentally and/or manually performing the steps of mentally
1) mentally determine an interdependency between at least two resources;
2) mentally “schedule” task executions based on the interdependency (akin to assigning or mapping resources to a particular time or time period).
If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind but for the recitation of generic computer components, then it falls within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application (under Prong Two of Step 2A)
(I) Generic Computing Device
For instance, claim 1 recites the additional element of
“processing circuitry”
that perform these steps.
These computer components, functionalities, and/or services are all recited at a high-level of generality (i.e., as a generic computing device performing a generic computer function of processing and outputting data) such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer components such as processors, basic processor instructions and/or software components or programs.
Accordingly, this additional element does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claim is directed to an abstract idea.
(II) Data Collection
As presented, the claims also include the additional element of:
(a) “receive a request to execute a task on a computing system;” and
(b) “receive a service-level agreement, SLA, indicating at least one of a desired computing performance and a desired computing power for an execution of the task by the computing system.”
However, merely obtaining or receiving data or input for processing (or other uses) simply does not “integrate” the abstract idea into a practical application which improves the functioning of a computer or other technology or technological field.
Moreover, the courts have also held that limitations which merely adds insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception does not integrate a judicial exception into a practical application.
As discussed below and set forth in MPEP § 2106.05(g), the mere collection and receiving of information for processing essentially amounts to data gathering and storing (using processors, basic processor instructions and/or software components or programs) and therefore is consider an “insignificant extra-solution activity.”
Accordingly, the additional elements of the claims, viewed individually and as an ordered combination, added nothing to the implementation of a mental process on an unspecified, “generic” computer and therefore failed to transform the abstract idea nature of the claims into a patent-eligible application.
(III) Particular Technological Environment or Field Of Use
As shown above, the claims also include the elements of:
(1) “a task on a computing system,”
(2) “a service-level agreement, SLA, indicating at least one of a desired computing performance and a desired computing power for an execution of the task by the computing system,” and
(3) “an interdependency between at least two resources of the computing system required for the execution of the task based on the SLA.”
These exemplary elements however merely describes the general technical or computing environment (within which the claimed steps or processes operate) and restrict the processed information or data to a particular type or category (without imposing any functional claim limitations, activities, or steps).
Limitations that generally link the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use, neither meaningfully limit the claim nor transform (the abstract idea nature of) the claim to a particular useful application to improve the functioning of a computer or any other technology.
Under Step 2B of the 101 analysis:
The claims do not include additional elements, alone or in combination, that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional elements amount to no more than generic computing components and field of use/technological environment which do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea.
As claimed, the “processing circuitry” performing these steps merely encompasses generic computing components (e.g. processors) recited at a high-level of generality, executing one or more steps of the claims.
Moreover, the activity of “mere data gathering” have also been found by the courts to be “insignificant extra-solution activity” as set forth in MPEP 2106.05(g)(3) Insignificant Extra-Solution Activity, describing that in determining whether an additional element is insignificant extra-solution activity, one may factoring into consideration whether the limitation amounts to necessary data gathering and outputting, (i.e., all uses of the recited judicial exception require such data gathering or data output).
As recited, the steps of
(a) “receive a request to execute a task on a computing system;” and
(b) “receive a service-level agreement, SLA, indicating at least one of a desired computing performance and a desired computing power for an execution of the task by the computing system.”
is/are mere data gathering activities for additional processing (to obtaining or receiving inputs for processing).
Accordingly, the additional step(s) or element(s) of the claims, viewed individually and as an ordered combination, added nothing to the implementation of a mental process on an unspecified, “generic” computer and therefore failed to transform the abstract idea nature of the claims into a patent-eligible application.
6. As to dependent claims 2–18 and 23, each of these claims either (1) recites additional step(s) that covers performance in the mind; or (2) merely restricts or links the process step, information or data to a particular type, technological environment, or field of use; (3) amounts to insignificant extra-solution activity to the judicial exception such as data input and output/transmission; or (4) recites a function which amounts to no more than a recitation of the words “apply it” (or an equivalent) and is no more than mere instructions to implement an abstract idea or other exception on a computer; and thus as a whole is also directed and confined to the same process set forth in claims 1 and 22. Therefore, these claims do not individually or collectively add an inventive concept or additional element(s) amounting to significantly more than the abstract idea itself. These claims are therefore not drawn to eligible subject matter as they are directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
For instance, dependent claim 2, reciting “wherein the at least two resources are processing units exhibiting different architectures” merely restricts or links the process step, information or data to a particular type, technological environment, or field of use.
Dependent claim 3, reciting “wherein the at least two resources comprise at least one of a central processing unit, a graphics processing unit, a field-programmable gate array, and an accelerator” also merely restricts or links the process step, information or data to a particular type, technological environment, or field of use.
Dependent claim 4, reciting “determine the interdependency between the at least two resources by determining a desired respective utilization of each of the at least two resources based on the SLA” merely recites additional step(s) that covers performance in the mind.
For dependent claims 5–18, reciting reciting additional “determine,” “select,” “estimate,” “reschedule,” and “redetermine” steps or similar activities, merely recites additional step(s) that covers performance in the mind.
As to dependent claim 23, it is the corresponding method claim correspond to claim 4. Therefore, it does not individually or collectively 1) integrated the abstract idea into a practical application, nor does it 2) include additional element(s) amounting to significantly more than the abstract idea itself.
Examiner’s Remarks
7. Examiner refers to and explicitly cites particular pages, sections, figures, paragraphs or columns and lines in the references as applied to Applicant’s claims to the extent practicable to streamline prosecution.
Although the cited portions of the references are representative of the best teachings in the art and are applied to meet the specific limitations of the claims, other uncited but related teachings of the references may be equally applicable as well. It is respectfully requested that, in preparing responses to the rejections, the Applicant fully considers not only the cited portions of the references, but also the references in their entirety, as potentially teaching, suggesting or rendering obvious all or one or more aspects of the claimed invention.
Abbreviations
8. Where appropriate, the following abbreviations will be used when referencing Applicant’s submissions and specific teachings of the reference(s):
i. figure / figures: Fig. / Figs.
ii. column / columns: Col. / Cols.
iii. page / pages: p. / pp.
References Cited
9. (A) Gebara et al., US 2019/0317812 A1 (“Gebara”).
(B) Pendarakis et al., US 2007/0283016 A1 (“Pendarakis”).
(C) Wyatt, US 2003/0135615 A1 (“Wyatt”).
(D) Mohan et al., US 2023/0325298 A1 (“Mohan”).
Notice re prior art available under both pre-AIA and AIA
10. 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 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.
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 of this title, 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.
A.
11. Claims 1–11 and 22–23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over (A) Gebara in view of (B) Pendarakis.
See “References Cited” section, above, for full citations of references.
12. Regarding claim 1, (A) Gebara teaches/suggests the invention substantially as claimed, including:
“An apparatus, the apparatus comprising interface circuitry, machine-readable instructions, and processing circuitry to execute the machine-readable instructions to:
(Fig. 7 and ¶ 91: the processing unit 702 couples with the chipset 706 via a highspeed serial link 703 and couples with the system memory 704 via a highspeed serial link 705;
¶ 93: Embodiments may also be at least partly implemented as instructions contained in or on a non-transitory computer-readable medium, which may be read and executed by one or more processors to enable performance of the operations described herein);
receive a request to execute a task on a computing system;
(¶ 117: the controller 309 may receive a request to perform one or more workloads;
¶ 119: receiving a request to process or one or more workloads by a cloud-based computing system. The request may include information and data used to perform the workload);
receive a service-level agreement, SLA, indicating at least one of a desired computing performance and a desired computing power for an execution of the task by the computing system;
(¶ 120: the controller may determine which resources to process based on one or more criteria including, a priority level for the workload, computing resources available, location of computing resources, processing/memory capabilities of the computing resources, processing requirements for the workload, an SLA associated with the requester of the workload;
¶ 114: the controller may determine which resources to process based on one or more criteria including, a priority level for the workload, computing resources available, location of computing resources, processing/memory capabilities of the computing resources, processing requirements for the workload, an SLA associated with the requester of the workload;
the Examiner notes: “controller may determine which resources to process based on ... SLA” suggests or renders obvious that SLA is obtained, received, or accessed by, or provided to the controller for processing and usage);
determine an interdependency between at least two resources of the computing system required for the execution of the task based on the SLA;
(¶ 22: the scheduler may place the workload on a third compute node that is proximate to the first compute node, where the communications link between the first and third compute nodes is not overutilized. Doing so allows the workload to be processed in a manner which satisfies the guarantees specified in the SLA); and
schedule the execution of the task based on the interdependency between the at least two resources”
(¶ 22: the scheduler may place the workload on a third compute node that is proximate to the first compute node, where the communications link between the first and third compute nodes is not overutilized. Doing so allows the workload to be processed in a manner which satisfies the guarantees specified in the SLA).
While Gebara at least suggests “determine an interdependency between at least two resources of the computing system required for the execution of the task based on the SLA” by identifying the utilization of the link between two interacting compute nodes.
(B) Pendarakis, in the context of Gebara’s teachings, however directly teaches:
“determine an interdependency between at least two resources of the computing system required for the execution of the task based on the SLA” and
(¶ 10: treat multiple resources simultaneously and take into account the joint effect of these resources on the desired system management goal, for example as expressed in a Service Level Agreement (SLA);
¶ 20: enforce system performance goals, as expressed for example in service level agreements (SLA's), in autonomic computing systems through the allocation of multiple resources among multiple resource demands while taking into account the inter-relationships among the various resources. These inter-relationships result from the concurrent operation of multiple system resource demands and the associated simultaneous demands on each system resource;
¶ 24: Therefore, interdependency exists between the utilization of processing resources and the utilization of network resources. This interdependence also affects the realization of the desired level of performance of the system. Therefore, improvement or optimization of system performance involves improvement or optimization of the allocation of a variety of interrelated system resources .... system complexity and the inter-relationships among the system resources are accounted for by taking into account all of the system resources at the same time. Hence, the allocation of all system resources, including processing resources and network resources, are controlled to achieve the desired level of system performance); and
“schedule the execution of the task based on the interdependency between the at least two resources.”
(¶ 5: a resource manager acts upon the available controls that are used to apply scheduling methods to regulate and order the use of resources by the various applications. For example, a process scheduling function is used to proportion the processing resource, i.e. the central processing unit (CPU), among the various processes being executed by that processing resource)
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of (B) Pendarakis with those of (A) Gebara to factoring in joint effect of available resources on the desired SLA when scheduling workloads. The motivation or advantage to do so is to improve the allocation of interrelated resources, thereby optimizing system performance.
13. Regarding claim 2, Gebara teaches or suggests:
“wherein the at least two resources are processing units exhibiting different architectures”
(¶ 46: The computing resources 302 may include resources of multiple types, such as - for example - processors, co-processors, fully-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs);
¶ 47: The computing resources 302 may be included as part of a computer, such as a server, server farm, blade server, a server sled, or any other type of server or computing device).
¶ 90: computing architecture 700 comprises a processing unit 702, a system memory 704 and a chipset 706. The processing unit 702 can be any of various commercially available processors).
14. Regarding claim 3, Gebara teaches or suggests:
“wherein the at least two resources comprise at least one of a central processing unit,
a graphics processing unit, a field-programmable gate array, and an accelerator”
(¶ 46: The computing resources 302 may include resources of multiple types, such as-for example-processors, co-processors, fully-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs);
¶ 47: The computing resources 302 may be included as part of a computer, such as a server, server farm, blade server, a server sled, or any other type of server or computing device).
¶ 90: computing architecture 700 comprises a processing unit 702, a system memory 704 and a chipset 706. The processing unit 702 can be any of various commercially available processors).
15. Regarding claim 4, Gebara and Pendarakis teach or suggest:
“wherein the instructions comprise instructions to determine the interdependency between the at least two resources by determining a desired respective utilization of each of the at least two resources based on the SLA”
(Gebara, ¶ 56: controller 309 may determine whether the utilization of the CRs 302 and/or the links in the fabric 303 exceed a respective threshold. For example, if the current and/or estimated use of the processors of a compute node is 80% and a processor use threshold is 75%, the controller 309 may determine to forego deploying a workload (and/or a portion thereof) to the compute node …
controller 309 may estimate an amount of time required to process the workload on the CRs 302 in light of the resource and/or fabric utilizations and determine whether the estimated time exceeds a guaranteed processing time in the SLA. If the estimated time to process the workload does not exceed the guaranteed processing time specified in the SLA, the controller 309 may deploy the workload (and/or a portion thereof) to the CRs;
Pendarakis, ¶ 24: Therefore, interdependency exists between the utilization of processing resources and the utilization of network resources. This interdependence also affects the realization of the desired level of performance of the system. Therefore, improvement or optimization of system performance involves improvement or optimization of the allocation of a variety of interrelated system resources).
16. Regarding claim 5, Gebara and Pendarakis teach or suggest:
“wherein the instructions comprise instructions to determine the interdependency
between the at least two resources by determining an interoperability between the at least two resources”
(Gebara, ¶ 22: if the communications link between the first and second compute nodes is saturated (and/or used at a level that exceeds a utilization threshold), the scheduler may place the workload on a third compute node that is proximate to the first compute node, where the communications link between the first and third compute nodes is not overutilized. Doing so allows the workload to be processed in a manner which satisfies the guarantees specified in the SLA;
¶ 24: Network devices 102 may interact with the computing environment 114 through a number of ways, such as, for example, over one or more networks 108;
¶ 124: a database system 1200 that interacts with computing node(s) 1210. The computing node(s) 1210 may be local or remotely located computers, servers, workstations, or the like such as the computer 700;
Pendarakis, ¶ 11: if a bandwidth resource manager provides the directive to allocate 5% of the bandwidth to a given application so as to reach its operating goal, and a separate CPU resource manager stipulates allocating a share of 40% of the CPU to that application to reach its goal, not only may the combination of 5% bandwidth and 40% CPU fail to ensure reaching the goal, but it may not even be feasible).
17. Regarding claim 6, Gebara and Pendarakis teach or suggest:
“wherein the instructions comprise instructions to determine the interdependency between the at least two resources by determining at least one further resource of the computing system shared by the at least two resources required for the execution of the task”
(Gebara, ¶ 22: if the communications link between the first and second compute nodes is saturated (and/or used at a level that exceeds a utilization threshold), the scheduler may place the workload on a third compute node that is proximate to the first compute node, where the communications link between the first and third compute nodes is not overutilized. Doing so allows the workload to be processed in a manner which satisfies the guarantees specified in the SLA;
Pendarakis, ¶ 10: multiple resources include network bandwidth … and the desired management goal expressed as performance parameters).
18. Regarding claim 7, Gebara and Pendarakis teach or suggest:
“wherein the instructions comprise instructions to determine the at least one further resource by determining at least one of a memory bandwidth and a network bandwidth shared by the at least two resources”
(Gebara, ¶ 22: if the communications link between the first and second compute nodes is saturated (and/or used at a level that exceeds a utilization threshold), the scheduler may place the workload on a third compute node that is proximate to the first compute node, where the communications link between the first and third compute nodes is not overutilized. Doing so allows the workload to be processed in a manner which satisfies the guarantees specified in the SLA;
¶ 56: determine to deploy the workload to a compute node that has more links to the needed data and/or links that will not be saturated (and/or utilized beyond a threshold utilization level) by processing the workload;
Pendarakis, ¶ 10: multiple resources include network bandwidth … and the desired management goal expressed as performance parameters).
19. Regarding claim 8, Gebara teaches or suggests:
“wherein the instructions comprise instructions to determine the interdependency between the at least two resources by determining a data dependency between the at least two resources”
(¶ 54: controller 309 may analyze the workload to determine what data stored by the system 300 is needed to process the transaction …. the controller 309 may determine to place the workload on or near CRs 302-13 to provide faster access to the pricing data needed to process the trade;
¶ 55: to schedule a workload in compliance with the QoS guarantees, the controller 309 may determine which CRs 302 have the lowest levels of resource utilization, which CRs 302 were least recently used, which CRs 302 have network links have the lowest levels of utilization, which CRs 302 store data that is most frequently accessed to process transactions, which CRs 302 include and/or are located nearest to the data required to process the transaction, and/or which CRs 302 have the most links in the fabric 303 to access the data required to process the transaction).
20. Regarding claim 9, Gebara teaches or suggests:
“wherein the instructions comprise instructions to determine the data dependency between the at least two resources by determining at least one of an availability of computing services of the computing system and a call sequence of the task”
(¶ 120: the controller may determine which resources to process based on one or more criteria including, a priority level for the workload, COMPUTING RESOURCES AVAILABLE, location of computing resources, processing/memory capabilities of the computing resources, processing requirements for the workload, an SLA associated with the requester of the workload;
¶ 49: Once the workload completes, the controller 309 may decompose the composed computing resources 302 and make the computing resources 302 available to process another workload).
21. Regarding claim 10, Gebara and Pendarakis teach or suggest:
“determine a configuration of the computing system indicating a plurality of resources provided by the computing system;
(Gebara, ¶ 120: the controller may determine which resources to process based on one or more criteria including, a priority level for the workload, computing resources available, location of computing resources, processing/memory capabilities of the computing resources, processing requirements for the workload, an SLA associated with the requester of the workload;
¶ 117: system 1000 may be the same as system 1000, however, may be in a different configuration. In this example, the controller 309 has generated grouped resources 1031 that includes processors from processing resources 1022-1, a memory from memory resources 1020-1, and memory from memory resources 1020-2. In embodiments, the grouped resources 1031 may represent a composed node;
Pendarakis, ¶ 23: The various components of the autonomic computing system 10 that are available to provide the functionalities or services of the computing system 10 constitute the available system resources that can be allocated among a variety of system resource demands;
¶ 16: the number of system resources available to be controlled and to be allocated to the identified resource demands is identified so that number of resource-specific expressions derived from the performance metric is equal to the determined number of system resources); and
determine the at least two resources based on the configuration of the computing system and the SLA”
(Gebara, ¶ 120 and ¶ 117, as applied above;
Pendarakis, ¶ 10: treat multiple resources simultaneously and take into account the joint effect of these resources on the desired system management goal, for example as expressed in a Service Level Agreement (SLA);
¶ 20: enforce system performance goals, as expressed for example in service level agreements (SLA's), in autonomic computing systems through the allocation of multiple resources among multiple resource demands while taking into account the inter-relationships among the various resources. These inter-relationships result from the concurrent operation of multiple system resource demands and the associated simultaneous demands on each system resource;
¶ 24: Therefore, interdependency exists between the utilization of processing resources and the utilization of network resources. This interdependence also affects the realization of the desired level of performance of the system. Therefore, improvement or optimization of system performance involves improvement or optimization of the allocation of a variety of interrelated system resources .... system complexity and the inter-relationships among the system resources are accounted for by taking into account all of the system resources at the same time. Hence, the allocation of all system resources, including processing resources and network resources, are controlled to achieve the desired level of system performance).
22. Regarding claim 11, Gebara and Pendarakis teach or suggest:
“dynamically determine whether the configuration of the computing system has changed; and
(Gebara, ¶ 120: the controller may determine which resources to process based on one or more criteria including, a priority level for the workload, computing resources available, location of computing resources, processing/memory capabilities of the computing resources, processing requirements for the workload, an SLA associated with the requester of the workload;
¶ 117: system 1000 may be the same as system 1000, however, may be in a different configuration. In this example, the controller 309 has generated grouped resources 1031 that includes processors from processing resources 1022-1, a memory from memory resources 1020-1, and memory from memory resources 1020-2. In embodiments, the grouped resources 1031 may represent a composed node;
Pendarakis, ¶ 23: The various components of the autonomic computing system 10 that are available to provide the functionalities or services of the computing system 10 constitute the available system resources that can be allocated among a variety of system resource demands;
¶ 16: the number of system resources available to be controlled and to be allocated to the identified resource demands is identified so that number of resource-specific expressions derived from the performance metric is equal to the determined number of system resources;
¶ 26: adaptive joint learning and optimization 30 in accordance with the present invention is illustrated. Initially, a check is made to determine if there are any changes, i.e. additions or subtractions, in the resources or resources demands 32 of the autonomic system);
if it is determined that the configuration of the computing system has changed, redetermine at least two resources based on the changed configuration of the computing system;
(Pendarakis, ¶ 26: adaptive joint learning and optimization 30 in accordance with the present invention is illustrated. Initially, a check is made to determine if there are any changes, i.e. additions or subtractions, in the resources or resources demands 32 of the autonomic system);
determine an interdependency between the redetermined at least two resources required for the execution of the task based on the SLA; and
reschedule the execution of the task based on the interdependency between the redetermined at least two resources.
(Gebara, ¶ 120: the controller may determine which resources to process based on one or more criteria including, a priority level for the workload, computing resources available, location of computing resources, processing/memory capabilities of the computing resources, processing requirements for the workload, an SLA associated with the requester of the workload;
Pendarakis, ¶ 26: If changes exist, then the identified resources and resource demands and their associated counts are updated 34;
¶ 27: The outer loop monitors for changes in system resources and system performance metrics. The inner loop performs changes to resource allocations to improve system performance. As illustrated, any identifiable change in system resources or resource demands is used as the trigger to perform changes to the allocation as system resources;
Pendarakis, ¶ 10: treat multiple resources simultaneously and take into account the joint effect of these resources on the desired system management goal, for example as expressed in a Service Level Agreement (SLA);
¶ 20: enforce system performance goals, as expressed for example in service level agreements (SLA's), in autonomic computing systems through the allocation of multiple resources among multiple resource demands while taking into account the inter-relationships among the various resources. These inter-relationships result from the concurrent operation of multiple system resource demands and the associated simultaneous demands on each system resource;
¶ 24: Therefore, interdependency exists between the utilization of processing resources and the utilization of network resources. This interdependence also affects the realization of the desired level of performance of the system. Therefore, improvement or optimization of system performance involves improvement or optimization of the allocation of a variety of interrelated system resources .... system complexity and the inter-relationships among the system resources are accounted for by taking into account all of the system resources at the same time. Hence, the allocation of all system resources, including processing resources and network resources, are controlled to achieve the desired level of system performance).
23. Regarding claims 22–23, they are the corresponding method claims reciting similar limitations of commensurate scope as the system of claims 1 and 4, respectively. Therefore, they are rejected on the same basis as claims 1 and 4 above.
B.
24. Claims 12–13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over (A) Gebara in view of (B) Pendarakis, as applied to claim 11 above, and further in view of (C) Wyatt.
25. Regarding claim 12, Gebara and Pendarakis teach or suggest:
“dynamically determine whether the configuration of the computing system has changed; and
(Gebara, ¶ 120: the controller may determine which resources to process based on one or more criteria including, a priority level for the workload, computing resources available, location of computing resources, processing/memory capabilities of the computing resources, processing requirements for the workload, an SLA associated with the requester of the workload;
¶ 117: system 1000 may be the same as system 1000, however, may be in a different configuration. In this example, the controller 309 has generated grouped resources 1031 that includes processors from processing resources 1022-1, a memory from memory resources 1020-1, and memory from memory resources 1020-2. In embodiments, the grouped resources 1031 may represent a composed node;
Pendarakis, ¶ 23: The various components of the autonomic computing system 10 that are available to provide the functionalities or services of the computing system 10 constitute the available system resources that can be allocated among a variety of system resource demands;
¶ 16: the number of system resources available to be controlled and to be allocated to the identified resource demands is identified so that number of resource-specific expressions derived from the performance metric is equal to the determined number of system resources);
Gebara and Pendarakis do not teach “by detecting at least one of a hot-plug and an un-plug of a resource of the computing system.”
(C) Wyatt, in the context of Gebara and Pendarakis’s teachings, however teaches or suggests implementing:
“by detecting at least one of a hot-plug and an un-plug of a resource of the computing system”
(¶ 51: The rebalancing process re-computes the resource consumption information including the demands of all parent-child attachments. The process also frees any dangling resources left by clients which have been previously removed. The rebalancing process can be triggered by events in the system that alter the resource consumption properties of the system. Such events may include a resume from suspend mode, a hot-plug event;
¶ 52: The rebalance process begins at block 802. At block 804, available resources are recalculated. At block 806, a determination is made as to whether there is less available resources (after the event that triggered the rebalance process) than is currently consumed).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of (C) Wyatt with those of (A) Gebara and (B) Pendarakis to detect a hot-plug event and re-determine available resources. The motivation or advantage to do so is to automatically update available resources to ensure optimal resource allocation, scheduling and utilization, thereby supporting predictable quality of service (QoS) guarantees.
26. Regarding claim 13, Gebara and Pendarakis teach or suggest:
“determining, based on the SLA and the configuration of the computing system, a plurality of resource combinations for the execution of the task and a respective interdependency between at least two resources of each of the plurality of resource combinations;
(Gebara, ¶ 53: the controller 309 may consider the CRs 302 as an n by m matrix of compute nodes, where n and m are any positive integer. For example, each compute node (physical and/or virtual) may be considered a point in the matrix, and the connections between each point in the matrix correspond to a network link in the fabric 303. Doing so allows the controller 309 to consider the matrix when scheduling workloads for processing in the system 300 such that the processing conforms with the QoS guarantees in the SLA for a given client;
Pendarakis, ¶ 12: exemplary systems and methods in accordance with the present invention consider the interactions across resources. Since considering jointly the interactions of all resources is too costly in terms of computational overhead to be usable in a real-time environment, algorithms are used that determine joint behavior among the resources with respect to a desired system management goal only in a region of interest);
estimating a respective quality of service, QoS, metric achievable by each of the plurality of resource combinations based on the respective interdependency; and
(Gebara, ¶ 56: controller 309 may determine whether the utilization of the CRs 302 and/or the links in the fabric 303 exceed a respective threshold. For example, if the current and/or estimated use of the processors of a compute node is 80% and a processor use threshold is 75%, the controller 309 may determine to forego deploying a workload (and/or a portion thereof) to the compute node …
controller 309 may estimate an amount of time required to process the workload on the CRs 302 in light of the resource and/or fabric utilizations and determine whether the estimated time exceeds a guaranteed processing time in the SLA. If the estimated time to process the workload does not exceed the guaranteed processing time specified in the SLA, the controller 309 may deploy the workload (and/or a portion thereof) to the CRs;
Pendarakis, ¶ 24: Therefore, interdependency exists between the utilization of processing resources and the utilization of network resources. This interdependence also affects the realization of the desired level of performance of the system. Therefore, improvement or optimization of system performance involves improvement or optimization of the allocation of a variety of interrelated system resources).
selecting a desired resource combination comprising the at least two resources among the plurality of resource combinations based on the estimated QoS metric”
(Gebara, ¶ 54: Generally, the controller 309 may select CRs 302 that have the lowest levels of utilization;
¶ 56: controller 309 may determine to deploy the workload to a compute node that has more
links to the needed data and/or links that will not be saturated (and/or utilized beyond a threshold utilization level) by processing the workload).
C.
27. Claim 18 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over (A) Gebara in view of (B) Pendarakis, as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of (D) Mohan.
28. Regarding claim 18, Gebara and Pendarakis teach or suggest:
“determine whether the execution of the task based on the interdependency between the at least two resources fulfills the SLA of the execution of the task …;
(Gebara, ¶ 22: if the communications link between the first and second compute nodes is saturated (and/or used at a level that exceeds a utilization threshold), the scheduler may place the workload on a third compute node that is proximate to the first compute node, where the communications link between the first and third compute nodes is not overutilized. Doing so allows the workload to be processed in a manner which satisfies the guarantees specified in the SLA;
Pendarakis, ¶ 24: Therefore, interdependency exists between the utilization of processing resources and the utilization of network resources. This interdependence also affects the realization of the desired level of performance of the system. Therefore, improvement or optimization of system performance involves improvement or optimization of the allocation of a variety of interrelated system resources); and
if it is determined that the execution of the task based on the interdependency between the at least two resources does not fulfill the SLA, redetermine at least one of the interdependency and the at least two resources for execution of the task”
(Gebara, ¶ 22: if the communications link between the first and second compute nodes is saturated (and/or used at a level that exceeds a utilization threshold), the scheduler may place the workload on a third compute node that is proximate to the first compute node, where the communications link between the first and third compute nodes is not overutilized. Doing so allows the workload to be processed in a manner which satisfies the guarantees specified in the SLA).
Gebara and Pendarakis do not teach “testing the execution of the task in a sandbox environment.”
(D) Mohan, in the context of Gebara and Pendarakis’s teachings, however teaches or suggests implementing:
“testing the execution of the task in a sandbox environment”
(¶ 6: dynamic process for testing infrastructure-as-code (IaC) and resources provisioned by the IaC. The system and method solve the problems discussed above by providing a mechanism by which to transform business requirement data into validation test scenarios that automatically identify the resources and cloud platform capable of supporting the given IaC. This approach allows the IaC code to be testing in production-level conditions while only being deployed in sandbox (pre-production environment) during performance of the automated test validation;
¶ 7: generating, via the scanning agent, a first set of logical blocks selected based on the first script and the first test dataset, each logical block representing a group of resources, and a fifth step of performing a first series of test runs of the IaC in a sandbox environment, each test run validating a scenario based on resources specified by one of the logical blocks of the first set).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of (D) Mohan with those of (A) Gebara and (B) Pendarakis to schedule and test the interdependent resources in a sandbox (pre-production) environment. The motivation or advantage to do so is to validate compliance with the QoS guarantees in the SLA and provide a more efficient, accurate, consistent, and precise building (grouping) of resources that operate properly.
Allowable Subject Matter
29. Claims 14–17 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if 1) rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims, and 2) rewritten to overcome the applied 101 rejections.
The following is the Examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
The prior art of record, when viewed individually or in combination, does not expressly teach nor render obvious the features of dependent claims 14 when viewed as a whole, specific to the limitation(s) of:
“… estimate a tolerance of the SLA by means of a recommendation engine; and
select the desired resource combination by determining which of the plurality of resource combinations fulfill the SLA within the tolerance.”
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
(a) Calinescu et al., US 2005/0149940 A1, teaching policy-based resource allocation and service level enforcement.
(b) Tripathi et al., US 2023/0342658 A1, teaching optimized infrastructure deployment planning and validation.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BENJAMIN C WU whose telephone number is (571)270-5906. The examiner can normally be reached Monday through Friday, 8:30 A.M. to 5:00 P.M..
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, Aimee J. Li can be reached on (571)272-4169. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/BENJAMIN C WU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2195
August 3, 2026
Prosecution Insights