DETAILED ACTION
Status of Claims
The present application, filed on or after 3/16/2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
This action is in reply to the Remarks and Amendments filed 03/16/2026.
Claims 1, 9, 10 are amended.
Claims 2, 4, 5, 8, 12, 15-16 are canceled.
Claims 1, 3, 6-7, 11, and 13-14 have been examined and are pending.
Priority
Applicant’s claim for the benefit of a prior-filed application under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) or under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121, or 365(c) is acknowledged.
(AIA ) Examiner Note
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned at the time any inventions covered therein were effectively filed absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned at the time a later invention was effectively filed in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
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.
Claims 1, 3, 6-7, 11, and 13-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea (i.e. a judicial exception) without significantly more.
Per step 1 of the 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, the claims are directed towards a process, machine, or manufacture.
Per step 2A Prong One, the claims recite specific limitations which fall within at least one of the groupings of abstract ideas enumerated in the 2019 PEG, as follows:
Per Independent claims 1, 9, 10:
calculating a unitary carbon footprint of each application scenario…; estimating a number of executions of each application scenario of the each determined set of application scenarios over a predetermined period of time;
calculating a total carbon footprint of said each application scenario over said predetermined period of time using the unitary carbon footprint that is calculated and the number of executions that is estimated of said each application scenario,
determining a subset of the each determined set of application scenarios to be kept in the software application using at least the total carbon footprint that is calculated, by selecting only application scenarios of the several different determined sets of application scenarios for which the total carbon footprint is lower than a predetermined threshold, the predetermined threshold defining which application scenarios are retained for operation in a production phase,
modifying the software application by modifying or removing features of the set of application features corresponding to at least one application scenario out of the subset that is determined such that the software application when placed in the production phase has a decreased carbon footprint compared to the software application originally designed prior to said modifying or said removing of said at least one application scenario; …wherein said modifying or removing the at least one application scenario reduces the carbon footprint of the software application by modifying or removing application scenario features having higher carbon footprint values.
As noted supra, these limitations fall within at least one of the groupings of abstract ideas enumerated in the 2019 PEG. Specifically, these limitations fall within a combination of the groups Mathematical Concepts (e.g. mathematical relationships; mathematical formulas or equations; mathematical calculations) and Certain Methods Of Organizing Human Activity (e.g. fundamental economic principles or practices (including hedging, insurance, mitigating risk); commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; legal obligations; advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations); managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions).
That is, these steps as drafted, are a business decision to reduce a calculated “carbon footprint” (e.g. reduce energy consumption) during execution of a software application by removing “application scenarios” (e.g. a print function, or other tasks, etc…) from the software thereby supposedly reducing the overall power consumed (i.e. Carbon footprint) by these application scenarios when the software executes, and thus falling into Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity. The stipulation that the method is performed during a “testing phase” is a business decision such that the final software application which is intended to be produced and entered in a “production phase” contains application scenarios whose total carbon footprint (i.e. energy consumption) are below a business defined threshold for business reasons. There is no technical solution here and the problem is not technical in nature but arises simply from business rationale. Furthermore, the “estimation” and comparison of total cumulative carbon footprint of the subset, of unitary carbon footprints, to a predetermined threshold carbon footprint (e.g.: “…such that the software application, when placed in the production phase, has a decreased carbon footprint compared to the software application originally designed prior to said modifying or said removing of said at least one application scenario…”) are nothing more than types of genric mathematical calculations to gather data upon which a business decision is made – i.e. objective of lowering, to no particular degree, the total carbon footprint.
Again, note, there is no technical solution being claimed and no technical problem being solved. Instead, the criteria used to remove “application scenario(s)” in order to reduce the Carbon Footprint appear to be, per the Specification at paragraphs 14, 18, 47, 151, only linked to the “business impact” [a business decision] of the removal of such scenarios; therefore, this is a non-technical business decision - one which cannot contribute to any inventive step.
Note also that “the unitary carbon footprint” that is “calculated” is ultimately not a calculation which the system/method performs except by way of some look-up reference within a pre-populated database, e.g. as later claimed: “…retrieving the carbon footprint of each reference type of said at least one reference type that is mapped into the knowledge database”. Applicant’s invention is not a technique nor technical solution for “calculating a unitary carbon footprint”. Note there is no specifically claimed, nor disclosed or contemplated, algorithm in the entire original disclosure (claims, spec, drawings) by which to effectively guide a practitioner in determining a unitary-carbon footprint value for a particular application scenario - Instead, a practitioner of this idea must invent or make their own determination regarding a value of carbon footprint for each application scenario, then save it in a database mapped to a reference type of application scenario and then perform the look-up of such value by: “retrieving the carbon footprint of each reference type of said at least one reference type that is mapped into the knowledge database”; Stated another way, applicant’s “calculating a unitary carbon footprint of each application scenario” amounts to no more than a look-up function for a name or description of the scenario such as by using a key-value pair and amounts to either an abstract idea or mere insignificant pre-solution data-gathering when recited at this high-level of generality.
Similarly, the decision to remove an application scenario is an obvious way to reduce the energy consumption (i.e. carbon footprint) of any software application (i.e. removing functionalities which would otherwise be used and consume energy such that they are not used and do not consume energy, obviously reduces the energy required to execute an application) and hence falls within Certain Method of Organizing Human Activity.
Finally, no particular threshold is stipulated as necessary to remove any particular application scenario and this decision appears to be left to the application designer; therefore, this is another business decision which cannot be considered to be solving a technical problem with technical means. Again, there is no technical problem being solved and no technical solution to a technical problem when recited at this high level of generality. Furthermore, the mere nominal recitation of generic computer components used to implement the judicial exception does not take the claim limitation out of the enumerated grouping. Thus, the claims recite an abstract idea.
Per step 2A Prong 2, the Examiner finds that the judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. Although there are additional elements, other than those noted supra, recited in the claims, none of these additional element(s) or a combination of elements as recited in the claims apply, rely on, or use the judicial exception in a manner that imposes a meaningful limit on the judicial exception, such that it is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception. As drafted, the claims as a whole merely describe how to generally “apply” the aforementioned concepts using generic computer components, “link” them to a field of use (i.e. in this case energy reduction when executing software applications), or serve as insignificant extra-solution activity. The claimed computer components are recited at a high level of generality and are merely invoked as tools to implement the idea but are not technical in nature. Simply implementing the abstract idea on or with generic computer components is not a practical application of the abstract idea.
These additional limitations exemplified per limitations of claim 1 are as follows: “A method for reducing a carbon footprint of a software application, said software application being characterized by a set of application features, wherein said method is executed during a test phase of the software application by a device comprising a processor operably connected to a memory and configured to perform said method, said method comprising: simultaneously testing at least some of said set of application features involved in several different determined sets of application scenarios, said simultaneously testing comprising for each determined set of application scenarios of said several different determined sets of application scenarios [:] …providing the software application that is modified to be entered in the production phase;… wherein, said each application scenario being defined as an application scenario definition as a sentence, said application scenario definition being stored in the memory of the device or a knowledge database accessible to said device, the calculating the unitary carbon footprint comprises, for said each application scenario,
identifying a set of keywords in the application scenario definition wherein said identifying the set of keywords in the application scenario definition comprises
reading terms of the application scenario definition in an application
case repository,
correcting spelling errors in the terms using algorithmic operations
including one or more of replacement, deletion,
transposition and insertion,
applying a tokenization method to the terms that are corrected to
split the sentence into smaller units as tokens, said tokens
comprising words and symbols,
processing the token to remove stop words, wherein said stop words
are most commonly used words,
applying stemming and lemmatization to improve the tokens and
remove duplicates from the terms, and
matching the tokens that are improved with token stored m a
knowledge database,
mapping the set of keywords to at least one reference type,
retrieving the carbon footprint of each reference type of said at least one reference
type that is mapped into the knowledge database,…”
However, these elements do not present a technical solution to a technical problem; i.e. as already noted supra, Applicant’s invention is not a technique nor technical solution for “calculating a unitary carbon footprint”. Note there is no specifically claimed, nor disclosed or contemplated, algorithm in the entire original disclosure (claims, spec, drawings) by which to effectively guide a practitioner in determining a unitary-carbon footprint value for a particular application scenario - Instead, a practitioner of this idea must invent or make their own determination regarding a value of carbon footprint for each application scenario. Stated another way, applicant’s “calculating a unitary carbon footprint of each application scenario” amounts to no more than a look-up function for a name or description of the scenario such as by using a key-value pair and amounts to mere data-gathering and at this level of generality can be thought of as insignificant pre-solution data-gathering activity.
Similarly, the feature regarding the “estimating a number of executions of each application…” may also be thought of as insignificant pre-solution activity such as data-point gathering to gather data upon which the abstract idea is intended to operate. However, such estimation is not applicant’s inventive feature nor is there any particular algorithm or method disclosed by which this estimation is to be done. Instead, it is purely up to the practitioner to decide as a point of business and thus cannot be considered a practical application of the abstract idea.
Finally, the features directed towards “identifying a set of keywords…” is nothing more than implementing insignificant pre-solution activity – i.e. well-known Natural Language Processing techniques which the applicant did not invent, to look-up or reference a pre-calculated carbon footprint for a known application scenario. This use of NLP techniques is not applicant’s invention and merely serves to gather data for the purpose of making a business decision – the abstract idea.
The additional elements do not recite a specific manner of performing any of the steps core to the already identified abstract idea. Instead, these features merely serve to generally “apply” the aforementioned concept, or “link” them to a field of use, or are insignificant pre- or extra-solution activity as relates to the already identified abstract idea and do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application thereof.
Per Step 2B, the Examiner does not find that the claims provide an inventive concept, i.e., the claims do not recite additional element(s) or a combination of elements that amount to significantly more than the judicial exception recited in the claim. As discussed with respect to Step 2A Prong Two, the additional elements in the independent claims were considered as merely serving to “link” the idea to a field of use, or “apply” the idea via generic computing components, or insignificant extra-solution activity. For the same reason these elements are not sufficient to provide an inventive concept; i.e. the same analysis applies here in 2B. Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component and conventional data gathering cannot integrate a judicial exception into a practical application at Step 2A or provide an inventive concept in Step 2B. So, upon revaluating here in step 2B, these elements are determined to amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components and/or gather and transmit data which is well-understood, routine, conventional activity in the field; i.e. note the Symantec, TLI, and OIP Techs Court decisions cited in MPEP 2106.05(d)(ll) indicate that mere receipt or transmission of data over a network is a well-understood, routine, and conventional function when it is claimed in a merely generic manner (as it is here).
Accordingly, alone and in combination, these elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application, as found supra, nor provide an inventive concept, and thus the claims are not patent eligible.
As for the dependent claims, the dependent claims do recite a combination of additional elements. However, these claims as a whole, considered either independently or in combination with the parent claims, do not integrate the identified abstract idea into a practical application thereof nor do they provide an inventive concept.
For example, dependent claims 6 recites the following: “The method according to claim 1, wherein the predetermined period of time is equal to one month or one year.” However, a predetermined time period established by a human is not applicant’s invention nor is it significantly more than the already identified abstract idea. Indeed, establishing predetermined time periods, e.g. a week or month is useful across many industries for testing and sampling and even payroll and thus cannot be considered significantly more than the abstract idea.
Therefore, the Examiner does not find that these additional claim limitations integrate the abstract idea into a practical application nor provide an inventive concept. Instead, these limitations, as a whole and in combination with the already recited claim elements of the parent claims, are not significantly more than the already identified abstract idea. A similar finding is found for the remaining dependent claims.
For these reasons, the claims are not found to include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception and are therefore patent ineligible.
Please see the 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance published in the Federal Register (84 FR 50) on January 7, 2019 (found at http://www.uspto.gov/patent/laws-and-regulations/examination-policy/examination-guidance-and-training-materials).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103 (AIA )
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or non-obviousness.
Claims 1, 3, 7, 9-11, 13, 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as obvious over Yangang LI et al. (US 2020/0174822 A1; hereinafter, "Li") in view of Chan et al. (US 2022/0180217 A1; hereinafter, “Chan”) in view of Official Notice.
Claims 1, 9, 10: (currently amended)
Pertaining to claims 1, 9, 10 exemplified in the method steps of claim 1, Li teaches the following:
A method for reducing a carbon footprint of a software application, said software
application being characterized by a set of application features, wherein said method
is executed […] by a device comprising a processor operably connected to a memory and configured to perform said method, said method comprising:
simultaneously testing at least some of said set of application features involved in several different determined sets of application scenarios, said simultaneously testing comprising, for each determined set of application scenarios of said several different determined sets of application scenarios [:]
calculating a unitary carbon footprint of each application scenario of the each determined set of application scenarios, wherein the unitary carbon footprint of an application scenario is a carbon footprint for a single execution of the application scenario, (Li, see at least [0054]-[0063], e.g. Table 1 depicting a set of virtual devices [a determined set of application scenarios], which per [0059], Li teaches: The "energy consumption” of a “virtual device” [application scenario], e.g. named N1, include a “current value” [unitary carbon footprint] “running at each time point” [a single execution of the application scenario]; Applicant’s “application scenario” reads on Li’s execution of a virtual device. Note there is a set of possible virtual devices [set of application scenarios]
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estimating a number of executions of each application scenario of the each determined set of application scenarios over a predetermined period of time; calculating a total carbon footprint of said each application scenario over said predetermined period of time using the unitary carbon footprint that is calculated and the number of executions that is estimated of said each application scenario (Li, see at again citations noted supra, including [0059]-[0061]: “The "energy consumptions" may include … an average current value of the virtual device [application scenario] in this running process [which] may be acquired based on the energy consumption….” Accordingly, because an “average” is a sum of values for each item in a set divided by a count of the number of items in such set, then Li’s “average” must be the sum of energy consumptions for a time period, i.e. the total energy consumption by his virtual device over a time period, divided by the number of executions of the virtual device over the same time period. Therefore, the Examiner finds these teachings imply an estimate of the number of executions of his selected virtual device over time is being computed as well as a total energy consumption to enable this estimate of his average. Therefore, regardless of whether Li explicitly teaches estimating a number of executions of his virtual device and also calculating a total, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have at least tried performing such calculations to enable Li’s calculation of an average because per MPEP 2143(I) (G) Some teaching, suggestion, or motivation in the prior art that would have led one of ordinary skill to modify the prior art reference teachings to arrive at the claimed invention is obvious. The motivation may be implicit and may be found in the knowledge of one of ordinary skill in the art, or, in some cases, from the nature of the problem to be solved. Id. at 1366, 80 USPQ2d at 1649.);
determining a subset of the each determined set of application scenarios to be kept in the software application using at least the total carbon footprint that is calculated by selecting only application scenarios of the several different determined sets of application scenarios for which the total carbon footprint [of the subset] is lower than a predetermined threshold, (Examine interprets applicant’s ‘total carbon footprint’ to be a total carbon footprint ‘of the subset’. Li, teaches these features. Li, see citations noted supra, e.g. per at least [0060]-[0061], e.g.: “…240: A virtual device list [subset] is configured for [determined to be kept in] the virtual machine [software application] based on the current upper limit [a predetermined threshold] and the energy consumption reference table… Specifically, after the current upper limit for running the virtual machine is determined, whether the current upper limit is greater than or equal to a sum of current consumption values of all the virtual devices in the energy consumption reference table is judged…”; i.e. the virtual devices which are configured to be kept as part of the virtual machine are those whose combined energy consumption are less than a pre-established upper limit. Applicant’s “selecting only application scenarios for which the total carbon footprint of the subset is lower than a predetermined threshold” reads on these teachings.) the predetermined threshold defining which application scenarios are retained for operation […] (Li, see citations noted supra, including again at least [0051]-[0055] discussing potential energy problems if too many virtual devices are used under different demand scenarios of varying energy availability, further in view of [0060]-[0061], teaching, e.g.: “ …if the energy is not sufficient to support running [operation] of all the virtual devices [application scenarios] of the virtual machine (that Itot,< l1 +I2+l3+I4+I5+ ... +In), the virtual devices having a minimum current consumption value are removed in sequence from the energy consumption reference table, until a sum of current consumption values of the remaining virtual devices [retained application scenarios] in the energy consumption reference table is less than or equal to the current upper limit [predetermined threshold] …”)
modifying the software application by modifying or removing features of the set of application features corresponding to at least one application scenario out of the subset that is determined such that the software application […], has a decreased carbon footprint compared to the software application originally designed prior to said modifying or said removing of said at least one application scenario (Li, see citations noted supra, e.g. per [0061]: “…if the energy is not sufficient to support running of all the virtual devices of the virtual machine [software application] (that Itotal,<ll +I2+l3+14+15+ ... +In), the virtual devices [at least one application scenario] having a minimum current consumption value are removed [modifying or removing from the software application at least one application scenario] in sequence from the energy consumption reference table [application scenario definition], until a sum of current consumption values of the remaining virtual devices in the energy consumption reference table is less than [i.e. to reduce the carbon footprint] or equal to the current upper limit [i.e. a predetermined threshold] or the remaining virtual devices in the energy consumption reference table [application scenario definition] are all fundamental virtual devices, such that the virtual device list is generated…”);
[…]
wherein, said each application scenario being defined as an application scenario definition […] said application scenario definition being stored in the memory of the device or a knowledge database accessible to said device (Li, again see citations noted supra, e.g. Table 1 [application scenario definition] stored in memory), the calculating the unitary carbon footprint comprises, for said each application scenario,
identifying a set of keywords in the application scenario definition wherein said identifying the set of keywords in the application scenario definition comprises [:]
reading terms of the application scenario definition (Li, see citations noted supra, e.g. per [0054]-[0055] and Table1 [application scenario definition], teaching: “…an energy consumption reference table [application scenario definition] is read [i.e. keywords are identified within table 1]…”; note Table 1 provides descriptive definitions of each virtual device, including keywords which describe at least the “name” of each device, the “serial number” of each device, other devices upon which each device depends, as well as each device’s “type”, such as “Fundamental virtual device” and “Functional virtual device”, and current energy consumption value, e.g. an average energy consumption value when executing the virtual device, etc…)
[…]
wherein said modifying or removing the at least one application scenario reduces the carbon footprint of the software application by modifying or removing application scenario features having higher carbon footprint values (Li, again see citations noted supra, e.g. per [0054]-[0061], regarding at least Table 1 an “Energy consumption reference table” [application scenario definition], which include terms classifying and defining each virtual device [application scenario] and their relationship with other virtual devices, and teaches, e.g. per [0061]: “…if the energy is not sufficient to support running of all the virtual devices [application scenarios] of the virtual machine [software application] (that Itotal,<ll +I2+l3+14+15+ ... +In), the virtual devices having a minimum current consumption value are removed [modifying or removing from the software application] in sequence from the energy consumption reference table, until a sum of current consumption values of the remaining virtual devices in the energy consumption reference table is less than [to reduce the carbon footprint] or equal to the current upper limit [below a predetermined threshold] or the remaining virtual devices in the energy consumption reference table are all fundamental virtual devices, such that the virtual device list is generated…”)
The only difference between the aforementioned limitations and the teaching of Li is that Li does not explicitly teach his method, e.g. as noted supra, executes during a “test phase” for an intended purpose of making his determination of which virtual devices are to remain [be retained] in his virtual machine for operation in a future “production phase”; e.g. Li may not explicitly use these business terms to describe the business scenarios in which his method may operate. However, Examiner takes Official Notice of the following facts: both “test phases” and “production phases” in a business’ product development cycle are old and well-known business practices to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention. Therefore, Examiner finds that there exists motivation to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement Li’s method during a test phase including use of Li’s known technique of establishing an energy consumption threshold [predetermined threshold] to define which of his “virtual devices” [application scenarios] are to remain [be retained] for running [operation] of his virtual machine [software application] when such software application does undergo production, i.e. in a production phase, of a business’ product development cycle, e.g. and therefore perform Li’s modification of which virtual devices are included in his virtual machine when placed in the production phase such that his virtual machine [software application], as modified to retain only the virtual devices for whose total energy consumption is less than his threshold, is provided for production [i.e. providing the software application that is modified to be entered in the production phase] as a means by which to adhere to business policy relating to product quality and testing standards prior to production, or to adhere to government imposed regulations including energy threshold policies for consumer devices, or simply for efficiency so as to not cause the product to fail if poorly designed such that the virtual machine requires too much energy upon start-up, etc… and because per MPEP 2143(I) (G) Some teaching, suggestion, or motivation in the prior art that would have led one of ordinary skill to modify the prior art reference or to combine prior art reference teachings to arrive at the claimed invention is obvious. The motivation to combine may be implicit and may be found in the knowledge of one of ordinary skill in the art, or, in some cases, from the nature of the problem to be solved. Id. at 1366, 80 USPQ2d at 1649.);
Furthermore, Although Li teaches the above limitations, and as shown supra, Li teaches he “reads”, e.g. parses, Table 1 an “Energy consumption reference table” [application scenario definition], which include terms classifying and defining each virtual device [application scenario] and provides a description regarding their relationship with other virtual devices, Li may not explicitly teach his Table 1 [application scenario definition] describes, i.e. defines, his virtual devices [application scenarios] via a “sentence”, nor may he delve into the nuanced minutia of using Natural Language Processing techniques to read or parse his Table 1 in a manner as recited below. However, regarding these features, Li in view of Chan teaches the following:
[wherein, said each application scenario being defined as an application scenario definition] as a sentence, […wherein said identifying the set of keywords in the application scenario definition] comprises reading terms of the application scenario definition in an application case repository (Chan, see at least [0032]-[0043], teaching, e.g.: “…For example, the documentation knowledge mining module 208 can include a document parser [a reader] that performs a process of tokenization (sometimes referred to as text segmentation or lexical analysis) of the log system documentation data [application case repository] to separate the text into a list of tokens. The individual tokens can include, for example, individual words, phrases, sections, and sentences…”
), correcting spelling errors in the terms using algorithmic operations including one or more of replacement, deletion, transposition and insertion (Chan, see citation noted supra, e.g. at least again [0038]: “…Stemming refers to the heuristic technique of removing [deletion] the end (e.g., the suffix) of a word to reach a common base form…”; Examiner notes that there are many mechanisms by which to “correct spelling errors” and because applicant has stipulated simple “deletion” may suffice, the Examiner notes that Chan’s stemming is one such mechanism by which certain spelling errors may be corrected, e.g. misspelled “grapht” may be corrected with stemming to remove the errant “t” and therefore form the correctly spelled “graph” also lemmatization may be used to replace a misspelled word with a correctly spelled variant, e.g. misspelled iis may be replaced with “am” which is a correct spelling of this term; lemmatization involves part-of-speech tagging and dictionary lookups for accuracy. As another example, lemmatization of the term "grapht" generally results in the base form, which is “graph”, as it's already a singular noun or infinitive concept.), applying a tokenization method to the terms that are corrected to split the sentence into smaller units as tokens, said tokens comprising words and symbols (Chan, see citations noted supra, e.g. [0032]-[0043], teaching e.g.: “…performs a process of tokenization (sometimes referred to as text segmentation or lexical analysis) of the log system documentation data [application scenario definition] to separate the text into a list of tokens. The individual tokens can include, for example, individual words, phrases, sections, and sentences..”), processing the token to remove stop words, wherein said stop words are most commonly used words, (Chan, see citations noted supra, again per [0032]-[0043]: “…The message parser can further remove noisy data by performing a clean stopword technique to remove stopwords from the text string of a log message. Stopwords are words or phrases that provide little value to deriving the context of a log message.…”), applying stemming and lemmatization to improve the tokens and remove duplicates from the terms (Chan, see citations noted supra, e.g.: “…[0038] The documentation knowledge mining module 208 can also perform a stemming technique or a lemmatization technique on the tokens that remain after the stopwords have been removed…”), and matching the tokens that are improved with token stored in a knowledge database (Chan, see citations noted supra, e.g. [0038]-[0043]: “…The documentation knowledge mining module 208 can further convert the remaining tokens into a word vector… the documentation knowledge mining module 208 is configured to receive log message field data and to perform one or more NLP techniques including keyword matching,… Keyword matching includes a word-by-word comparison of each word or token in a message field against one or more predetermined keywords stored, e.g., in the knowledge database 234 [knowledge database]…”)
Therefore, the Examiner understands that the limitations in question are merely applying known techniques of Chan (directed towards various Natural Language Processing techniques useful in parsing log system documentation data [e.g. an application case repository] to separate the text into a list of tokens, including sentences, which may describe a scenario of interest) which are applicable to a known base device/method of Li (who is already directed towards a system/method which “reads”, e.g. parses, a Table 1, which is an “Energy consumption reference table” [application scenario definition], which include terms classifying and defining virtual devices [application scenarios] and which provides a description, i.e. a definition, including their relationship with other virtual devices for the purpose of reducing the energy consumption of a virtual machine [software application] during execution such as during startup) to yield predictable results. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply the NLP techniques of Chan to the device/method of Li in order to read/parse Li’s Table1 of virtual device definitions because Chan is pertinent to the problem which Li needs to solve and because according to MPEP 2143(I) (C) and/or (D), the use of known technique to improve a known device, methods, or products in the same way (or which is ready for improvement) is obvious.
Claims 3, 11: (Original)
Li/Chan/Official Notice teaches the limitations upon which this claim depends including determining subsets of applications. Furthermore, Li teaches the following:
…further comprising, between the determining the subset and the modifying or removing the at least one application scenario of the subset that is determined, selecting, automatically or manually, the at least one application scenario to be modified or removed based on one or more of a business impact of said at least one application scenario, and the number of executions of said each application scenario expected during use of the software application in production. (Li, see citations noted supra, again per at least [0061] teaching: if the remaining virtual devices [application scenarios] are “fundamental” virtual devices, then they are not removed; i.e. removing a fundamental device would impact the objective of the business purpose of the virtual machine in an unwanted or negative way. Furthermore, the selection of virtual devices is based on total expected energy consumption of a given time period, which, as already noted supra, obviously includes the number of expected executions of each of the selected virtual devices [application scenarios] during that period of time.)
Claim 7: (previously presented)
Li/Chan/Official Notice teaches the limitations upon which this claim depends including determining subsets of applications. Furthermore, Li teaches the following: The method according to claim 1, wherein the predetermined threshold is predetermined in order to keep at least a predefined percentage of application scenarios in the subset. (Li, see citations noted supra, e.g. [0051]-[0061]. Examiner notes that this at this high-level of generality, this claim does not further stipulate a limitation on the claimed method and is nothing more than a statement of intended purpose of the method – i.e. the reason and purpose for the predetermination of a threshold is described as being to keep at least a predefined percentage of application scenarios in the subset but does not alter nor present a specific limitation to any method required to “to keep”. Nonetheless, Examiner finds that keeping at least “more than 0%” [a predefined percentage] of Li’s virtual devices [application scenarios] in the subset would be obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before ethe effective filing date of the claimed invention such that the virtual machine has at least some virtual devices by which to operate for the purpose of making the virtual machine at least useful and therefore it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to implement Li’s already disclosed technique for this purpose; i.e. to keep at least more than 0% of the virtual devices [application scenarios] in the subset because per MPEP 2143(I) (G) Some teaching, suggestion, or motivation in the prior art that would have led one of ordinary skill to modify the prior art reference or to combine prior art reference teachings to arrive at the claimed invention is obvious. The motivation to combine may be implicit and may be found in the knowledge of one of ordinary skill in the art, or, in some cases, from the nature of the problem to be solved. Id. at 1366, 80 USPQ2d at 1649.)
Claim 13: (previously presented)
Li/Chan/Official Notice teaches the limitations upon which this claim depends. Furthermore, as already shown in the rejection of the parent claims, Li in view of Chan teaches the following:
The device according to claim 10, wherein, for said identify the set of keywords in the application scenario definition, the computer is further configured to read terms of the application scenario definition in an application case repository, correct spelling errors in the terms, tokenize the terms that are corrected, remove stop words and duplicates (Chan, see citations noted supra, e.g. [0038]-[0043]: regarding parsing terms, cleaning, tokenizing, removing stop words, lemmatization and stemming as well as keyword matching, etc…; Examiner notes that applicant fails to stipulate any particular mechanism by which to achieve “correcting spelling errors” and therefore Examiner notes that Chan’s lemmatization and stemming are also mechanisms by which certain spelling errors may be corrected, e.g. misspelled “grapht” may be corrected either with stemming to remove the errant “t” and therefore form the correctly spelled “graph” or via lemmatization which involves part-of-speech tagging and dictionary lookups for accuracy, where lemmatization of the term "grapht" generally results in the base form, which is “graph”, as it's already a singular noun or infinitive concept.)
Therefore, the Examiner understands that the limitations in question are merely applying known techniques of Chan (directed towards various Natural Language Processing techniques useful in parsing log system documentation data [e.g. an application case repository] to separate the text into a list of tokens, including sentences, which may describe a scenario of interest) which are applicable to a known base device/method of Li (who is already directed towards a system/method which “reads”, e.g. parses, a Table 1, which is an “Energy consumption reference table” [application scenario definition], which include terms classifying and defining virtual devices [application scenarios] and which provides a description, i.e. a definition, including their relationship with other virtual devices for the purpose of reducing the energy consumption of a virtual machine [software application] during execution such as during startup) to yield predictable results. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply the NLP techniques of Chan to the device/method of Li in order to read/parse Li’s Table1 of virtual device definitions because Chan is pertinent to the problem which Li needs to solve and because according to MPEP 2143(I) (C) and/or (D), the use of known technique to improve a known device, methods, or products in the same way (or which is ready for improvement) is obvious.
Claim 14: (Original)
Li/Chan/Official Notice teaches the limitations upon which this claim depends. Furthermore, as shown Li teaches the following: The device according to claim 10, wherein said device is configured to operate on several different sets of application scenarios of the software application (Li, see citations noted supra, e.g. again per [0054]-[0061] different sets of virtual devices [application scenarios] are considered as potentially being selected as part of the virtual device list to be used for virtual machine [application software] startup.)
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as obvious over Li/Chan/Official Notice in view of Malik et al. (US 2016/0363987 A1; hereinafter, "Malik").
Claim 6: (Original)
Li/Chan/Official Notice teaches the limitations upon which this claim depends included a “predetermined time” but may not teach the nuance as claimed below. However, regarding this feature Li/Chan in view of Malik teaches the following:
The method according to claim 1, wherein the predetermined period of time is equal to one month or one year (Malik, see at least [0020], e.g.: “…Analysis over the course of a year [predetermined period of time is equal to one year] shows trends that can be, for example, seasonal or quarterly in nature. For instance, analysis of past client node usage of data center nodes shows the maximum usage occurs during winter and a minimal usage occurs during the summer. Analysis over the course of a year shows trends that can be, for example, seasonal or quarterly in nature. For instance, analysis of past client node usage of data center nodes shows the maximum usage occurs during winter and a minimal usage occurs during the summer…”)
Therefore, the Examiner understands that the limitation in question is merely applying a known technique of Malik which is applicable to a known base device/method of Li/Chan to yield predictable results. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply the techniques of Malik to the device/method of Li/Chan in arrive at the limitation in question because Malik is pertinent to the objective of Li/Chan and because according to MPEP 2143(I) (C) and/or (D), the use of known technique to improve a known device, methods, or products in the same way (or which is ready for improvement) is obvious.
Response to Arguments
Applicant amended claims 1, 9, 10 and canceled claims 2, 4, 5, 8, 12, 15-16 on 3/16/2026. Applicant's arguments (hereinafter “Remarks”) filed 03/16/2026, have been fully considered but are moot in view of the new grounds of rejection necessitated by applicant’s amendments. Note the new 35 USC 101, and 103 rejections in view of Li, Chan, and Official Notice.
Conclusion
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).
The following prior art is made of record although not relied upon as it is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Green Algorithms: Quantifying the carbon footprint of computation; L. Lannelongue, J. Grealey, and M. Inouye, Advanced Science, vol. 8, no. 12, p. 2100707, July 2021, doi: 10.1002/advs.202100707
Gartner, Inc.: Gartner Estimates ICT Industry Accounts for 2 Percent of Global CO2 Emissions. Gartner Press Release (April 2007)
The Climate Group: SMART 2020: Enabling the low carbon economy in the information age. Report on behalf of the Global eSustainability Initiative (GeSI) (2008)
Intel Corporation, Microsoft Corporation: Advanced Power Management (APM) BIOS Interface Specification. Revision 1.2 (February 1996)
Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Microsoft, Phoenix Technologies, Toshiba: Advanced Configuration and Power Interface Specification, Revision 4.0a (2010)
Lachenmann, A., Marron, P., Minder, D., Rothermel, K.: Meeting lifetime goals with energy levels. In: Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems, pp. 131-144. ACM, New York (2007)
Chan, W.K., Chen, T.Y., Cheung, S.C., Tse, T.H., Zhang, Z.: Towards the Testing of Power-Aware Software Applications for Wireless Sensor Networks. In: Abdennahder, N., Kordon, F. (eds.) Ada-Europe 2007. LNCS, vol. 4498, pp. 84-99. Springer, Heidelberg (2007)
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHAEL J SITTNER whose telephone number is (571)270-3984. The examiner can normally be reached M-F; ~9:30-6:30. 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, Waseem Ashraf can be reached on (571) 270-3948. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Michael J Sittner/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3621