DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement(s) (IDS) submitted on 12/04/2025, 06/21/2024 and 06/12/2024 were filed before the mailing date of this office action. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Examiner’s Note:
The limitation “monitor the network to detect improper network activity affecting the industrial process…”, under claims 1 and 14, appear to 1) not recite a further mental process, and 2) recites a practical application, and thus no Alice 101 rejection issued.
Claims 7-9 and 27-35 are not indicated as “Objected” in the index of claims and PTO-326 because of the 101 rejections.
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.
Claim 1 and its dependent claims 7-9 and 27-35 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention under claim 1 is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because the "a processor", in claim 1, line 1, is not explicitly indicated to be a hardware processor in the Applicant’s instant Specification, and thus the “emulation system” of claim 1 under the broadest reasonable definition, may be interpreted as being directed to software per se.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US-PGPUB No. 2016/0330225 A1 to Kroyzer et al. (hereinafter “Kroyzer”), and further in view of US-PGPUB No. 20170205811 A1 to Grgic
Regarding claim 1:
Kroyzer discloses:
(Original) A[n emulation] system (see Fig. 2, a system for detection of anomalies in an industrial control system) comprising a processor (¶07: “The anomaly detection module comprises a processor”) configured to perform operations comprising:
correlate a first set of transmissions through a network of a monitored system to a first set of responses of a first control routine logic (Kroyzer, ¶70: “prediction engine 20,”) executed within a first monitored device (Kroyzer, ¶70: “response detector 18”) of the monitored system (Kroyzer, ¶70-73: “In the predicting step 210, the response detector 18 predicts, via the prediction engine 20, the effect on one or more operational parameters by a predetermined modification of an operational state of one or more one control devices. … In the comparing step 240, the response detector 18 compares the result of the monitoring step 230 to the prediction obtained in the prediction step 210.”), wherein the monitored system controls an industrial process (Kroyzer, ¶27: “An industrial control system can monitor and control operation of an industrial process system,”) performed within an external system coupled to the monitored system (Kroyzer, ¶54: “an industrial control system, which is generally indicated at 410, is provided to facilitate overseeing and directing operation of an industrial process plant (or part thereof), which is generally indicated at 412.”);
[…] [while] the monitored system controls the industrial process (Kroyzer, ¶27: “An industrial control system can monitor and control operation of an industrial process system,”).
However, Kroyzer does not explicitly disclose the following limitation taught by Grgic:
[A]n emulation [system] (Grgic, ¶33: “the industrial controller 12, also hosting the system emulation, may further execute to build an emulation environment 64 (or program environment for emulation),”)
adjust a first parameter influencing an execution speed of the first control routine logic within a first emulation of the first monitored device to cause a response timing of the first set of responses to match a timing between two transmissions of the first set of transmissions (Grgic, ¶34-35: “The time reference 72 may provide an empirically derived look up table for timing execution of the emulation to match execution of the actual industrial control device and/or industrial control system 10 being modeled. … the emulation environment 64 may execute in lock step (synchronously) with control of the industrial equipment 20. As a result, a parameter, such as a count, time, variable or instruction, updated in the control data 62 may be updated at approximately the same time as an equivalently emulated parameter being updated in the emulated data 69.”); and
use at least the first emulation to prepare a monitoring device to monitor the network to detect improper network activity affecting the industrial process (Grgic, ¶36: “… the emulation environment 64 may provide an output predicting an action (or parameter) of control of the industrial equipment 20, such as a count, time, variable or instruction expected to occur. This may advantageously allow for predicting a possible undesirable outcome or failure, which may allow taking alternative measures to prevent the undesirable outcome or failure.”) […]
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention, to modify the teachings of Kroyzer to incorporate the architecture and functionality of the emulated industrial control device to execute a user program (or control program) at the same rate as the physical industrial control device being emulated by controlling a clock rate, as disclosed by Grgic, such modification would enable the system for predicting a possible undesirable outcome or failure, which may allow taking alternative measures to prevent the undesirable outcome or failure.
Regarding claim 14:
Claim 14 recites substantially the same limitations as claim 1 in the form of a method implementing the corresponding functionality. Therefore, it is rejected by the same rationale.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 7 is objected to as being dependent upon rejected independent base claim 1, but would be allowable if the 101 rejection of the base claim is overcome, and rewritten in independent form. Claims 8-9 and 27-35 are objected based on their dependency on claim 7.
Claims 20, 41 and 44 are objected to as being dependent upon rejected independent base claim 14, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of any intervening claims. Claims 21-22 and 36-40 are objected based on their dependency on claim 20, and claims 42-43 are objected based on their dependency on claim 41.
The following is the examiner's statement of reasons for allowance:
With respect to claim 7, the combination of Kroyzer and Grgic teaches the emulation system of claim 1, but fails to teach the limitation: “… the first monitored device is coupled to the external system via a communications link; and the processor is further configured to perform operations comprising: correlate a second set of transmissions through the communications link to the first set of responses of the first control routine logic executed within the first monitored device; and adjust the first parameter influencing the execution speed of the first control routine logic within the first emulation to additionally cause another response timing of the first set of responses to match a timing between two other transmissions of at least one of the first set of transmissions and the second set of transmissions.”. Claim 20 recites the same limitations as claim 7 in the form of a method to implement the corresponding functionality, and thus the combination of Kroyzer and Grgic also fails to teach claim 20.
Claims 8-9 and 27-35 are indicated as allowable subject matters based on their dependence on claim 7, and claims 21-22 and 36-40 are also indicated as allowable subject matters based on their dependence on claim 20.
With respect to claim 41, the combination of Kroyzer and Grgic fails to teach the limitation: “wherein:the external system comprises at least one of:a sensing device to measure a first aspect of the industrial process within the external system; or an effecting device to control a second aspect of the industrial process within the external system; the second set of transmissions comprises at least one of: a transmission conveying, from the sensing device and to the first monitored device, operational information indicative of the measure of the first aspect; or a transmission conveying, from the first monitored device and to the effecting device, an operational command to control the second aspect; and the first set of transmissions comprises at least one of: a transmission conveying, from the first monitored device, the operational information indicative of the measure of the first aspect; or a transmission conveying, to the first monitored device, another operation command that triggers the transmission of the operational command to the effecting device to control the second aspect.”.
Claims 42-43 are indicated as allowable subject matters based on their dependence on claim 41.
With respect to claim 44, the combination of Kroyzer and Grgic fails to teach the limitation: “wherein the monitoring device is prepared to respond to an instance of the improper network activity by performing an operation comprising at least one of: providing an alert of the instance; logging an indication of the instance; outputting a transmission onto the network to substitute for an expected transmission that failed to occur on the network, wherein the instance of the improper network activity comprises the failure of the expected transmission to occur on the network; and outputting a transmission onto the network to countermand or substitute for an improper transmission occurring on the network, wherein the instance of the improper network activity comprises the improper transmission occurring on the network.”.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Flamingo (US 20080046227 A1)- discloses an emulator of a controller of an industrial plant, comprising: an emulation unit, comprising an emulation engine; a structural configuration unit, for configuring the emulation engine so as to define an architecture of a controller of a plant, the architecture comprising a plurality of operative modules organised in nodes and at least one loop; and a functional configuration unit for configuring the emulation engine using sets of instructions directly uploadable to the controller and assigned to respective operating modules, so as to define controlling functions of the plant; wherein at least one operating module defined in the emulation engine comprises an interpreter for performing the instructions assigned to the operating module..
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MATTHIAS HABTEGEORGIS whose telephone number is (571)272-1916. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8am-5pm ET.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, William R. Korzuch can be reached at (571)272-7589. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MATTHIAS HABTEGEORGIS/Examiner, Art Unit 2491