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 .
Claim Objections
Claim 2 is objected to because of the following informalities:
In line 1, the term “controller” should be inserted before “according”.
Appropriate correction is required.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-3 and 5-22 are allowed.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
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.
Claim 23 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Prakash et al. (10,812,319) and McColgan et al. (10,642,713) in view of Hamby et al. (7,123,850).
As in claim 23, Prakash teaches a controller for controlling a system having a plurality of system objects, the controller being for controlling system performance according to a performance metric based on a state of each of the system objects, the controller comprising one or more processors configured to implement (Abstract):
a detection module configured to detect a change in state of at least one first object from the plurality of system objects (A controller tracks one or more objects for state changes - col. 15, lines 52-61);
a determination module configured to determine a first modifying action to be applied to the at least one first object in response to the detected change in state (The controller determines performance metric changes events (a modifying action which is a result of the object’s state change) - col. 15: lines 52-64; col. 20: lines 46-50; col. 22: lines 47-53); and
a module configured to detect a change in state of at least one second object from the plurality of system objects, different from the at least one first object (The controller can monitor data from a plurality of different agents (detection modules), so there are multiple different objects - col. 13: 64 – col. 14: line 3. Further, Prakash teaches that either object A or object B can change their states and have an impact on a performance metric - col. 19: lines 12-20).
Although Prakash does teach that performance metrics are based on a chain of events and cause and effect (col. 15: lines 34-37), and that by correlating a history of object state changes, it can identify a root cause (col. 22: lines 47-50), Prakash doesn’t specifically teach a change in state of at least one second object that would result from the first modifying action being applied to the at least one first object.
McColgan teaches of a system that monitors a plurality of objects, and the relationship between the objects, in order to determine if a condition which affects one of the objects will affect another object (Abstract; col. 3, line 59 – col. 4, line 5).
It would have been obvious to a person skilled in the art at the time the invention was filed to want to determine whether a state of a second object results from a modifying action applied to a first object, as taught by McColgan above, into the system taught by Prakash above. This would have been obvious because both Prakash and McColgan refer to similar performance issues that may affect objects (Prakash – col. 18: lines 49-61; McColgan – col. 1: lines 6-13), and McColgan further teaches that some conditions may cause issues in other devices or applications, and entities associated with the other devices or applications may benefit from knowledge of these conditions associated with related devices (col. 1: lines 6-13).
Although Prakash does teach a modification module configured to determine a second modifying action to be applied to the system to improve system performance according to the performance metric that would result from the first modifying action, and to output the first and second modifying actions (A reactive action (second modifying action) may be applied to the system in order to improve system performance – col. 21: lines 10-33; col. 22, lines 53-61), neither Prakash and McColgan specifically teach of a prediction module configured to predict a change in state of at least one second object, and a modification module to determine an action to mitigate against an adverse effect on predicted system performance, wherein the modification module is configured to monitor system performance according to the performance metric in response to the first and second modifying actions being applied, to compare the monitored system performance relative to the predicted system performance, and to determine an updated second modifying action to be applied to the system in dependence on the system performance comparison.
However, Hamby teaches of a system of predicting how a machine (object) will respond to a service (action) and adjust (modifying action) the machine accordingly to mitigate against an adverse effect on the performance (Abstract, col. 3: lines 18-44), wherein an algorithm measures (monitors) performance prior to, during, and after an action to update a prediction of the necessary changes to compensate for any transients (col. 1, line 65 – col. 2, line 7, col. 3: line 32 – col. 4: line 40). That is, in order to update a prediction based on monitoring (measuring) performance prior to, during and after an action would require some type of comparison of what is actually measured versus what is predicted. The updated prediction would also include updating any action taken to mitigate an adverse effect.
It would have been obvious to a person skilled in the art at the time the invention was filed to include the process of predicting an action to mitigate against an adverse effect, and updating an action/prediction after comparing the monitored performance after the action was performed with a previous prediction, as taught by Hamby, into the system taught by Prakash and McColgan above. This would have been obvious because since Prakash, McColgan and Hamby all describe systems that take into account adverse actions that affect objects when another object state changes, and further, Hamby teaches that by anticipating (predicting) the effect an action has, instead of only reacting to it, the benefits can be realized without the expense of transient deviations (col. 2: lines 15-18).
Conclusion
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/SCOTT T BADERMAN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2118
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