FINAL REJECTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
1. Claims 1 and 4-20 are presented for examination. Claims 2 and 3 are canceled.
2. The text of those applicable section of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in the prior Office Action.
3. The title of the invention is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed.
Information Disclosure Statement
4. The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 02/06/26 was considered by the examiner. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97.
Specification
5. The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities: amended specification filed on 2/6/26, paragraph 0054, line 3, “at 238” should be -- at 240 --; according to figure 2.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Objections
6. Claims 16-17 objected to because of the following informalities: Claims 16-17 are depended on canceled claim 3. For purpose of examination, claims 16-17 are depended on claim 1.
Appropriate correction is required.
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 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.
7. 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.
8. Claims 1 and 4-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Farkas et al. (Farkas), US publication no. 2004/02681661. in view of Ragupathi et al. (Ragupathi), US publication no. 2016/0183406 A1.
As per claim 1, Farkas teaches a method of responding to a thermal management capacity reduction in a datacenter [para 30, 62], the method comprising:
obtaining process allocations assigned to a plurality of electronic devices in the datacenter [para 80-82]; collecting hardware identifications for the plurality of electronic devices [para 48, 80]; determining a process priority list based on the process allocations assigned to the plurality of electronic devices [para 80-82];
monitoring at least one cooling sensor configured to measure a thermal management capacity of a cooling system of the plurality of electronic devices [para 83]; and in response to detecting a reduction in thermal management capacity, reducing power delivery to at least one electronic device of the plurality of electronic devices based on the process priority list [figure 8; para 82-83, 112].
Farkas does not explicitly disclose the hardware identifications include thermal susceptibility information of the electronic devices of the plurality of electronic devices.
Ragupathi discloses the hardware identifications include thermal susceptibility information of the electronic devices of the plurality of electronic devices [para 44, 46].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at time the invention to combine the teachings of Farkas and Ragupathi because they both disclose an thermal control system, the specify teachings of Ragupathi stated above would have further enhanced the performance and functionality of Farkas system to obtain predictable results to determine priority list of components.
Farkas teaches:
[0030] Because, the cooling system may be designed based on nominal heat dissipation, there may be some instances when the maximum cooling capacity of the cooling system is not able to meet the cooling demand of the computer systems (e.g., when all the computer systems are operating at maximum capacity and dissipating a maximum amount of heat). A cooling provisioning system minimizes the possibility of damage to components and decreased life expectancy caused by insufficient cooling for a computer system by communicating cooling demand to the power provisioning system. The power provisioning system may place components/computer systems in a lower-power state to reduce heat dissipation if insufficient cooling resources are available. Also, there may be multiple lower-power states for each component. For example, a processor for a computer system may be placed in a lower-power state by
reducing clock speed to one of multiple lower clock speeds, whereby each clock speed represents a lower-power state or step. The power provisioning system may instruct the processor to reduce or increase clock speed or power consumption by one or more steps. In addition, workloads for the computer systems may be prioritized based on importance of the applications executing on the computer systems. Therefore,
computer systems having a higher priority are selected last for being placed in a lower-power state.
[0080] The component control module 520 stores the power state of the components 412a ... n in a power provisioning repository 522. The repository 522 may store a list of components 412a ... n, the power state of each component, and optionally the power consumption of each of the components in their current power state. For the components 412a ... n that may be placed in multiple lower-power states, the repository 522 may identify which of the lower-power states the components are in and the number of lower-power states, the power consumption range of the components, or the overall power consumption of the computer system 400 for each of the system states represented by placing the components 412a . .. n in any of their power states. For a processor in a lower-power state, for example, the repository 522 may identify the reduced clock speed and further identify the speeds to which the clock may be further reduced or increased and possibly the corresponding power consumption. The repository 522 may also identify the current power consumption of the processor. The
repository 522 may include data on the components 412a . .. n in a lower-power state or the repository 522 may contain data on substantially all the components 412a ... n. Also, the repository 522 may store application priority information, such as described below, to identify which components are associated with computer systems executing high-priority applications. The components 412a . .. n associated with computer systems executing high-priority applications may be lastly placed in a lower-power state by the threshold comparison module 520.
[0112] At step 810, the power provisioning system 426 determines the power consumption of the computer systems 410 and waits for messages from the cooling provisioning system 436 regarding the cooling resources. At step 820, the power provisioning system 426 determines whether it has received a message from the cooling provisioning system 436 regarding the cooling resources. If a message is
received, the power provisioning system determines whether the message indicates that insufficient cooling resources are available for cooling the computer systems 410 (step 830) or whether the message indicates that excess cooling resources are available (step 840).
Ragupathi teaches:
[0044] A thermal priority rating of a thermal component may include any index, score, etc. associated with a priority level for cooling the thermal component within an information handling system. For example, a thermal component with a high thermal priority rating may be important or even critical to proper operation of the information handling system. Additionally or alternatively, the thermal component with the high thermal priority rating may be particularly difficult to cool due to high power consumption and heat or due to the placement of the thermal component in the layout of the information handling system. In other examples, a thermal component with a low thermal priority rating may be less important to proper functionality of the information handling system. Additionally or alternatively, the thermal component with the low thermal priority rating may be relatively trivial to cool.
[0046] Thermal priority ratings may be calculated and associated with thermal components in any suitable way. In certain examples, thermal priority ratings may be predetermined ( e.g., by a designer, user, technician, etc.) and preprogrammed into the fan control subsystem, such as into memory 304 of fan control subsystem 300. In other examples, thermal priority ratings may be determined for certain components automatically and/or dynamically by information handling system 200 or fan control subsystem 300 without human intervention. Referring to FIG. 2, various factors may be
considered in determining whether high priority component 220-2 or medium priority component 222-1 is a higher priority to cool.
As per claim 4, Farkas teaches of reducing power delivery to at least one electronic device is further based on the hardware identifications [para 80-83, 113].
As per claim 5, Farkas teaches of reducing power delivery includes power capping at least one electronic device [para 80-83, 88, 113].
As per claim 6, Farkas teaches of reducing power delivery includes shutting down at least one electronic device [para 80-83, 113].
As per claim 7, Farkas teaches of determining a process priority list includes using a machine learning model that is at least partially trained using known thermal management capacity reduction events [para 80, 82].
As per claim 8, Farkas teaches of determining a process priority list includes determining a plurality of process priorities lists where different process priority lists are
associated with different types of thermal management capacity reductions [para 80-82].
As per claim 9, Ragupathi teaches of determining a hardware priority list based upon thermal susceptibility of at least two of the electronic devices of the plurality of
electronic devices [para 44, 46].
As per claim 10, Farkas teaches of creating a priority list based on dependencies between the process priority list and the hardware priority list [para 80, 82, 83].
As per claim 11, Farkas teaches of detecting a reduction in thermal management capacity includes calculating a percentage reduction in thermal management capacity and wherein reducing power delivery includes reducing power delivery by a power delivery percentage that is at least the percentage reduction in thermal management capacity [para 82-83, 112].
As per claim 16, Farkas teaches of reducing power delivery includes power capping at least one electronic device [para 80-83, 88, 113].
As per claim 17, Farkas teaches of reducing power delivery includes shutting down at least one electronic device [para 80-83, 113].
As per claim 18, Farkas teaches of reducing power delivery includes power capping at least one electronic device [para 80-83, 113].
As per claim 19, Farkas teaches of reducing power delivery includes shutting down at least one electronic device [para 80-83, 88, 113].
As per claim 20, Farkas teaches of determining a process priority list includes using a machine learning model that is at least partially trained using known thermal management capacity reduction events [para 80, 82].
As to claims 12-15, basically are the corresponding elements that are carried out the method of operating step in claims 1 and 4-10. Accordingly, claims 12-15 are rejected for the same reason as set forth in claims 1 and 4-10 [para 80-83, 91, 94-96, 101, 102].
9. Examiner's note: Examiner has cited particular paragraphs and columns and line numbers in the references as applied to the claims above for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings of the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested from the applicant in preparing responses, to fully consider the references in entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the examiner. MPEP 2141.02 VI: “PRIOR ART MUST BE CONSIDERED IN ITS ENTIRETY, INCLUDING DISCLOSURES THAT TEACH AWAY FROM THE CLAIMS."
Response to Arguments
10. Applicant's arguments filed 2/6/26 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
11. Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1 and 4-20 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
See detailed rejection indicated above.
Conclusion
12. Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any extension fee pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHUN CAO whose telephone number is (571)272-3664. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 7:00 am-3:30 pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kamini Shah can be reached on 571-272-2279. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/CHUN CAO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2115
1 Farkas is cited by applicant.