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 .
Status of Claims/Response to Amendment
Claims 1, 5, 8, 12, 15, 19, and 21-29 are currently pending in response to the claim amendments and remarks filed on 06/24/2026. Claims 2-4, 6-7, 9-11, 13-14, 16-18, and 20 are canceled; claims 21-29 are new; and claims 1, 5, 8, 12, 15, and 19 are amended. The claim amendments have introduced new issues to claims 1, 5, 8, 12, 15, and 19, thus overcame the Double Patenting, 101, and 103 rejections as set forth in the Non-Final office action mailed on 03/25/2026. Upon further consideration of claims 1, 5, 8, 12, 15, 19, and 21-29, new ground(s) of rejections are detailed below.
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
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Claims 1 and 8 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-3, 6, 9, 11-13, 16, 19 of U.S. Patent No. 12,602,304. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because Kommula anticipates the invention as follows:
Instant Application 18/305181
1. A method comprising: obtaining, by a computing system, energy usage data of a data center, wherein the energy usage data comprises a current energy usage of the data center and a total energy usage of the data center; determining an energy quotient of the data center that indicates a percentage of the total energy usage consumed by the current energy usage; and improving, by the computing system, energy usage of the data center in response to determining that the energy quotient of the data center is greater than a percentage of energy provided by one or more renewable energy sources to the data center, wherein the improving is performed by configuring a network interface of a server in the data center.
Patent No. 12,602,304
1. A method comprising: obtaining, by a computing system, energy usage data of a data center deploying an application; computing, by a computing system and based on a comparison of the energy usage data of the data center deploying the application to a percentage of energy provided by one or more renewable energy sources to the data center, a green quotient of the application that specifies a value that indicates whether the data center deploying the application is energy efficient; and invoking, by a computing system and based on the green quotient of the application that specifies a value that indicates the data center deploying the application is not energy efficient, an action to improve energy usage of the data center deploying the application, wherein the action comprises configuring one or more devices of the data center.
2. The method of claim 1, wherein computing the green quotient of the application comprises: determining, based on energy usage data of the data center when the application is running, a first green quotient that indicates the energy efficiency of the data center when the application is running; determining, based on energy usage data of the data center when the application is not running, a second green quotient that indicates the energy efficiency of the data center when the application is not running; and computing a delta between the first green quotient and the second green quotient; specifying, based on comparing the delta between the first green quotient and the second green quotient to the percentage of energy provided by one or more renewable energy sources to the data center, a value for the green quotient of the application that indicates whether the data center deploying the application is energy efficient.
3. The method of claim 2, wherein the energy usage data comprises a current energy usage of the data center and a total energy usage of the data center if the data center were to run at full capacity; wherein determining the first green quotient comprises: determining a first energy quotient, wherein the first energy quotient of the data center indicates a percentage of the total energy usage consumed by the current energy usage of the data center when the application is running, and comparing the first energy quotient to a percentage of energy provided by one or more renewable energy sources to the data center; and wherein determining the second green quotient comprises: determining a second energy quotient, wherein the second energy quotient of the data center indicates a percentage of the total energy usage consumed by the current energy usage of the data center when the application is not running, and comparing the second energy quotient to the percentage of energy provided by one or more renewable energy sources to the data center.
6. The method of claim 2, wherein specifying, based on comparing the delta between the first green quotient and the second green quotient to a percentage of energy provided by one or more renewable energy sources to the data center, the value for the green quotient of the application that indicates whether the data center deploying the application is energy efficient comprises: determining that the delta between the first green quotient and the second green quotient is greater than the percentage of energy provided by one or more renewable energy sources to the data center; and in response to determining that the delta between the first green quotient and the second green quotient is greater than the percentage of energy provided by one or more renewable energy sources to the data center, specifying a value of the green quotient of the application that indicates the data center deploying the application is not energy efficient.
9. The method of claim 1, wherein invoking the action to improve energy usage of the data center comprises: configuring a processing unit of a network interface card in a server of the data center to perform the action.
Instant Application 18/305181
8. A computing system comprising: a memory; one or more processors in communication with the memory and configured to: obtain energy usage data of a data center, wherein the energy usage data comprises a current energy usage of the data center and a total energy usage of the data center; determine an energy quotient of the data center that indicates a percentage of the total energy usage consumed by the current energy usage; and improve energy usage of the data center in response to determining that the energy quotient of the data center is greater than a percentage of energy provided by one or more renewable energy sources to the data center, wherein the one or more processors are configured to improve the energy usage by configuring a network interface of a server in the data center.
Patent No. 12,602,304
11. A computing system comprising: a memory; and one or more processors in communication with the memory, the one or more processors configured to: obtain energy usage data of a data center deploying an application; compute, based on a comparison of the energy usage data of the data center deploying the application to a percentage of energy provided by one or more renewable energy sources to the data center, a green quotient of the application that specifies a value that indicates whether the data center deploying the application is energy efficient; and invoke, based on the green quotient of the application that specifies a value that indicates the data center deploying the application is not energy efficient, an action to improve energy usage of the data center deploying the application, wherein the action comprises configuring one or more devices of the data center.
12. The computing system of claim 11, wherein to compute the green quotient of the application, the one or more processors are configured to: determine, based on energy usage data of the data center when the application is running, a first green quotient that indicates the energy efficiency of the data center when the application is running; determine, based on energy usage data of the data center when the application is not running, a second green quotient that indicates the energy efficiency of the data center when the application is not running; and computing a delta between the first green quotient and the second green quotient; specify, based on comparing the delta between the first green quotient and the second green quotient to the percentage of energy provided by one or more renewable energy sources to the data center, the value for the green quotient of the application that indicates whether the data center deploying the application is energy efficient.
13. The computing system of claim 12, wherein the energy usage data comprises a current energy usage of the data center and a total energy usage of the data center if the data center were to run at full capacity; wherein to determine the first green quotient, the one or more processors are configured to: determine a first energy quotient, wherein the first energy quotient of the data center indicates a percentage of the total energy usage consumed by the current energy usage of the data center when the application is running, and compare the first energy quotient to a percentage of energy provided by one or more renewable energy sources to the data center; and wherein to determine the second green quotient, the one or more processors are configured to: determine a second energy quotient, wherein the second energy quotient of the data center indicates a percentage of the total energy usage consumed by the current energy usage of the data center when the application is not running, and compare the second energy quotient to the percentage of energy provided by one or more renewable energy sources to the data center.
16. The computing system of claim 12, wherein to specify, based on comparing the delta between the first green quotient and the second green quotient to a percentage of energy provided by one or more renewable energy sources to the data center, the value for the green quotient of the application that indicates whether the data center deploying the application is energy efficient, the one or more processors are configured to: determine that the delta between the first green quotient and the second green quotient is greater than the percentage of energy provided by one or more renewable energy sources to the data center; and in response to determining that the delta between the first green quotient and the second green quotient is greater than the percentage of energy provided by one or more renewable energy sources to the data center, specify a value of the green quotient of the application that indicates the data center deploying the application is not energy efficient.
19. The computing system of claim 11, wherein to invoke the action to improve energy usage of the data center, the one or more processors are configured to: configure a processing unit of a network interface card in a server of the data center to perform the action.
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.
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 nonobviousness.
Claims 1, 5, 8, 12, 15, 19, 21-22, 26, and 28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Claassen et al. (US-2008/0288193) in view of Zhang et al. ("Greening Cloud-Scale Data Centers to Maximize the Use of Renewable Energy", GreenWare, 2011, pp.143-164).
With respect to claims 1, 8 and 15, Claassen teaches a method, a non-transitory computer-readable medium, and a computing system comprising: a memory; one or more processors in communication with the memory and configured to: (memory 1630 and processor 1620 of apparatus 1600, fig.16; method 100, fig.1) comprising:
obtaining, by a computing system, energy usage data of a data center, wherein the energy usage data comprises a current energy usage of the data center and a total energy usage of the data center; determining an energy quotient of the data center that indicates a percentage of the total energy usage consumed by the current energy usage (assessment of the energy efficiency of the data center is based on a ratio of information technology (IT) power consumption (e.g., power consumed by IT and related equipment, such as uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs), power distribution units (PDUs), cabling and switches) to overall data center power consumption (which includes, in addition to IT power consumption, power consumption by a secondary support infrastructure, including, e.g., cooling system components, data center lighting, fire protection, security, generator and switchgear) …energy efficiency of data center (
η
)…, is
η
=Power for IT (PIT) / Power for data center (PDC), step 102 of fig.1 and [0028];
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, The total power for the data center (PDC) is typically available from facility power monitoring systems or from the utility company and the IT equipment power (PIT) can be directly measured at the PDUs present throughout the data center [0078]).
Claassen does not appear to teach improving, by the computing system, energy usage of the data center in response to determining that the energy quotient of the data center is greater than a percentage of energy provided by one or more renewable energy sources to the data center, wherein the improving is performed by configuring a network interface of a server in the data center.
However, it is known by Zhang to teach a method (Zhang: maximize the percentage of renewable energy used to power a network of distributed data centers, abstract) comprising: improving, by the computing system, energy usage of the data center in response to determining that the energy quotient of the data center is greater than a percentage of energy provided by one or more renewable energy sources to the data center (Zhang: N data centers are operated in a cloud-scale data-center network. The ith data center consumes pWi kilowatts of wind energy, pSi kilowatts of solar energy and pi kilowatts of brown energy, respectively. The total power consumption pi (i.e., pi = pWi +pSi +pBi) of the ith data center should not exceed the peak power limit Psi of the data center, page 147; to maximize the overall renewable energy usage of all the N data centers, xi percentage of wind power and yi percentage of solar power out of the total power consumption pi by the ith data center will have to be determined. Then, zi percentage of the total power consumption is supplemented in the form of brown energy. It is clear that zi = 1 − xi − yi, page 148; when the available renewable energy supply is less than the actual renewable energy demand (i.e., a difference lower than 0), the corresponding renewable energy usage does not reach 100%, e.g., the hours of 2, 5, 6, 7, page 157), wherein the improving is performed by configuring a network interface of a server in the data center (Zhang: dynamically adjust the number of active servers to minimize the power consumption of the data center, page 146; a local optimizer runs in every data center and dynamically adjusts the number of active servers to provide a desired level of QoS (e.g., response time) with the least number of servers, page 149).
Because Zhang’s teaching is also directed to data center energy utilization or data center energy consumption (Zhang: abstract; Claassen: figs.1-16), it would have been obvious to POSITA before the effective filing date to incorporate the teaching of ‘determining that the energy quotient of the data center is greater than a percentage of energy provided by one or more renewable energy sources to the data center and improving energy usage of the data center’ as taught by Zhang with the data center energy utilization method as taught by Claassen for the purpose to dynamically distribute service requests among data centers in different geographical locations, based on the local weather conditions, to maximize the use of renewable energy, and to do that within their allowed operation budgets (Zhang: abstract).
With respect to claims 5, 12, and 19, Claassen and Zhang combined teaches wherein invoking the action to improve energy usage of the data center comprises one or more of: modifying a first network protocol implemented by one or more devices of the data center to a second network protocol, wherein the energy usage of the data center that implements the second network protocol is less than the energy usage of the data center that implements the first network protocol; scaling a port speed of a high speed interface of one or more devices of the data center based on workload demand; reducing a number of duplicate or equal-cost multi-path (ECMP) paths of one or more devices of the data center that are configured to implement high availability; activating a cooling system of the data center; shutting down one or more devices of a plurality of devices of the data center that are configured to implement high availability if the data center has disabled high availability; scaling a packet size of one or more packets communicated within the data center; or outputting an alert indicating to an administrator of the data center that the data center is not energy efficient (Claassen: data center cooling power consumption, which is a significant fraction of the total data center power, is largely governed by the IT equipment layout, chilled air flow control and many other factors, [0036]; correct allocation of required air flow to each IT equipment rack, [0086]; balancing dissipated energy within the data center and allocating this energy between the different ACUs, [0089]; Zhang: dynamic voltage scaling and node on/off policies to reduce the energy consumption in server… reducing energy consumption of servers, page 160).
With respect to claims 21-22, 26, and 28, Claassen and Zhang combined teaches further comprising specifying, by the computing system, a first green quotient value in response to determining that the energy quotient of the data center is less than or equal to the percentage of energy provided by the one or more renewable energy sources to the data center, wherein the first green quotient value indicates that the data center is energy efficient, wherein the first green quotient value is a predefined fixed value (Claassen: step 106, a determination is then made as to whether the data center is energy efficient or not, fig.1; data centers having an efficiency (.eta.) of less than about 0.75, i.e., between about 0.25 and about 0.75, can be considered inefficient, [0030]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 23-25 and 29 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims and if further overcome the double patenting rejections as set forth above.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The prior art of record, taken alone or in combination, fails to disclose or render obvious, which makes the following claims allowable over the prior art:
With respect to claim 23, further comprising specifying, by the computing system, a second green quotient value in response to determining that the energy quotient of the data center is greater than or equal to the percentage of energy provided by the one or more renewable energy sources to the data center, wherein the second green quotient value indicates that the data center is not energy efficient.
With respect to claim 24/23, wherein the second green quotient value is determined based on a difference between the energy quotient and the percentage of the energy provided by the one or more renewable energy sources.
With respect to claim 25/23, wherein the second green quotient value is determined as 101 - 101
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, wherein EQ represents the energy quotient of the data center and g represents the percentage of the energy provided by the one or more renewable energy sources.
With respect to claim 27/15, wherein the one or more processors are further configured to specify, in response to determining that the energy quotient of the data center is greater than or equal to the percentage of energy provided by the one or more renewable energy sources to the data center, a second green quotient value based on a difference between the energy quotient and the percentage of the energy provided by the one or more renewable energy sources, wherein the second green quotient value indicates that the data center is not energy efficient.
With respect to claim 29/15, wherein the instructions that, when executed, cause the one or more processors to specify, in response to determining that the energy quotient of the data center is greater than or equal to the percentage of energy provided by the one or more renewable energy sources to the data center, a second green quotient value as 101 - 101
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, wherein EQ represents the energy quotient of the data center and g represents the percentage of the energy provided by the one or more renewable energy sources, wherein the second green quotient value indicates that the data center is not energy efficient.
Conclusion
The additional prior arts made of record and have not been relied upon are considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure as follows: US-20150227397-A1; US-20120226922-A1; US-7962769-B1; Flores-Martin et al. ("Improving Energy Efficiency in a Data Center: PUE Analyzing and Tuning", IEEE, 2025, p.539-548); CN_116307035_A; JP_2011204126_A; KR_20170084735_A; CN_112070353_A; Sheme et al. ("Feasibility of using renewable energy to supply data centers in 60 north latitude", ScienceDirect, 2018, p.96-106); and Yuventi et al., ("A critical analysis of Power Usage Effectiveness and its use in communicating data center energy consumption", ScienceDirect, 2013, p.90-94).
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 HIEN (CINDY) D KHUU whose telephone number is (571)272-8585. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday 8a-8p.
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/HIEN D KHUU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2116 September 3, 2026
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