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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This action is in response to the application filed 06/20/2023.
Claims 1 - 20 are pending and have been examined.
Claims 1 - 20 are rejected.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 06/20/2023 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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 8-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention 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 claimed “computer program product” could include signals and carrier-waves.
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.
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 nonobviousness.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shami et al. (US 20240378079; “Shami”) and further in view of Pascual et al. (“Analyzing the Performance of Allocation Strategies Based on Space-Filling Curves”; LNTCS,volume 10353, pps. 232-278).
As per claim 1, Shami discloses A method comprising:
employing a plurality of container controllers to receive a plurality of container requests (Shami [0019-0021: “That is, when a job request (e.g., for performing a Service Function Chain (SFC)) is received in the FL cluster 16, the scheduler 24 is configured to break the job request into multiple parts (or tasks) and predict which resources within each of one or more nodes 22 will be available (in the near future) to perform these job parts or tasks.”]; [0044: “FIG. 5 is a block diagram illustrating an embodiment of a computing device 60 that may represent any one or more of the nodes 22, 42 and/or schedulers 24, 44 shown in FIGS. 2 and 4.”]);
scheduling containers onto nodes that are available for container creation (Shami [0041-0043: “The scheduler 44 is configured to receive prediction data from each of the LSTM agents 50 of the nodes 42. The scheduler 44 can utilize this information to make resource allocation decisions in the domain 40.”]);
storing information pertaining to each of the nodes in a node score database, [the information including at least a single score value computed by using space-filling curves (SFCs)] (Shami [0022-0023: “The second operation of the two-step procedure is “scoring.” For example, the scheduler 24 is configured to assign a score for each of the remaining nodes 22 (i.e., those not filtered out) to choose the most suitable placement of tasks (or pods) of the job request.”]); and
finding a node with an optimal score by performing a range search to schedule a container of the containers to the node with the optimal score (Shami [0022: “The scheduler 24 can also rank the nodes 22 based on the score and/or determine weights based on available resources in each node 22.” . . . 0043: “Also, the scheduler 44 may use the two-step procedure mentioned above with respect to a ranking algorithm that produces a list of eligible nodes 42 for implementing the SFC.”]; [0051-0053: “Also, the method 90 includes the step of initiating the two-step procedure of filtering and scoring (or ranking) to select nodes from a cluster, as indicated in block 98.”]).
Although Shami discloses scoring, it does not explicitly teach, however, Pascual in an analogous art discloses the information including at least a single score value computed by using space-filling curves (SFCs) (Pascual et al. [pps. 235-236: Describing use of space filling curve algorithm for scheduling.]). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention was made to substitute space filling curve algorithm of Pascual with the scoring algorithm of Shami because they are both well-known algorithms used in scheduling. MPEP2144.
As per claim 2, rejection for claim 1 is incorporated and further Shami discloses The method of claim 1, wherein each of the nodes has resources including at least memory, virtual central processing units (CPUs), and storage capacity to be divided among the containers (Shami [0051: “The method 90 further includes receiving and recording various parameters, such as the number of containers in each node, capabilities or availability of CPUs, GPUs, memory, etc., as indicated in block 96.”]).
As per claim 3, rejection for claim 1 is incorporated and further Shami discloses The method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of container controllers schedule each of the plurality of container requests onto the nodes based on available resources (Shami [0041-0043: “The scheduler 44 is configured to receive prediction data from each of the LSTM agents 50 of the nodes 42. The scheduler 44 can utilize this information to make resource allocation decisions in the domain 40.”]).
As per claim 4, rejection for claim 1 is incorporated and further Shami discloses The method of claim 1, wherein the node score database further stores the quantity of available units for each resource and metrics information (Shami [0022: “The scheduler 24 can also rank the nodes 22 based on the score and/or determine weights based on available resources in each node 22.” . . . 0043: “Also, the scheduler 44 may use the two-step procedure mentioned above with respect to a ranking algorithm that produces a list of eligible nodes 42 for implementing the SFC.”]; [0051-0053: “Also, the method 90 includes the step of initiating the two-step procedure of filtering and scoring (or ranking) to select nodes from a cluster, as indicated in block 98.”]).
As per claim 5, rejection for claim 4 is incorporated and further Shami discloses The method of claim 4, wherein the metrics information includes a number of the containers currently created on the node with the optimal score (Shami [0051: “The method 90 further includes receiving and recording various parameters, such as the number of containers in each node, capabilities or availability of CPUs, GPUs, memory, etc., as indicated in block 96.”]).
As per claim 6, rejection for claim 1 is incorporated and further Shami discloses The method of claim 1, wherein the nodes are virtual or physical servers (Shami [0017: “The nodes 22 may be configured as physical components (e.g., Network Elements (NEs), routers, switches, servers, etc.) and/or virtual components for executing VNFs.”]).
As per claim 7, rejection for claim 1 is incorporated and further Shami discloses The method of claim 1, wherein each resource and metric value of each of the nodes is atomically decremented when scheduling the containers (Shami [0017: “The scheduler 24 is configured to receive Performance Monitoring (PM) information from the nodes 22, where the PM information may be related to network performance parameters (e.g., bandwidth, latency, jitter, etc.) and/or resource utilization parameters (e.g., CPU utilization, memory utilization, etc.).”]; [0022, 0051-0053, and 0043: Scoring and Ranking] where resource information is monitored and scored. If resource is being used, then score and ranking will be similarly determined to be “decremented”.]).
Claims 8-14 are the compute program product claims of method claims 1-7, respectively. Claims 15-20 are the system claims of method claims 1-5 and 7. Computer program product and system are disclosed by Shami (Shami [0045-0046]). Therefore, all claims are rejected similarly.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Doudali et al. (US 20230376346) – Teaches virtualization and container scheduling. It also teaches determining optimal node for containers.
The examiner requests, in response to this Office action, support be shown for language added to any original claims on amendment and any new claims. That is, indicate support for newly added claim language by specifically pointing to page(s) and line no(s) in the specification and/or drawing figure(s). This will assist the examiner in prosecuting the application.
When responding to this office action, Applicant is advised to clearly point out the patentable novelty which he or she thinks the claims present, in view of the state of the art disclosed by the references cited or the objections made. He or she must also show how the amendments avoid such references or objections See 37 CFR 1.111(c).
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Taelor Kim whose telephone number is (571) 270-7166. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Thursday (11AM-5PM) EST.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ajay Bhatia can be reached on 571-272-3906. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-270-8166.
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Taelor Kim
Primary Patent Examiner
Art Unit 2156
/TAELOR KIM/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2156