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 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 16-35 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claim(s) recite(s) mental processes – concepts performed in the human mind.
Subject Matter Eligibility Analysis
Step 1: Do the Claims Specify a Statutory Category?
Claims 16-23 recite a method, and claims 24-35 recite a system, therefore satisfying Step 1 of the analysis.
Step 2 Analysis
Regarding claim 16,
Step 2A – Prong 1: Is a Judicial Exception Recited?
For step 2A eligibility prong one(does the claim recite a judicial exception?), the claim(s) recite(s) “determining, by the third layer health subsystem, a health condition of the electronic system based on the third health information and a health policy for the electronic system, … and indicates that the electronic system is not operating nominally; ”(this is a mental process of observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion [MPEP 2106.04(a)(2) III. “mental processes”]), and “updating,…, the health policy based on the fourth health information, a corresponding portion of the updated health policy being provided to each of the … subsystems;” (this is a mental process of observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion [MPEP 2106.04(a)(2) III. “mental processes”]), “wherein the health condition indicates whether a component in a layer of the electronic system is failing” (this is a mental process of observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion [MPEP 2106.04(a)(2) III. “mental processes”]), “performing a predictive maintenance of the electronic system based on the health condition”(deciding if the health condition requires predictive maintenance and deciding on what predictive maintenance steps to take are a mental process of observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion [MPEP 2106.04(a)(2) III. “mental processes”]), “determining the health condition and the health policy based on received health information” (this is a mental process of observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion [MPEP 2106.04(a)(2) III. “mental processes”]). As claimed, this process can practically be performed either in the human mind or using a computer as a tool. For example, If you give a person health information(for example, component 1 has failed) and a health policy (0 component failure is good - good health, 1 component failure - Medium health(still operational but no ready backup), 2 component failure is a disaster - bad health(no service)), then a human can mentally determine the health condition of the electronic system given the health information of the system components. Given what the component is, and what seems to be failing, a human could also decide on a predictive maintenance action to take.
Even if the limitations require a computer, it can still be a mental process [see MPEP 2106.04(a)(2) III. C. "A Claim That Requires a Computer May Still Recite a Mental Process"]. Determining a health condition and response of the electronic system based on health information and health policy are directed to mental processes of mental process of observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion, because the steps are recited at a high level of generality and merely use computers as a tool to perform the processes.
Step 2A – Prong 2: Is the Judicial Exception Integrated into a Practical Application?
For step 2A eligibility prong two(does the claim recite additional elements that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application?), This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the additional limitations of “sending, by each health monitor, respective first health information of a respective group of components in a first layer of the electronic system to a respective first layer health subsystem of the electronic system which receives the first health information, … and the first health information for the respective group in the first layer comprising health information of an integrated circuit of the first layer”, “sending, by each of the one or more first layer health subsystems, the corresponding first health information to a respective second layer health subsystem of the electronic system;”, “receiving, by each of one or more second layer health subsystem, second health information of a respective group in a second layer of the electronic system, the second health information comprises the first health information of each group in the first layer within the group in the second layer and health information from additional components of the respective group in the second layer, … the health information of the respective group in the second layer comprising health information of a system on a chip (SoC) of the second layer, the health information of the system on a chip (SoC) indicated by a health monitor… ”, “sending, by each of the one or more second layer health subsystems, the corresponding second health information to a third layer health subsystem of the electronic system;”, “receiving, by the third layer health subsystem, third health information of a respective group in a third layer of the electronic system, the third health information comprises the second health information of each group in the second layer within the group in the third layer, and health information from additional components of the group in the third layer… the health information of the respective group in the third layer of the electronic system comprising health information of a circuit board of the third layer, the health information of the circuit board indicated by a health monitor …”, “sending, by the third layer health subsystem, the health condition to a display of the electronic system;”, “receiving, by a fourth layer health subsystem on a cloud compute, fourth health information of a respective group in a fourth layer of the electronic system, the fourth health information comprises the third health information and health information from additional electronic systems of a same type as the electronic system, the group in the fourth layer includes the electronic system or one of the additional electronic systems;”, “updating, by the fourth layer health subsystem, the health policy based on the fourth health information, a corresponding portion of the updated health policy being provided to each of the first layer health subsystems, the second layer health subsystems, and the third layer health subsystems;”, “wherein the health information at each layer is collected from respective one or more health monitors of the layer” are insignificant extra-solution activities of data gathering, data sending, presentation, and storage[see MPEP 2106.05(g) Whether the limitation amounts to necessary data gathering and outputting. This is considered in Step 2A Prong Two and Step 2B.]
The additional computer parts(“electronic system”, “each health monitor”(details of each health monitor described later), “group of components in a first layer of the electronic system … each group in the first layer being a same circuit type … ”, “first layer health subsystem;”, “a health monitor which only monitors the integrated circuit of the first layer”, “second layer health subsystem”, “additional components of the group in the second layer”, “… a system on a chip(SoC) of the second layer, … the SoC comprising one or more integrated circuits of the first layer;”, “a health monitor which only monitors the system on a chip (SoC) of the second layer”, “third layer health subsystem”, “a respective group in a third layer of the electronic system”, “additional components of the group in the third layer, each group in the third layer is a same circuit type”, “a circuit board of the third layer …, the circuit board comprising one or more integrated circuits of the first layer and one or more SoC of the second layer;”, “a health monitor which monitors only the circuit board of the third layer”, “wherein the third layer health subsystem and not subsystems of the first layer and second layer determines the health condition”, “a display”, “a fourth layer health subsystem”, “a cloud compute”, “a respective group in a fourth of the electronic system… additional electronic systems of a same type as the electronic system, the group in the fourth layer includes the electronic system or one of the additional electronic systems;”, “each of the health monitors comprising circuitry for indicating respective health information; and wherein one or more of the health subsystems comprises circuitry for sending respective health information to another health subsystem,”, “each health subsystem comprising circuitry for receiving respective health information; and wherein the third layer health subsystem comprise circuitry for determining the health condition and the health policy based on received health information”) are well known components recited at a high level of generality[see MPEP 2106.05(b) “If applicant amends a claim to add a generic computer or generic computer components and asserts that the claim recites significantly more because the generic computer is 'specially programmed' (as in Alappat, now considered superseded) or is a 'particular machine' (as in Bilski), the examiner should look at whether the added elements integrate the exception into a practical application or provide significantly more than the judicial exception. Merely adding a generic computer, generic computer components, or a programmed computer to perform generic computer functions does not automatically overcome an eligibility rejection. Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208, 223-24, 110 USPQ2d 1976, 1983-84 (2014). See In re Alappat, 33 F.3d 1526, 1545, 31 USPQ2d 1545, 1558 (Fed. Cir. 1994); In re Bilski, 545 F.3d 943, 88 USPQ2d 1385 (Fed. Cir. 2008)”]. As a whole, the claims are directed to several abstract mental processes implemented on a generic computer, but are not integrated into a practical application[see MPEP 2106.05(f) “implementing an abstract idea on a generic computer, does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application in Step 2A Prong Two or add significantly more in Step 2B”].
The claim’s “performing a predictive maintenance of the electronic system based on the health condition and before the component in the layer falls to ensure reliable operation the electronic system;”, component layers(Integrated Circuit, SoC, Board, Cloud), layer health subsystems, monitoring and reporting structure, do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. “Limitations that amount to merely indicating a field of use or technological environment in which to apply a judicial exception do not amount to significantly more than the exception itself, and cannot integrate a judicial exception into a practical application.” [See MPEP 2106.05(h)]. The claims generally link the abstract idea to the field of monitoring components in a hierarchical control system, and are only indicating a field of use to apply the abstract idea to and do not contain steps that require the indicated field of use other than the requirement that the steps be performed in that environment. For example, “performing a predictive maintenance based on the health condition and before the component in the layer falls to ensure reliable operation the electronic system;” could apply to any environment with components. The same process except for the descriptors would also work for monitoring data center components, monitoring a fleet of cars, monitoring an internet of things network, monitoring a supply distribution network, monitoring a building’s various heating/water/security/electrical systems). Par 16 of the specification gives some other examples, “The electronic system 102 may be in a mobile structure, a stationary structure, a land based structure, an aquatic-based structure, or a space-based structure. In an example, the electronic system 102 may be an aircraft, a submarine, a bus, a personnel carrier, a tank, a train, an automobile, a spacecraft, a space station, a satellite, or a boat.” [See MPEP 2106.05(h) “Field of Use and Technological Environment” and 2106.04(d)(1) “Evaluating Improvements in the Functioning of a Computer, or an Improvement to Any Other Technology or Technical Field in Step 2A Prong Two”]
Step 2B: Do the Claims Provide an Inventive Concept?
For step 2B eligibility (Whether a Claim Amounts to Significantly More), The claim(s) does/do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. These additional elements are gathering/storing/presenting data(“sending, by each health monitor, respective first health information of a respective group of components in a first layer of the electronic system to a respective first layer health subsystem of the electronic system which receives the first health information, … and the first health information for the respective group in the first layer comprising health information of an integrated circuit of the first layer”, “sending, by each of the one or more first layer health subsystems, the corresponding first health information to a respective second layer health subsystem of the electronic system;”, “receiving, by each of one or more second layer health subsystem, second health information of a respective group in a second layer of the electronic system, the second health information comprises the first health information of each group in the first layer within the group in the second layer and health information from additional components of the respective group in the second layer, … the health information of the respective group in the second layer comprising health information of a system on a chip (SoC) of the second layer, the health information of the system on a chip (SoC) indicated by a health monitor… ”, “sending, by each of the one or more second layer health subsystems, the corresponding second health information to a third layer health subsystem of the electronic system;”, “receiving, by the third layer health subsystem, third health information of a respective group in a third layer of the electronic system, the third health information comprises the second health information of each group in the second layer within the group in the third layer, and health information from additional components of the group in the third layer… the health information of the respective group in the third layer of the electronic system comprising health information of a circuit board of the third layer, the health information of the circuit board indicated by a health monitor …”, “sending, by the third layer health subsystem, the health condition to a display of the electronic system;”, “receiving, by a fourth layer health subsystem on a cloud compute, fourth health information of a respective group in a fourth layer of the electronic system, the fourth health information comprises the third health information and health information from additional electronic systems of a same type as the electronic system, the group in the fourth layer includes the electronic system or one of the additional electronic systems;”, “updating, by the fourth layer health subsystem, the health policy based on the fourth health information, a corresponding portion of the updated health policy being provided to each of the first layer health subsystems, the second layer health subsystems, and the third layer health subsystems;”, “wherein the health information at each layer is collected from respective one or more health monitors of the layer”). This hierarchical data gathering/storing/presenting limitations are also well-understood, routine, conventional computer functions, recited at a high level of generality functions as recognized by the court decisions listed in MPEP § 2106.05(d). Automating a mental process and adding well-understood, routine, conventional activities previously known to the industry, specified at a high level of generality does not qualify as “significantly more” [see MPEP 2106.05 “Limitations that the courts have found not to be enough to qualify as "significantly more" when recited in a claim with a judicial exception include: … ii. Simply appending well-understood, routine, conventional activities previously known to the industry, specified at a high level of generality, to the judicial exception, e.g., a claim to an abstract idea requiring no more than a generic computer to perform generic computer functions that are well-understood, routine and conventional activities previously known to the industry, as discussed in Alice Corp., 573 U.S. at 225, 110 USPQ2d at 1984 (see MPEP § 2106.05(d));”].
They are also Insignificant Extra-Solution Activity because these limitations amount to necessary data gathering and outputting, (i.e., all uses of the recited judicial exception require such data gathering or data output) [see MPEP 2106.05(g) “(1) Whether the extra-solution limitation is well known. “, “(2) Whether the limitation is significant (i.e. it imposes meaningful limits on the claim such that it is not nominally or tangentially related to the invention).”, “(3) Whether the limitation amounts to necessary data gathering and outputting, (i.e., all uses of the recited judicial exception require such data gathering or data output).” And examples of mere data gathering “ii. Testing a system for a response, the response being used to determine system malfunction, In re Meyers, 688 F.2d 789, 794; 215 USPQ 193, 196-97 (CCPA 1982); “,“iii. Presenting offers to potential customers and gathering statistics generated based on the testing about how potential customers responded to the offers; the statistics are then used to calculate an optimized price, OIP Technologies, 788 F.3d at 1363, 115 USPQ2d at 1092-93;”, and examples of selecting a particular data source or type to be manipulated “iii. Selecting information, based on types of information and availability of information in a power-grid environment, for collection, analysis and display, Electric Power Group, LLC v. Alstom S.A., 830 F.3d 1350, 1354-55, 119 USPQ2d 1739, 1742 (Fed. Cir. 2016);” and insignificant application “ii. Printing or downloading generated menus, Ameranth, 842 F.3d at 1241-42, 120 USPQ2d at 1854-55.”]
The additional computer parts(“electronic system”, “each health monitor”(details of each health monitor described later), “group of components in a first layer of the electronic system … each group in the first layer being a same circuit type … ”, “first layer health subsystem;”, “a health monitor which only monitors the integrated circuit of the first layer”, “second layer health subsystem”, “additional components of the group in the second layer”, “… a system on a chip(SoC) of the second layer, … the SoC comprising one or more integrated circuits of the first layer;”, “a health monitor which only monitors the system on a chip (SoC) of the second layer”, “third layer health subsystem”, “a respective group in a third layer of the electronic system”, “additional components of the group in the third layer, each group in the third layer is a same circuit type”, “a circuit board of the third layer …, the circuit board comprising one or more integrated circuits of the first layer and one or more SoC of the second layer;”, “a health monitor which monitors only the circuit board of the third layer”, “wherein the third layer health subsystem and not subsystems of the first layer and second layer determines the health condition”, “a display”, “a fourth layer health subsystem”, “a cloud compute”, “a respective group in a fourth of the electronic system… additional electronic systems of a same type as the electronic system, the group in the fourth layer includes the electronic system or one of the additional electronic systems;”, “each of the health monitors comprising circuitry for indicating respective health information; and wherein one or more of the health subsystems comprises circuitry for sending respective health information to another health subsystem,”, “each health subsystem comprising circuitry for receiving respective health information; and wherein the third layer health subsystem comprise circuitry for determining the health condition and the health policy based on received health information”) are well known components recited at a high level of generality[see MPEP 2106.05(b) “If applicant amends a claim to add a generic computer or generic computer components and asserts that the claim recites significantly more because the generic computer is 'specially programmed' (as in Alappat, now considered superseded) or is a 'particular machine' (as in Bilski), the examiner should look at whether the added elements integrate the exception into a practical application or provide significantly more than the judicial exception. Merely adding a generic computer, generic computer components, or a programmed computer to perform generic computer functions does not automatically overcome an eligibility rejection. Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208, 223-24, 110 USPQ2d 1976, 1983-84 (2014). See In re Alappat, 33 F.3d 1526, 1545, 31 USPQ2d 1545, 1558 (Fed. Cir. 1994); In re Bilski, 545 F.3d 943, 88 USPQ2d 1385 (Fed. Cir. 2008)”]. As a whole, the claims are directed to several abstract mental processes implemented on a generic computer, but are not integrated into a practical application[see MPEP 2106.05(f) “implementing an abstract idea on a generic computer, does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application in Step 2A Prong Two or add significantly more in Step 2B”].
Combined and considered as a whole, the claim describes a system that gathers health information about components in a hierarchal reporting structure, determines the health of the system, displays the results, updates the health policy, and performs predictive maintenance based on determined health condition. This system comprises only well-understood, routine, conventional mental steps recited at a high level of generality[MPEP 2106.05 “ii Simply appending well-understood, routine, conventional activities previously known to the industry, specified at a high level of generality, to the judicial exception, e.g., a claim to an abstract idea requiring no more than a generic computer to perform generic computer functions that are well-understood, routine and conventional activities previously known to the industry, as discussed in Alice Corp., 573 U.S. at 225, 110 USPQ2d at 1984 (see MPEP § 2106.05(d));”], and insignificant extra-solution activity[see MPEP 2106.05(g) “(1) Whether the extra-solution limitation is well known. “, “(2) Whether the limitation is significant (i.e. it imposes meaningful limits on the claim such that it is not nominally or tangentially related to the invention).”, “(3) Whether the limitation amounts to necessary data gathering and outputting, (i.e., all uses of the recited judicial exception require such data gathering or data output).”], that could apply to any system with predictable events and template generated dashboards[see MPEP 2106.05(h) “Examples of limitations that the courts have described as merely indicating a field of use or technological environment in which to apply a judicial exception include: … iv. Specifying that the abstract idea of monitoring audit log data relates to transactions or activities that are executed in a computer environment, because this requirement merely limits the claims to the computer field, i.e., to execution on a generic computer, FairWarning v. Iatric Sys., 839 F.3d 1089, 1094-95, 120 USPQ2d 1293, 1295 (Fed. Cir. 2016);”].
Regarding MPEP 2106.05(a) “Improvements to the Functioning of a Computer or To Any Other Technology or Technical Field”, the claim’s “performing a predictive maintenance of the electronic system based on the health condition and before the component in the layer falls to ensure reliable operation the electronic system;”, health subsystems(Integrated Circuit, SoC, Board, Cloud), display, and updating of health policy, simply appends well-understood, routine, conventional activities previously known to the industry, specified at a high level of generality, to the judicial exception. The claims generally link the abstract idea to the field of monitoring components in a hierarchical control system. Hierarchical control systems are a common way of handling systems with complex behaviors(NPL “Hierarchical control system” Wikipedia April 9, 2022; page 1 “A human-built system with complex behavior is often organized as a hierarchy. For example, a command hierarchy has among its notable features the organizational chart of superiors, subordinates, and lines of organizational communication . Hierarchical control systems are organized similarly to divide the decision making responsibility.”). The same process except for the descriptors would also work for monitoring data center components, monitoring a fleet of cars, monitoring an internet of things network, monitoring a supply distribution network, monitoring a building’s various heating/water/security/electrical systems). Par 16 of the specification gives some other examples, “The electronic system 102 may be in a mobile structure, a stationary structure, a land based structure, an aquatic-based structure, or a space-based structure. In an example, the electronic system 102 may be an aircraft, a submarine, a bus, a personnel carrier, a tank, a train, an automobile, a spacecraft, a space station, a satellite, or a boat.” [See MPEP 2106.05(h) “Field of Use and Technological Environment”]
Conclusion: In light of the above, the limitations in claim 16 recite and are directed to an abstract idea and recite no additional elements that would amount to significantly more than the identified abstract idea. Claim 16 is therefore not patent eligible.
Regarding claim 17, limitation “determining the health condition based on predictive data analytics and the third health information from the electronic system” (this is a mental process of observation, evaluation, ju4Rdgment, opinion [MPEP 2106.04(a)(2) III. “Mental processes”]). As claimed, this process can practically be performed either in the human mind or using a computer as a tool.
the additional elements do not integrate into a practical application or include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
Regarding claim 18, the additional elements do not integrate into a practical application or include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The limitation “broadcasting, by the fourth layer health subsystem, the health policy to the third layer health subsystem” is an insignificant extra-solution activity [see MPEP 2106.05(g)]. This limitation amounts to necessary data gathering and outputting and is also a well-understood, routine, conventional activity [MPEP 2106.05(d)].
The additional computer parts(“via a wireless connection”) are well known components recited at a high level of generality[see MPEP 2106.05(b) “If applicant amends a claim to add a generic computer or generic computer components and asserts that the claim recites significantly more because the generic computer is 'specially programmed' (as in Alappat, now considered superseded) or is a 'particular machine' (as in Bilski), the examiner should look at whether the added elements integrate the exception into a practical application or provide significantly more than the judicial exception. Merely adding a generic computer, generic computer components, or a programmed computer to perform generic computer functions does not automatically overcome an eligibility rejection. Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208, 223-24, 110 USPQ2d 1976, 1983-84 (2014). See In re Alappat, 33 F.3d 1526, 1545, 31 USPQ2d 1545, 1558 (Fed. Cir. 1994); In re Bilski, 545 F.3d 943, 88 USPQ2d 1385 (Fed. Cir. 2008)”]. As a whole, the claims are directed to several abstract mental processes implemented on a generic computer, but are not integrated into a practical application [see MPEP 2106.05(f) “implementing an abstract idea on a generic computer, does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application in Step 2A Prong Two”].
Regarding claim 19, the additional elements do not integrate into a practical application or include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The limitation “broadcasting, by the third layer health subsystem, the health policy to the one or more second layer health subsystems to indicate a timing of receipt of certain health information by a particular health subsystem and a type of the certain health information” is an insignificant extra-solution activity [see MPEP 2106.05(g)]. This limitation amounts to necessary data gathering and outputting and is also a well-understood, routine, conventional activity [MPEP 2106.05(d)].
Regarding claim 20, the additional elements do not integrate into a practical application or include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The limitation “storing, by the third layer health subsystem, the third health information in a non-volatile memory of the electronic system.” is an insignificant extra-solution activity [see MPEP 2106.05(g)]. This limitation amounts to necessary data gathering and outputting and is also a well-understood, routine, conventional activity [MPEP 2106.05(d)].
The additional computer parts(“a non-volatile memory”) are well known components recited at a high level of generality[see MPEP 2106.05(b) “If applicant amends a claim to add a generic computer or generic computer components and asserts that the claim recites significantly more because the generic computer is 'specially programmed' (as in Alappat, now considered superseded) or is a 'particular machine' (as in Bilski), the examiner should look at whether the added elements integrate the exception into a practical application or provide significantly more than the judicial exception. Merely adding a generic computer, generic computer components, or a programmed computer to perform generic computer functions does not automatically overcome an eligibility rejection. Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208, 223-24, 110 USPQ2d 1976, 1983-84 (2014). See In re Alappat, 33 F.3d 1526, 1545, 31 USPQ2d 1545, 1558 (Fed. Cir. 1994); In re Bilski, 545 F.3d 943, 88 USPQ2d 1385 (Fed. Cir. 2008)”]. As a whole, the claims are directed to several abstract mental processes implemented on a generic computer, but are not integrated into a practical application [see MPEP 2106.05(f) “implementing an abstract idea on a generic computer, does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application in Step 2A Prong Two”].
Regarding claim 21, limitations “determined based on the health condition from the third layer health subsystem;” (this is a mental process of observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion [MPEP 2106.04(a)(2) III. “Mental processes”]). As claimed, this process can practically be performed either in the human mind or using a computer as a tool.
the additional elements do not integrate into a practical application or include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The limitation “receiving, by the second layer health subsystem, an operational request” and “providing the operational request to one of the first or second layer health subsystems to execute the operational request.” is an insignificant extra-solution activity [see MPEP 2106.05(g)]. This limitation amounts to necessary data gathering and outputting and is also a well-understood, routine, conventional activity [MPEP 2106.05(d)].
Regarding claim 22, limitations “wherein the operational request is to one or more of power off a component of the electronic system, reset of the electronic system, perform a clock gating, and change a mode of the electronic system.” (this is a mental process of observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion [MPEP 2106.04(a)(2) III. “Mental processes”]). As claimed, this process can practically be performed either in the human mind or using a computer as a tool.
The additional computer parts(“a component of the electronic system”, “electronic system”, “clock gating”, “change a mode of the electronic system”) are well known components recited at a high level of generality[see MPEP 2106.05(b) “If applicant amends a claim to add a generic computer or generic computer components and asserts that the claim recites significantly more because the generic computer is 'specially programmed' (as in Alappat, now considered superseded) or is a 'particular machine' (as in Bilski), the examiner should look at whether the added elements integrate the exception into a practical application or provide significantly more than the judicial exception. Merely adding a generic computer, generic computer components, or a programmed computer to perform generic computer functions does not automatically overcome an eligibility rejection. Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208, 223-24, 110 USPQ2d 1976, 1983-84 (2014). See In re Alappat, 33 F.3d 1526, 1545, 31 USPQ2d 1545, 1558 (Fed. Cir. 1994); In re Bilski, 545 F.3d 943, 88 USPQ2d 1385 (Fed. Cir. 2008)”]. As a whole, the claims are directed to several abstract mental processes implemented on a generic computer, but are not integrated into a practical application [see MPEP 2106.05(f) “implementing an abstract idea on a generic computer, does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application in Step 2A Prong Two”].
Regarding claim 23, limitations “determining the health policy based on predictive data analytics.” (this is a mental process of observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion [MPEP 2106.04(a)(2) III. “Mental processes”]). As claimed, this process can practically be performed either in the human mind or using a computer as a tool.
The additional computer parts(“the fourth layer health subsystem”) are well known components recited at a high level of generality[see MPEP 2106.05(b) “If applicant amends a claim to add a generic computer or generic computer components and asserts that the claim recites significantly more because the generic computer is 'specially programmed' (as in Alappat, now considered superseded) or is a 'particular machine' (as in Bilski), the examiner should look at whether the added elements integrate the exception into a practical application or provide significantly more than the judicial exception. Merely adding a generic computer, generic computer components, or a programmed computer to perform generic computer functions does not automatically overcome an eligibility rejection. Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208, 223-24, 110 USPQ2d 1976, 1983-84 (2014). See In re Alappat, 33 F.3d 1526, 1545, 31 USPQ2d 1545, 1558 (Fed. Cir. 1994); In re Bilski, 545 F.3d 943, 88 USPQ2d 1385 (Fed. Cir. 2008)”]. As a whole, the claims are directed to several abstract mental processes implemented on a generic computer, but are not integrated into a practical application [see MPEP 2106.05(f) “implementing an abstract idea on a generic computer, does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application in Step 2A Prong Two”].
Regarding claims 24-31, they are the system that implements the method of claims 16-20,23,21, and 22 respectively, and are rejected for the same reasons.
Regarding claim 32, the additional elements do not integrate into a practical application or include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The additional computer parts(“integrated circuit (IC) circuit type”, “system-on-a-chip (SoC) circuit type”, and “circuit board circuit type”) are well known components recited at a high level of generality[see MPEP 2106.05(b) “If applicant amends a claim to add a generic computer or generic computer components and asserts that the claim recites significantly more because the generic computer is 'specially programmed' (as in Alappat, now considered superseded) or is a 'particular machine' (as in Bilski), the examiner should look at whether the added elements integrate the exception into a practical application or provide significantly more than the judicial exception. Merely adding a generic computer, generic computer components, or a programmed computer to perform generic computer functions does not automatically overcome an eligibility rejection. Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208, 223-24, 110 USPQ2d 1976, 1983-84 (2014). See In re Alappat, 33 F.3d 1526, 1545, 31 USPQ2d 1545, 1558 (Fed. Cir. 1994); In re Bilski, 545 F.3d 943, 88 USPQ2d 1385 (Fed. Cir. 2008)”]. As a whole, the claims are directed to several abstract mental processes implemented on a generic computer, but are not integrated into a practical application [see MPEP 2106.05(f) “implementing an abstract idea on a generic computer, does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application in Step 2A Prong Two”].
Regarding claim 33, the additional elements do not integrate into a practical application or include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The limitation “a frame comprising a header with an address which uniquely identifies the second layer health subsystem and a payload which includes the second health information.” is an insignificant extra-solution activity [see MPEP 2106.05(g)]. This limitation amounts to necessary data gathering and outputting and is also a well-understood, routine, conventional activity [MPEP 2106.05(d)].
Regarding claim 34, the additional elements do not integrate into a practical application or include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The limitation “wherein the second health information further includes a timestamp indicative of when the second health information was received by a health monitor.” is an insignificant extra-solution activity [see MPEP 2106.05(g)]. This limitation amounts to necessary data gathering and outputting and is also a well-understood, routine, conventional activity [MPEP 2106.05(d)].
Regarding claim 35,
the additional elements do not integrate into a practical application or include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. The additional computer parts(“same layer health subsystem”) are well known components recited at a high level of generality[see MPEP 2106.05(b) “If applicant amends a claim to add a generic computer or generic computer components and asserts that the claim recites significantly more because the generic computer is 'specially programmed' (as in Alappat, now considered superseded) or is a 'particular machine' (as in Bilski), the examiner should look at whether the added elements integrate the exception into a practical application or provide significantly more than the judicial exception. Merely adding a generic computer, generic computer components, or a programmed computer to perform generic computer functions does not automatically overcome an eligibility rejection. Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208, 223-24, 110 USPQ2d 1976, 1983-84 (2014). See In re Alappat, 33 F.3d 1526, 1545, 31 USPQ2d 1545, 1558 (Fed. Cir. 1994); In re Bilski, 545 F.3d 943, 88 USPQ2d 1385 (Fed. Cir. 2008)”]. As a whole, the claims are directed to several abstract mental processes implemented on a generic computer, but are not integrated into a practical application [see MPEP 2106.05(f) “implementing an abstract idea on a generic computer, does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application in Step 2A Prong Two”].
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(s) 16,20-22,24,28,30-35 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20190235941 A1 (Bath) in view of US 20220094590 A1(Lal).
Regarding claim 16, Bath teaches
A method for layered management of health of an electronic system(par 350 “The virtual machine monitoring application additionally provides various visualizations to facilitate detecting and diagnosing the root cause of performance problems. For example, one such visualization is a "proactive monitoring tree" that enables a user to easily view and understand relationships among various factors that affect the performance of a hierarchically structured computing system. This proactive monitoring tree enables a user to easily navigate the hierarchy by selectively expanding nodes representing various entities ( e.g., virtual centers or computing clusters) to view performance information for lower-level nodes associated with lower-level entities ( e.g., virtual machines or host systems).”), the method comprising: sending, by each health monitor, respective first health information of a respective group of components in a first layer of the electronic system to a respective first layer health subsystem of the electronic system which receives the first health information(fig 19; par 402 “In some embodiments, the FSM 1908 can provide updates to one or more other nodes in the self-monitoring module 1802. For example, the FSM 1908 can communicate information about one or more fault status changes or internal statuses to a parent node, such as to a subcategory node 1906 or category node 1904.”), each group in the first layer being a same circuit type and the first health information for the respective group in the first layer comprising health information of a component of the first layer, the health information of the component of the first layer indicated by a health monitor which only monitors the component of the first layer;( fig 18, par 367 “Specifically, in the illustrated embodiment, self-monitoring modules 1802a, 1802b have been installed on each forwarder 204, self-monitoring modules 1802c, 1802d, 1802e have been installed on indexer 206, and a self-monitoring module 1802/ has been installed on the search head 210 (the self-monitoring modules are generally referred to as self-monitoring module(s) 1802 or SMM(s) 1802). It will be understood that the self-monitoring modules 1802 can be installed on any component of a distributed computing system as desired.”. Although in fig 18, there is a monitor on each component part of the group, Bath also teaches that one FSM can be configured to monitor multiple features in the group in fig 19; par 391 “The feature-specific monitoring modules (FSM) 1908 can be configured to monitor one or more of the features described above.”)
sending, by each of the one or more first layer health subsystems, the corresponding first health information to a respective second layer health subsystem of the electronic system;( fig 19; par 402 “In some embodiments, the FSM 1908 can provide updates to one or more other nodes in the self-monitoring module 1802. For example, the FSM 1908 can communicate information about one or more fault status changes or internal statuses to a parent node, such as to a subcategory node 1906 or category node 1904.”)
receiving, by each of one or more second layer health subsystem, second health information of a respective group in a second layer of the electronic system, the second health information comprises the first health information of each group in the first layer within the group in the second layer(fig 19; par 402 “In some embodiments, the FSM 1908 can provide updates to one or more other nodes in the self-monitoring module 1802. For example, the FSM 1908 can communicate information about one or more fault status changes or internal statuses to a parent node, such as to a subcategory node 1906 or category node 1904.”) and health information from additional components of the respective group in the second layer, each group in the second layer is a same circuit type, the health information of the respective group in the second layer comprising health information of a component of the second layer, the health information of the component indicated by a health monitor which only monitors the component of the second layer, the component comprising one or more components of the first layer;(par 367; par 391 “The feature-specific monitoring modules (FSM) 1908 can be configured to monitor one or more of the features described above.”, fig 19:1906; par 404 “The category and subcategory nodes 1904, 1906, also referred to as intermediate nodes 1904, 1906, can be configured to monitor or communicate with one or more child nodes, such as one or more FSMs 1908, one or more subcategory nodes 1906, or a combination thereof.”; par 407)
sending, by each of the one or more second layer health subsystems, the corresponding second health information to a third layer health subsystem of the electronic system;( fig 19; par 402 “In some embodiments, the FSM 1908 can provide updates to one or more other nodes in the self-monitoring module 1802. For example, the FSM 1908 can communicate information about one or more fault status changes or internal statuses to a parent node, such as to a subcategory node 1906 or category node 1904.”)
receiving, by the third layer health subsystem,(par 404 “Monitoring and communicating with the child nodes can refer to polling the child nodes for information or waiting communications from the child nodes. …, in certain embodiments, the communications between the parent node and child node are bidirectional.”;) third health information of a respective group in a third layer of the electronic system(par 369 “The self-monitoring modules 1802 on each distributed computing device of the distributed computing system can monitor a variety of features of the distributed computing device, including, but not limited to, functions, communications, state, status, activities, processes, logs, throughput, speed, etc.” par 387 “As the self-monitoring module 1802 identifies or detects fault conditions amongst the various monitored features, it can store relevant data related to the features. The relevant data can include log entries or events that occurred before or after the detected fault condition, information that identifies the cause, or likely cause, of the fault condition, …. Additional or different information can be included as desired.”, par 393), the third health information comprises the second health information of each group in the second layer within the group in the third layer(fig 19; par 402 “In some embodiments, the FSM 1908 can provide updates to one or more other nodes in the self-monitoring module 1802. For example, the FSM 1908 can communicate information about one or more fault status changes or internal statuses to a parent node, such as to a subcategory node 1906 or category node 1904.”), and health information from additional components of the group in the third layer(fig 19:1908i,1908j,1908k; par 389 “In the illustrated embodiment, each node is a child node, a parent node, or both. … For example, in the illustrated embodiment of FIG. 19, each FSM 1908 is a child node to a category node 1904 or a subcategory node 1906, each subcategory node 1906 is a parent node to one or more FSMs 1908 and is a child node to a category node 1904 or another subcategory node 1906, each category node 1904 is a parent node to one or more subcategory nodes 1906 or the FSMs 1908 and is a child node to the master node 1902.” Fig 19 shows that category nodes, sub-category nodes, and sub-sub-category nodes can all have their own FSM monitors reporting directly to them along with the other level aggregators. Par 407 “In addition to determining their own internal status, the intermediate nodes 1904, 1906 can perform other functions, such as, gathering relevant information associated with the fault conditions or fault resolutions, storing the state of the child nodes, …. Further, the intermediate nodes 1904, 1906 can store data received from their child nodes … as desired. In some embodiments, the intermediate nodes 1904, 1906 can be configured to monitor specific features similar to the FSMs 1908.”), each group in the third layer is a same circuit type, the health information of the respective group in the third layer of the electronic system comprising health information of a component of the third layer, the health information of the component indicated by a health monitor which monitors only the component of the third layer, the circuit board comprising one or more components of the first layer and one or more components of the second layer;(par 367; par 391 “The feature-specific monitoring modules (FSM) 1908 can be configured to monitor one or more of the features described above.” fig 19:1906; par 404 “The category and subcategory nodes 1904, 1906, also referred to as intermediate nodes 1904, 1906, can be configured to monitor or communicate with one or more child nodes, such as one or more FSMs 1908, one or more subcategory nodes 1906, or a combination thereof.”; par 407)
determining, by the third layer health subsystem, a health condition of the electronic system based on the third health information and a health policy (par 342 “During operation, the enterprise security application facilitates detecting "notable events" that are likely to indicate a security threat. A notable event represents one or more anomalous incidents, the occurrence of which can be identified based on one or more events ( e.g., time stamped portions of raw machine data) fulfilling pre-specified and/or dynamically-determined (e.g., based on machine-learning) criteria defined for that notable event. …. These notable events can be detected in a number of ways, such as: (1) a user can notice a correlation in events and can manually identify that a corresponding group of one or more events amounts to a notable event; or (2) a user can define a "correlation search" specifying criteria for a notable event, and every time one or more events satisfy the criteria, the application can indicate that the one or more events correspond to a notable event; and the like. A user can alternatively select a pre-defined correlation search provided by the application.”) for the electronic system, wherein the third layer health subsystem and not subsystems of the first layer and second layer determines the health condition and indicates that the electronic system is not operating nominally;(par 405 “As mentioned, each intermediate node 1904, 1906 can have its own internal status and read/write lock, and based on the internal status communicated to the intermediate nodes by its child node(s), the intermediate nodes 1904, 1906 can determine their own internal status…. Similar to the FSMs 1908, the internal status of the intermediate nodes 1904, 1906 can be based on the number or weighting of the fault conditions, or the internal status of the FSMs 1908.” Each node determines the system health at its level, so for example, the lowest level monitors only determine the health condition of their monitored low level components, and not the health condition of the electronic system as a whole, whereas the third layer node has health data from the third layer and can make judgements on a health condition of the third layer based on third health information and the data it received from the lower level reports.), and
sending, by the third layer health subsystem, the health condition to a display of the electronic system;(par 409 “If a user desires additional information, or the information related to the status of the other nodes of the self-monitoring module 1802, it can be reported to the user interface (e.g., when a user interacts with a specific node, etc.).”; par 410 “In some embodiments, the master node 1902 of one self-monitoring module 1802 can communicate with master nodes of other self-monitoring modules 1802 or with a system-wide monitoring module or system-wide master node.”; par 408 teaches that master nodes can “notify a user or interact with GUI to provide information related to the distributed computing device that is being monitored by the SMM 1802”(par 408))
receiving, by a fourth layer health subsystem on a cloud compute(fig 19:1802; par 368 “…the self-monitoring module 1802 can be instantiated in a container or as a virtual machine as part of or separate from the computing device that it monitors. In this way, the self-monitoring module 1802 can be used in a containerized cloud environment or virtual machine environment.”), fourth health information of a respective group in a fourth layer of the electronic system, the fourth health information comprises the third health information and health information from additional electronic systems of a same type as the electronic system, the group in the fourth layer includes the electronic system or one of the additional electronic systems;(par 408 “Similar to the intermediate nodes 1904, 1906, the master node 1902 can monitor its child nodes, update its internal status, store the internal status of its child nodes, and store the data received from its child nodes.”)
and updating, by the fourth layer health subsystem, the health policy based on the fourth health information(par 342 “During operation, the enterprise security application facilitates detecting "notable events" that are likely to indicate a security threat. A notable event represents one or more anomalous incidents, the occurrence of which can be identified based on one or more events ( e.g., time stamped portions of raw machine data) fulfilling pre-specified and/or dynamically-determined (e.g., based on machine-learning) criteria defined for that notable event. …. These notable events can be detected in a number of ways, such as: (1) a user can notice a correlation in events and can manually identify that a corresponding group of one or more events amounts to a notable event; or (2) a user can define a "correlation search" specifying criteria for a notable event, and every time one or more events satisfy the criteria, the application can indicate that the one or more events correspond to a notable event; and the like. A user can alternatively select a pre-defined correlation search provided by the application.” Although Bath focuses on a user updating what counts as a notable event, Bath also mentions dynamically determining criteria for defining notable events using machine learning.; par 400 “In some embodiments, the FSM 1908 can dynamically adjust the trigger that results in a fault status change or discontinue monitoring the corresponding feature. In some cases, a fault status for a particular feature can change many times over a period of time. This may be due to a trigger for a fault condition being too low or to an external issue, such as intermittent network access, etc.” ) a corresponding portion of the updated health policy being provided to each of the first layer health subsystems, the second layer health subsystems, and the third layer health subsystems;(par 401 “Further, the threshold or range used to trigger or detect a fault condition can be adjusted in real time. … In this way, the FSM 1908 can reduce the likelihood that a particular fault condition is triggered too frequently, which can render the fault condition less useful. Further, the FSM 1908 can dynamically respond to the fault statuses of the individual features. In some cases, the FSM 1908 can adjust the trigger, cease monitoring the feature, or disable itself. In certain cases, this can be done by an administrator.”)
wherein the health condition of the electronic system indicates whether a component in a layer of the electronic system is failing; and aiding the user in performing a predictive maintenance of the electronic system based on the health condition (par 387; par 417 “The status window 2004 also includes an informational window 2028. The informational window 2028 can include specific information about the fault conditions associated with a selected display object. In the illustrated embodiment, the informational window 2028 provides additional information regarding the fault condition identified by the FSM 1908m that corresponds to the configuration replication object 2026. Specifically, the informational window 2028 provides information regarding the typical cause of the fault condition, a link that can provide information as to how to resolve the fault condition, as well as fifty messages or log entries that might relate to the fault condition. This information can aid the user in resolving the fault condition.”) before the component in the layer fails to ensure reliable operation the electronic system;( Par 356 “For example, a KPI range of values may be 1-100, or 50-275, while values in the state domain may be 'critical,' 'warning,' 'normal,' and 'informational'.” Par 346 “…the data intake and query platform provides various features that simplify the developer's task … provides operational visibility into granular performance metrics, logs, tasks and events, and topology from hosts, virtual machines and virtual centers. It empowers administrators with an accurate real-time picture of the health of the environment, proactively identifying performance and capacity bottlenecks.”) and
wherein the health information at each layer is collected from respective one or more health monitors of the layer, each of the health monitors comprising circuitry for indicating respective health information; and wherein one or more of the health subsystems comprises circuitry for sending respective health information to another health subsystem, each health subsystem comprising circuitry for receiving respective health information; (fig 19:1908i,1908j,1908k; par 389 “In the illustrated embodiment, each node is a child node, a parent node, or both. When discussing a particular node, reference to its child node can refer to the nodes that are connected to and directly below relevant node and reference to the parent node can refer to the nodes that are connected to and directly above the relevant node. For example, in the illustrated embodiment of FIG. 19, each FSM 1908 is a child node to a category node 1904 or a subcategory node 1906, each subcategory node 1906 is a parent node to one or more FSMs 1908 and is a child node to a category node 1904 or another subcategory node 1906, each category node 1904 is a parent node to one or more subcategory nodes 1906 or the FSMs 1908 and is a child node to the master node 1902.” Fig 19 shows that category nodes, sub-category nodes, and sub-sub-category nodes can all have their own FSM monitors reporting directly to them along with the other level aggregators.) and wherein the third layer health subsystem comprise circuitry for determining the health condition and the health policy based on received health information. (par 405 “As mentioned, each intermediate node 1904, 1906 can have its own internal status and read/write lock, and based on the internal status communicated to the intermediate nodes by its child node(s), the intermediate nodes 1904, 1906 can determine their own internal status…. Similar to the FSMs 1908, the internal status of the intermediate nodes 1904, 1906 can be based on the number or weighting of the fault conditions, or the internal status of the FSMs 1908.”)
However, Bath does not specifically teach monitoring an integrated circuit, a SoC, a circuit board in the respective limitations “the first layer comprising health information of an integrated circuit of the first layer, the health information of the integrated circuit of the first layer indicated by a health monitor which only monitors the integrated circuit of the first layer”, “the second layer comprising health information of a system on a chip (SoC) of the second layer, the health information of the system on a chip (SoC) indicated by a health monitor which only monitors the system on a chip (SoC) of the second layer, the SoC comprising one or more integrated circuits of the first layer”, and “the third layer of the electronic system comprising health information of a circuit board of the third layer, the health information of the circuit board indicated by a health monitor which monitors only the circuit board of the third layer, the circuit board comprising one or more integrated circuits of the first layer and one or more SoC of the second layer”.
On the other hand, Lal teaches,
A method for layered management of health of an electronic system(fig 2a; par 22 “In accordance with aspects of the embodiments disclosed herein, solutions employing self-healing networks of IPUs and XPUs are provided.”; par 42,43), first health information of a respective group of components in a first layer of the electronic system to a respective first layer health subsystem of the electronic system which receives the first health information, each group in the first layer being a same circuit type and the first health information for the respective group in the first layer comprising health information of an integrated circuit of the first layer, the health information of the integrated circuit of the first layer indicated by a health monitor which only monitors the integrated circuit of the first layer; (fig 2a:227; par 44 “IPU 204 includes an XPU control/management block 227 including logic to manage a first XPU cluster 228 comprising XPUs 212, 214, and 216.”)
sending, by each of the one or more first layer health subsystems, the corresponding first health information to a respective second layer health subsystem of the electronic system; (par 48 “Similarly, XPUs 218, 220, and 222 periodically send an XPU status signal or message 246 to IPU 206. In one embodiment, status signals/messages 244 and 246 are heartbeat signals.”; XPUs are defined in par 1 “Hardware accelerators, such as Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs ), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Chips are traditionally connected to a Host Central Processing Unit (CPU) on a server. These and other hardware accelerators including General Purpose GPUs (GP-GPUs), Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), and AI inference units are types of Other Processing Units (collectively termed XPUs). As used herein, a CPU may also comprise an XPU.”)
receiving, by each of one or more second layer health subsystem, second health information of a respective group in a second layer of the electronic system, the second health information comprises the first health information of each group in the first layer within the group in the second layer and health information from additional components of the respective group in the second layer, each group in the second layer is in the IPU, (fig 2a:202; par 45 “As described above, resource manager 202 maintains a repository of IPUs across the data center, along with their status and other information such as capabilities, available bandwidth, current load etc. In some embodiments, the same or a separate repository may also be maintained by a resource manager that includes status and other information for XPUs.”) the health information of the respective group in the second layer comprising health information of a system on a chip (SoC) of the second layer, the health information of the system on a chip (SoC) indicated by a health monitor which only monitors the system on a chip (SoC) of the second layer, the SoC comprising one or more integrated circuits of the first layer;(fig 11,10:1006; par 99 “FIGS. 10 and 11 show exemplary embodiments of IPU circuitry. IPU 1000 in FIG. 10 is a PCie card including a circuit board 1002 having a PCie edge connector to which various integrated circuit (IC) chips are mounted. The IC chips include an FPGA 1004, a CPU/SoC (System on a Chip) 1006, a pair of NICs 1008 and 1010, and memory chips 1012 and 1014. The various functions and operations performed by embodiments of IPUs described and illustrated herein may be implemented by programmed logic in FPGA 1004 and/or execution of software on CPU/SoC 1006. ….”; par 100 “CPU/SoC 1006 employs a System on a Chip including multiple processor cores. …”)
sending, by each of the one or more second layer health subsystems, the corresponding second health information to a third layer health subsystem of the electronic system; receiving, by the third layer health subsystem, third health information of a respective group in a third layer of the electronic system, the third health information comprises the second health information of each group in the second layer within the group in the third layer and health information from additional components of the group in the third layer, each group in the third layer is in the IPU,(fig 2a:202; par 45 “As described above, resource manager 202 maintains a repository of IPUs across the data center, along with their status and other information such as capabilities, available bandwidth, current load etc. In some embodiments, the same or a separate repository may also be maintained by a resource manager that includes status and other information for XPUs.”) the health information of the respective group in the third layer of the electronic system comprising health information of a circuit board of the third layer, the health information of the circuit board indicated by a health monitor which monitors only the circuit board of the third layer, the circuit board comprising one or more integrated circuits of the first layer and one or more SoC of the second layer; (fig 11,10:1006; par 99 “FIGS. 10 and 11 show exemplary embodiments of IPU circuitry. IPU 1000 in FIG. 10 is a PCie card including a circuit board 1002 having a PCie edge connector to which various integrated circuit (IC) chips are mounted. The IC chips include an FPGA 1004, a CPU/SoC (System on a Chip) 1006, a pair of NICs 1008 and 1010, and memory chips 1012 and 1014. The various functions and operations performed by embodiments of IPUs described and illustrated herein may be implemented by programmed logic in FPGA 1004 and/or execution of software on CPU/SoC 1006. ….”; par 100 “CPU/SoC 1006 employs a System on a Chip including multiple processor cores. …”)
determining, by the third layer health subsystem, a health condition of the electronic system based on the third health information and a health policy for the electronic system, wherein the third layer health subsystem and not subsystems of the first layer and second layer determines the health condition and indicates that the electronic system is not operating nominally; (fig 8:800; par 114 “During runtime, the resource manager checks for heartbeat signals and/or health status updates, or, optioning, sends pings to IPUs and listens for ping responses. Upon detection of a failed IPU or XPU, the resource manager identifies a comparable IPU or XPU (as applicable) and sends applicable configuration information to the comparable IPU or XPU that is identified.”)
storing, by the third layer health subsystem, the health condition to a repository of the electronic system;(par 23 “Under one embodiment, IPUs provide a heartbeat signal or and/or health status message to a central resource manager that maintains a repository or registry of IPUs across the data center, along with their status and other information such as capabilities, available bandwidth, current load, security information etc.”)
receiving, by a fourth layer health subsystem on a cloud compute, fourth health information of a respective group in a fourth layer of the electronic system, the fourth health information comprises the third health information and health information from additional electronic systems of a same type as the electronic system, the group in the fourth layer includes the electronic system or one of the additional electronic systems: and updating, by the fourth layer health subsystem, the health policy based on the fourth health information, a corresponding portion of the updated health policy being provided to each of the first layer health subsystems, the second layer health subsystems, and the third layer health subsystems; (Par 114 “During runtime, the resource manager checks for heartbeat signals and/or health status updates, or, optioning, sends pings to IPUs and listens for ping responses. Upon detection of a failed IPU or XPU, the resource manager identifies a comparable IPU or XPU (as applicable) and sends applicable configuration information to the comparable IPU or XPU that is identified.”)
wherein the health condition of the electronic system indicates whether a component in a layer of the electronic system is failing; (Par 114 “During runtime, the resource manager checks for heartbeat signals and/or health status updates, or, optioning, sends pings to IPUs and listens for ping responses. Upon detection of a failed IPU or XPU, the resource manager identifies a comparable IPU or XPU (as applicable) and sends applicable configuration information to the comparable IPU or XPU that is identified.”) and
performing a responsive maintenance of the electronic system based on the health condition and after the component in the layer fails to ensure reliable operation the electronic system;(fig 2b; par 49 “FIG. 2b shows a compromised system 200b under which IPU 204 has failed. In connection with failing, IPU 204 will fail to send IPU heartbeat 240, which will be detected by resource manager 202. In response to detecting that IPU 204 has failed, resource manager 202 will select another comparable IPU to take over the operations previously performed by the failed IPU.”)
wherein the health information at each layer is collected from respective one or more health monitors of the layer, each of the health monitors comprising circuitry for indicating respective health information; and wherein one or more of the health subsystems comprises circuitry for sending respective health information to another health subsystem, each health subsystem comprising circuitry for receiving respective health information; and wherein the third layer health subsystem comprise circuitry for determining the health condition and the health policy based on received health information.(par 27 “The IPU will then add that to its cluster of XPUs and take on control and management of the remote XPU and start monitoring the health of the remote XPU via heartbeat signals and/or health status messages sent by the XPU or via regular pings from the IPU.”; par 30 “The resource manager employs facilities for IPU health management and recovery. It monitors the health of IPUs by receiving heartbeat signals and status updates from the IPUs or by sending regular pings to the IPUs.”)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to further modify Bath to monitor an integrated circuit, a SoC, a circuit board in the respective limitations “the first layer comprising health information of an integrated circuit of the first layer, the health information of the integrated circuit of the first layer indicated by a health monitor which only monitors the integrated circuit of the first layer”, “the second layer comprising health information of a system on a chip (SoC) of the second layer, the health information of the system on a chip (SoC) indicated by a health monitor which only monitors the system on a chip (SoC) of the second layer, the SoC comprising one or more integrated circuits of the first layer”, and “the third layer of the electronic system comprising health information of a circuit board of the third layer, the health information of the circuit board indicated by a health monitor which monitors only the circuit board of the third layer, the circuit board comprising one or more integrated circuits of the first layer and one or more SoC of the second layer”. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to remedy the shortcomings of Bath -- a need for a solution for the issue of how to manage the health of systems (Bath par 3 “The machine data can include performance data, diagnostic data, or any other data that can be analyzed to diagnose equipment performance problems, monitor user interactions, and to derive other insights.”4 “The large amount and diversity of data systems … can be massive, and continues to grow rapidly. This technological evolution can give rise to various challenges in relation to managing, understanding and effectively utilizing the data.”; par 7 “… the systems used to process and store the vast amounts of data are often distributed computing systems have becoming increasingly complex. As such, it can be difficult to monitor issues, such as fault conditions, that may arise within a specific computing device of the distributed computing system.” -- with Lal providing a known method to solve a similar problem. Lal provides “In accordance with aspects of the embodiments disclosed herein, solutions employing self-healing networks of IPUs and XPUs are provided.”(Lal par 22)
Regarding claim 20, Bath and Lal teaches,
The method of claim 16,
Bath further teaches,
further comprising storing, by the third layer health subsystem, the third health information in a non-volatile memory of the electronic system.(par 393 “Based on detecting a fault condition, the FSM 1908 can store relevant data associated with the fault condition. For example, the FSM 1908 can store log data associated with a fault condition, such as the last 50 log entries that occurred around the time (e.g. before or after) the detected fault condition. In addition, the FSM 1908 can store an identifier for the fault condition as well as information to address the fault condition”; par 390 “As will be described, each node can perform one or more functions, maintain an internal status, and have its own assigned memory and read/write lock. Further, in some embodiments, each node can be executed on a separate process or thread, or multiple nodes can be executed on a single thread or process. The internal status of each node can be maintained in the memory assigned to that node. By assigning each node its own memory and read/write lock, the nodes can work independently and update their internal status without having to wait for another node to update its status.”)
Regarding claim 21, Bath and Lal teaches,
The method of claim 16,
Bath further teaches,
further comprising receiving, by the second layer health subsystem, an operational request determined based on the health condition from the third layer health subsystem; and providing the operational request to a user to execute the operational request.(par 393 “In addition, the FSM 1908 can store an identifier for the fault condition as well as information to address the fault condition. For example, the FSM 1908 can provide solutions for resolving the fault condition.” Par 408 “In addition, the master node can aggregate solutions to resolving the detected fault conditions and notify a user or interact with a GUI to provide information related to the distributed computing device that is being monitored by the SMM 1802.” )
However, although Bath teaches providing solutions to the user to execute the operational request, Bath does not specifically teach providing the operational request to one of the first or second layer health subsystems to execute the operational request, instead, Bath relies on a user to do that.
On the other hand, Lal further teaches
A method for layered management of health of an electronic system(fig 2a; par 22 “In accordance with aspects of the embodiments disclosed herein, solutions employing self-healing networks of IPUs and XPUs are provided.”; par 42,43),
further comprising receiving, by the second layer health subsystem, an operational request determined based on the health condition from the third layer health subsystem; and providing the operational request to one of the first or second layer health subsystems to execute the operational request.(fig 3a:310,312; par 55 “In a block 310 the resource manager selects an IPU with comparable capabilities and security to the failed IPU, and begins to migrate IPU operations to the selected IPU. As shown in a block 312, the IPU migration includes instantiating applicable XPU drivers on the new IPU for the XPUs coupled to the failed IPU”)
Regarding claim 22, Bath and Lal teaches,
The method of claim 16,
Bath further teaches,
wherein the operational request is to provide a solution to resolve the fault condition of the electronic system.(par 393 “In addition, the FSM 1908 can store an identifier for the fault condition as well as information to address the fault condition. For example, the FSM 1908 can provide solutions for resolving the fault condition.” Par 408 “In addition, the master node can aggregate solutions to resolving the detected fault conditions and notify a user or interact with a GUI to provide information related to the distributed computing device that is being monitored by the SMM 1802.” )
However, although Bath teaches providing solutions to the user to execute the operational request Bath does not specifically teach wherein the operational request is to one or more of power off a component of the electronic system, reset of the electronic system, perform a clock gating, and change a mode of the electronic system, instead, relying on a user to do that.
On the other hand, Lal further teaches
A method for layered management of health of an electronic system(fig 2a; par 22 “In accordance with aspects of the embodiments disclosed herein, solutions employing self-healing networks of IPUs and XPUs are provided.”; par 42,43),
wherein the operational request is to one or more of change a mode of the electronic system. (fig 3a:310,312; par 55 “In a block 310 the resource manager selects an IPU with comparable capabilities and security to the failed IPU, and begins to migrate IPU operations to the selected IPU. As shown in a block 312, the IPU migration includes instantiating applicable XPU drivers on the new IPU for the XPUs coupled to the failed IPU” Switching to a backup IPU is changing to a failover mode of the electronic system.)
Regarding claims 24,28,30,31 they are the system that implements the method of claims 16,20,21,22 respectively, and are rejected for the same reasons.
Regarding claim 32, Bath and Lal teaches,
The system of claim 24,
However, Bath does not specifically teach wherein each group in the first layer is an integrated circuit (IC) circuit type, each group in the second layer is a system-on-a-chip (SoC) circuit type, and each group in the third layer is a circuit board circuit type.
On the other hand, Lal further teaches
A method for layered management of health of an electronic system(fig 2a; par 22 “In accordance with aspects of the embodiments disclosed herein, solutions employing self-healing networks of IPUs and XPUs are provided.”; par 42,43),
wherein each group in the first layer is an integrated circuit (IC) circuit type(fig 10; par 99 “FIGS. 10 and 11 show exemplary embodiments of IPU circuitry. IPU 1000 in FIG. 10 is a PCie card including a circuit board 1002 having a PCie edge connector to which various integrated circuit (IC) chips are mounted. The IC chips include an FPGA 1004, a CPU/SoC (System on a Chip) 1006, a pair of NICs 1008 and 1010, and memory chips 1012 and 1014.” Par 1 “Hardware accelerators, such as Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs ), and Artificial Intelligence (AI) Chips are traditionally connected to a Host Central Processing Unit (CPU) on a server. These and other hardware accelerators including General Purpose GPUs (GP-GPUs), Tensor Processing Units (TPUs), and AI inference units are types of Other Processing Units (collectively termed XPUs).”), each group in the second layer is a system-on-a-chip (SoC) circuit type(fig 10; par 99 “FIGS. 10 and 11 show exemplary embodiments of IPU circuitry. IPU 1000 in FIG. 10 is a PCie card including a circuit board 1002 having a PCie edge connector to which various integrated circuit (IC) chips are mounted. The IC chips include an FPGA 1004, a CPU/SoC (System on a Chip) 1006, a pair of NICs 1008 and 1010, and memory chips 1012 and 1014.”), and each group in the third layer is a circuit board circuit type.(fig 8:800; par 82 “FIG. 8 shows a diagram illustrating exemplary function provided by an IPU and XPUs, according to one embodiment. The illustrated components include a central resource manager 800, and IPU 802, and XPUs 804, 806, and 808.”; par 102 “FIG. 11 shows an IPU chip 1100 that may be installed on a main board of a compute platform or may be included on a daughterboard or an expansion card, such as but not limited to a PCie card.” Lal’s central resource manager manages all the daughterboards that have IPU chips.)
Regarding claim 33, Bath teaches,
The system of claim 24,
Bath further teaches,
wherein the second layer health subsystem arranged to send the second health information to the third layer health subsystem of the electronic system(par 428 “At block 2108 the FSM 1908 communicates information to a parent node. The information can include, a status change, its internal status, information related to the detected fault conditions, or resolved fault conditions, etc.” par 429 “The parent node can be an intermediate node, such as the category or subcategory nodes 1904, 1906, or a master node 1902.”) comprises the second layer health subsystem arranged to send a network communication protocol comprising a header with an address which uniquely identifies the second layer health subsystem and a payload which includes the second health information.(par 439 “In the case of a server, the communication device(s) 78 can be or include, for example, any of the aforementioned types of communication devices, a wired Ethernet adapter, cable modem, DSL modem, or the like, or a combination of such devices.” Internet communications typically include a standardized format indicating address and payload.)
Although a frame comprising a header with an address and a payload is common in network communications, Bath does not go into detail about what the frame looks like.
On the other hand, Lal further teaches
A method for layered management of health of an electronic system(fig 2a; par 22 “In accordance with aspects of the embodiments disclosed herein, solutions employing self-healing networks of IPUs and XPUs are provided.”; par 42,43),
wherein the second layer health subsystem arranged to send the second health information to the third layer health subsystem of the electronic system comprises the second layer health subsystem arranged to send a frame comprising a header with an address which uniquely identifies the second layer health subsystem and a payload which includes the second health information. (par 24 “In one embodiment, XPUs communicate with the IPU over a Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCie) interface. If the IPU that is managing the XPU cluster is not locally attached via PCie, then the foundational NIC encapsulates the PCie transaction layer packets (TLPs) into network packets and sends them over the network to the remote IPU, where the network packets are depacketized and the PCie TLPs are decapsulated and delivered to the IPU. Conversely, any control and management commands from the remote IPU to the XPU, such as MMIO commands, come in with PCie headers.”; par 30 “The resource manager employs facilities for IPU health management and recovery. It monitors the health of IPUs by receiving heartbeat signals and status updates from the IPUs or by sending regular pings to the IPUs.”; par 32 “In one aspect, an fNIC does this by encapsulating the PCie ( or other standard or propriety I/O protocol) requests in network packets and sending the network packets over the network to the remote IPU that may be managing the XPUs and encapsulating PCie TLPs containing the network payload received from the remote IPU into and network packets and forwarding them to the XPU.”; par 63 “The PCie TLPs may include a PCie destination address corresponding a memory buffer accessible to XPU 410 or a destination address for the XPU 410 itself, depending on what the data will be used for.”; par 65 “As shown in flowchart 402, communication from a remote XPU to an IPU traverses the reverse path, beginning in a block 420 where XPU 410 generates one or more PCie TLPs containing a payload for an XPU and forwards the PCie TLP(s) to fNIC 408 over a PCie link.” Lal uses network packet frames with addresses and payloads to communicate between layers.)
Regarding claim 34, Bath and Lal teaches,
The system of claim 33,
Bath further teaches,
wherein the second health information further includes a timestamp indicative of when the second health information was received by a health monitor. (par 70 “In general, each event has a portion of machine data that is associated with a timestamp that is derived from the portion of machine data in the event. A timestamp of an event may be determined through interpolation between temporally proximate events having known timestamps or may be determined based on other configurable rules for associating timestamps with events.”; par 128 “The streaming mode results (e.g., the machine data obtained from the external data source) are provided to the search head, which can then process the results data ( e.g., break the machine data into events, timestamp it, filter it, etc.) and integrate the results data with the results data from other external data sources, and/or from data stores of the search head.”; par 148 “Similar to the metadata fields associated with the data blocks at block 504, the default metadata fields associated with each event may include a host, source, and source type field including or in addition to a field storing the timestamp.”. Bath teaches deriving timestamps based on configurable rules, which could include the current time when the message was received.)
Regarding claim 35, Bath and Lal teaches,
The system of claim 24,
Bath further teaches,
wherein the second layer health subsystem and the third layer health subsystem are implemented as a same layer health subsystem.(fig 19; par 389 “In the illustrated embodiment, each node is a child node, a parent node, or both. When discussing a particular node, reference to its child node can refer to the nodes that are connected to and directly below relevant node and reference to the parent node can refer to the nodes that are connected to and directly above the relevant node.”; par 386 “In some embodiments, the features monitored by self-monitoring modules 1802 can be customized based on the distributed computing device that is being monitored.” Bath is flexible in which layer each health monitoring node is, who each node reports to, and which components each node monitors.)
Claim(s) 17,25 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20190235941 A1 (Bath) in view of US 20220094590 A1(Lal) as applied to claims 16 and 24 above, and further in view of US 20230368069 A1 (Xu).
Regarding claim 17, Bath and Lal teaches,
The method of claim 16,
Bath further teaches,
wherein determining, by the third layer health subsystem, the health condition of the electronic system comprises determining the health condition based on data analytics and the third health information from the electronic system. (par 342 During operation, the enterprise security application facilitates detecting "notable events" that are likely to indicate a security threat. A notable event represents one or more anomalous incidents, the occurrence of which can be identified based on one or more events ( e.g., time stamped portions of raw machine data) fulfilling pre-specified and/or dynamically-determined (e.g., based on machine-learning) criteria defined for that notable event.)
However, Bath does not specifically teach determining the health condition based on predictive data analytics.
On the other hand, Xu teaches
wherein determining, by the time series predictor, the health condition of the electronic system(par 64 “The maximum severity value can be compared with a threshold severity that can be customized according to the particular system design and acceptable deviation of feature values. For instance, a system critical feature may have a lower severity threshold while a non-critical feature may have a greater severity threshold.”) comprises determining the health condition based on predictive data analytics and the historical health information from the electronic system. (fig 5; par 80 “The time series predictor is a deep learning model that predicts the score after receiving a set of historical values and a current feature value of the time series feature health variable.”; Par 100 “predicting, by the deep learning-based time series predictor, an expected feature value and an expected range of values using the set of historical values and the current feature value; … determining, by the anomaly detector, that an anomaly condition is present based on the current feature value, … the determining including computing a severity metric by comparing the expected feature value and the expected range of values to the current feature value;”)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to further modify Bath and Lal to incorporate the predictive data analytics of Xu. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to remedy the shortcomings of Bath and Lal -- a need for a solution for the issue of how to monitor system health and identify accurate alerts for unhealthy behavior(Xu par 11 “Health monitoring for features used by machine learning models of large online and offIine systems presents challenges of identifying anomalies and generating accurate alerts because of the wide variation in scale of feature values, seasonality of certain features, and variable boundary conditions” -- with Xu providing a known method to solve a similar problem. Xu provides “providing an adaptive feature health monitoring system that includes two stages: (1) a deep learning-based time series predictor and (2) an adaptive anomaly detector. The deep learning-based time series predictor is a trained deep learning model, and the adaptive anomaly detector is a trained classifier.”(Xu par 20)
Regarding claim 25, it is the system that implements the method of claim 17, and is rejected for the same reasons.
Claim(s) 18,19,23,26,27,29 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20190235941 A1 (Bath) in view of US 20220094590 A1(Lal) as applied to claims 16 and 24 above, and further in view of US 20210034495 A1 (Venkatraman).
Regarding claim 18, Bath teaches,
The method of claim 16,
However, Bath and Lal do not go into detail about broadcasting, by the fourth layer health subsystem, the health policy to the third layer health subsystem via a wireless connection.
On the other hand, Venkatraman teaches
further comprising broadcasting, by the fourth layer health subsystem, the health policy to the third layer health subsystem(par 36 “In some embodiments, rules repository 155 dictates how often device agents 140 and/or issue log 145 send data to device health manager 105. For example, one rule can dictate weighting factors will be recalculated every week, and/or after a predetermined amount of issues (e.g., six system crashes, etc.) occur. In some embodiments, rules repository 155 includes a user configurable policy. The policy can contain rules about high/low setpoints/thresholds relating to device health, and actions to take if the setpoints/ thresholds are passed. One rule may dictate recalculation upon demand.”) via a wireless connection.(par 83 “Device health manager 400 is connected to the network 450 via the network interface 415. Network 450 can comprise a physical, wireless, cellular, or different network.”)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to further modify Bath and Lal to incorporate the monitoring reconfiguration of Venkatraman. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to remedy the shortcomings of Bath and Lal -- a need for a solution for the issue of how to deal with changing performance standards/expectations(Venkataraman par 2 “Modem computing devices are deployed in a continuously changing paradigm. There are new hardware, software, security threats, standards, etc. being developed, released, and implemented into existing systems. In some instances, the new or updated products can cause a drag on productivity and/or slow performance of the existing system.”) -- with Venkataraman providing a known method to solve a similar problem. Venkataraman discloses “Disclosed is a computer implemented method to adjust device health weighting factors, the method comprising, determining a set of monitored devices,”(Venkataraman par 3)
Regarding claim 19, Bath, and Venkatraman teaches,
The method of claim 18,
Venkatraman further teaches,
further comprising broadcasting, by the third layer health subsystem, the health policy to the one or more second layer health subsystems to indicate a timing of receipt of certain health information by a particular health subsystem and a type of the certain health information. (par 36 “In some embodiments, rules repository 155 dictates how often device agents 140 and/or issue log 145 send data to device health manager 105. For example, one rule can dictate weighting factors will be recalculated every week, and/or after a predetermined amount of issues (e.g., six system crashes, etc.) occur. In some embodiments, rules repository 155 includes a user configurable policy. The policy can contain rules about high/low setpoints/thresholds relating to device health, and actions to take if the setpoints/ thresholds are passed. One rule may dictate recalculation upon demand.”)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to further modify Bath to incorporate the monitoring reconfiguration of Venkatraman. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to remedy the shortcomings of Bath -- a need for a solution for the issue of how to deal with changing performance standards/expectations(Venkataraman par 2 “Modem computing devices are deployed in a continuously changing paradigm. There are new hardware, software, security threats, standards, etc. being developed, released, and implemented into existing systems. In some instances, the new or updated products can cause a drag on productivity and/or slow performance of the existing system.”) -- with Venkataraman providing a known method to solve a similar problem. Venkataraman discloses “Disclosed is a computer implemented method to adjust device health weighting factors, the method comprising, determining a set of monitored devices,”(Venkataraman par 3)
Regarding claim 23, Bath teaches,
The method of claim 16,
Bath further teaches,
further comprising the fourth layer health subsystem determining the health policy based on data analytics.(par 342 During operation, the enterprise security application facilitates detecting "notable events" that are likely to indicate a security threat. A notable event represents one or more anomalous incidents, the occurrence of which can be identified based on one or more events ( e.g., time stamped portions of raw machine data) fulfilling pre-specified and/or dynamically-determined (e.g., based on machine-learning) criteria defined for that notable event.)
However, Bath does not specifically teach determining the health policy based on predictive data analytics.
On the other hand, Venkatraman teaches
further comprising the fourth layer health subsystem determining the health policy (par 36 “In some embodiments, rules repository 155 dictates how often device agents 140 and/or issue log 145 send data to device health manager 105. For example, one rule can dictate weighting factors will be recalculated every week, and/or after a predetermined amount of issues (e.g., six system crashes, etc.) occur. In some embodiments, rules repository 155 includes a user configurable policy. The policy can contain rules about high/low setpoints/thresholds relating to device health, and actions to take if the setpoints/ thresholds are passed. One rule may dictate recalculation upon demand.”) based on predictive data analytics. (par 27 “In some embodiments, analytics module 120 uses trend analysis to calculate weighting factors. Trend analysis may include utilizing one or more regression models. Regression is a process used to estimate the relationship among variables.” A trend from a regression model uses predictive data analytics)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to further modify Bath to incorporate the monitoring reconfiguration of Venkatraman. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to remedy the shortcomings of Bath -- a need for a solution for the issue of how to deal with changing performance standards/expectations(Venkataraman par 2 “Modem computing devices are deployed in a continuously changing paradigm. There are new hardware, software, security threats, standards, etc. being developed, released, and implemented into existing systems. In some instances, the new or updated products can cause a drag on productivity and/or slow performance of the existing system.”) -- with Venkataraman providing a known method to solve a similar problem. Venkataraman discloses “Disclosed is a computer implemented method to adjust device health weighting factors, the method comprising, determining a set of monitored devices,”(Venkataraman par 3)
Regarding claims 26,27,29 they are the system that implements the method of claims 18,19,23 respectively, and are rejected for the same reasons.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 10/27/2025 regarding the rejections under 35 U.S.C. 101 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
With respect to the independent claims, the applicant has argued that claim 16 integrates the judicial exception into a practical application(step 2A prong two) and goes beyond the judicial exception (step 2B). Applicant explains that the new amendment includes predictive maintenance of an electronic system before failure to ensure reliable operation. The examiner respectfully disagrees. The new limitation “performing a predictive maintenance of the electronic system based on the health condition and before the component in the layer fails to ensure reliable operation the electronic system;” is recited at a high level of generality because “performing a predictive maintenance based on the health condition and before the component in the layer falls to ensure reliable operation the electronic system;” could apply to any environment with components. The same process except for the descriptors would also work for monitoring data center components, monitoring a fleet of cars, monitoring an internet of things network, monitoring a supply distribution network, monitoring a building’s various heating/water/security/electrical systems). Par 16 of the specification gives some other examples, “The electronic system 102 may be in a mobile structure, a stationary structure, a land based structure, an aquatic-based structure, or a space-based structure. In an example, the electronic system 102 may be an aircraft, a submarine, a bus, a personnel carrier, a tank, a train, an automobile, a spacecraft, a space station, a satellite, or a boat.” The limitation does not meaningfully go beyond merely applying the identified mental process to a general field of “predictive maintenance of an electronic system.” [See MPEP 2106.05(h) “Field of Use and Technological Environment” and 2106.04(d)(1) “Evaluating Improvements in the Functioning of a Computer, or an Improvement to Any Other Technology or Technical Field in Step 2A Prong Two”]
With respect to the independent claims, the applicant has further argued that the addition of limitations “each of the health monitors comprising circuitry for indicating respective health information; and wherein one or more of the health subsystems comprises circuitry for sending respective health information to another health subsystem, each health subsystem comprising circuitry for receiving respective health information; and wherein the third layer health subsystem comprise circuitry for determining the health condition and the health policy based on received health information” means that claims 16 and 24 no longer recites mental processes. The examiner respectfully disagrees. The mental processes of determining a health condition, updating health policy based on health information, providing corresponding portions of the updated health policy to each of the subsystems, determining whether a component in a layer of the electronic system is failing, performing a predictive maintenance of the electronic system based on the health condition, and determining health condition and policy based on received health information, are still recited in claims 16 and 24, and are still mental processes. Even if the limitations require a computer, it can still be a mental process [see MPEP 2106.04(a)(2) III. C. "A Claim That Requires a Computer May Still Recite a Mental Process"]. Determining a health condition and response of the electronic system based on health information and health policy are directed to mental processes of mental process of observation, evaluation, judgment, opinion, because the steps are recited at a high level of generality and merely use computers as a tool to perform the processes.
Also, the “each of the health monitors comprising circuitry for” limitations recite “comprising circuitry for” at a high level of generality [see MPEP 2106.05(b) “If applicant amends a claim to add a generic computer or generic computer components and asserts that the claim recites significantly more because the generic computer is 'specially programmed' (as in Alappat, now considered superseded) or is a 'particular machine' (as in Bilski), the examiner should look at whether the added elements integrate the exception into a practical application or provide significantly more than the judicial exception. Merely adding a generic computer, generic computer components, or a programmed computer to perform generic computer functions does not automatically overcome an eligibility rejection. Alice Corp. Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank Int’l, 573 U.S. 208, 223-24, 110 USPQ2d 1976, 1983-84 (2014). See In re Alappat, 33 F.3d 1526, 1545, 31 USPQ2d 1545, 1558 (Fed. Cir. 1994); In re Bilski, 545 F.3d 943, 88 USPQ2d 1385 (Fed. Cir. 2008)”]. As a whole, the claims are directed to several abstract mental processes implemented on a generic computer, but are not integrated into a practical application[see MPEP 2106.05(f) “implementing an abstract idea on a generic computer, does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application in Step 2A Prong Two or add significantly more in Step 2B”].
Applicant’s arguments, see remarks , filed 10/27/2025 , with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 16,24 under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by US 20190235941 A1 (Bath) have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20190235941 A1 (Bath) in view of US 20220094590 A1(Lal).
With respect to the independent claims, the applicant has argued that Bath does not teach limitations “receiving, by each of one or more second layer health subsystem, second health information of a respective group in a second layer of the electronic system, the second health information comprises the first health information of each group in the first layer within the group in the second layer and health information from additional components of the respective group in the second layer,”. Explaining that Bath’s category or subcategory nodes do not have their own FSM. The examiner respectfully disagrees. Bath teaches in the cited (fig 19:1908i,1908j,1908k; par 389 “… For example, in the illustrated embodiment of FIG. 19, each FSM 1908 is a child node to a category node 1904 or a subcategory node 1906, each subcategory node 1906 is a parent node to one or more FSMs 1908 and is a child node to a category node 1904 or another subcategory node 1906, each category node 1904 is a parent node to one or more subcategory nodes 1906 or the FSMs 1908 and is a child node to the master node 1902.” Fig 19 shows that category nodes, sub-category nodes, and sub-sub-category nodes can all have their own FSM monitors reporting directly to them along with the other level aggregators. Par 407 “In addition to determining their own internal status, the intermediate nodes 1904, 1906 can perform other functions, such as, gathering relevant information associated with the fault conditions or fault resolutions, storing the state of the child nodes, …. Further, the intermediate nodes 1904, 1906 can store data received from their child nodes … as desired. In some embodiments, the intermediate nodes 1904, 1906 can be configured to monitor specific features similar to the FSMs 1908.”). Examiner interprets this as “receiving, by each of one or more second layer health subsystem, second health information of a respective group in a second layer of the electronic system, the second health information comprises the first health information of each group in the first layer within the group in the second layer and health information from additional components of the respective group in the second layer,”. The same cited sections also apply to the other layers.
With respect to the independent claims, the applicant has argued that Bath does not anticipate the limitations "the first health information for the respective group in the first layer comprising health information of an integrated circuit of the first layer, the health information of the integrated circuit of the first layer indicated by a health monitor which only monitors the integrated circuit of the first layer ... the health information of the respective group in the second layer comprising health information of a system on a chip (SoC) of the second layer, the health information of the system on a chip (SoC). indicated by a health monitor which only monitors the system on a chip (SoC) of the second layer, the SoC comprising one or more integrated circuits of the first layer ... the health information of the group in the third layer of the electronic system comprising health information of a circuit board of the third layer, the health information of the circuit board indicated by a health monitor which monitors only the circuit board of the third layer, the circuit board comprising one or more integrated circuits of the first layer and one or more SoC of the second layer.''. This argument is persuasive and the 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20190235941 A1 (Bath) in view of US 20220094590 A1(Lal). Lal teaches in the cited (par 48 “Similarly, XPUs 218, 220, and 222 periodically send an XPU status signal or message 246 to IPU 206. In one embodiment, status signals/messages 244 and 246 are heartbeat signals.” XPUs are defined in Lal par 1 and cover integrated circuits; and fig 11,10:1006; par 99 “FIGS. 10 and 11 show exemplary embodiments of IPU circuitry. IPU 1000 in FIG. 10 is a PCie card including a circuit board 1002 having a PCie edge connector to which various integrated circuit (IC) chips are mounted. The IC chips include an FPGA 1004, a CPU/SoC (System on a Chip) 1006, a pair of NICs 1008 and 1010, and memory chips 1012 and 1014. The various functions and operations performed by embodiments of IPUs described and illustrated herein may be implemented by programmed logic in FPGA 1004 and/or execution of software on CPU/SoC 1006. ….”; par 100 “CPU/SoC 1006 employs a System on a Chip including multiple processor cores. …”). The examiner interprets this as limitations “the first health information for the respective group in the first layer comprising health information of an integrated circuit of the first layer, the health information of the integrated circuit of the first layer indicated by a health monitor which only monitors the integrated circuit of the first layer ... the health information of the respective group in the second layer comprising health information of a system on a chip (SoC) of the second layer, the health information of the system on a chip (SoC). indicated by a health monitor which only monitors the system on a chip (SoC) of the second layer, the SoC comprising one or more integrated circuits of the first layer ... the health information of the group in the third layer of the electronic system comprising health information of a circuit board of the third layer, the health information of the circuit board indicated by a health monitor which monitors only the circuit board of the third layer, the circuit board comprising one or more integrated circuits of the first layer and one or more SoC of the second layer.”.
With respect to the independent claims, the applicant has argued that Bath does not teach limitation Bath does not anticipate the limitation "wherein the third layer health subsystem and not subsystems of the first layer and second layer determines the health condition and indicates that the electronic system is not operating nominally.". The examiner respectfully disagrees. Bath teaches in the cited (par 405 “As mentioned, each intermediate node 1904, 1906 can have its own internal status and read/write lock, and based on the internal status communicated to the intermediate nodes by its child node(s), the intermediate nodes 1904, 1906 can determine their own internal status…. Similar to the FSMs 1908, the internal status of the intermediate nodes 1904, 1906 can be based on the number or weighting of the fault conditions, or the internal status of the FSMs 1908.” Each node determines the system health at its level, so for example, the lowest level monitors only determine the health condition of their monitored low level components, and not the health condition of the electronic system as a whole, whereas the third layer node has health data from the third layer and can make judgements on a health condition of the third layer based on third health information and the data it received from the lower level reports.). The examiner interprets this as limitations "wherein the third layer health subsystem and not subsystems of the first layer and second layer determines the health condition and indicates that the electronic system is not operating nominally.".
With respect to the independent claims, the applicant has argued that Bath does not anticipate limitation “receiving, by a fourth layer health subsystem on a cloud compute, fourth health information of a respective group in a fourth layer of the electronic system.”, explaining that Bath’s master node is not described as being located in a layer corresponding to a cloud compute. The examiner respectfully disagrees. Bath teaches in the cited (fig 19:1802; par 368 “…the self-monitoring module 1802 can be instantiated in a container or as a virtual machine as part of or separate from the computing device that it monitors. In this way, the self-monitoring module 1802 can be used in a containerized cloud environment or virtual machine environment.”). The examiner interprets this as limitations “receiving, by a fourth layer health subsystem on a cloud compute, fourth health information of a respective group in a fourth layer of the electronic system.”.
With respect to the independent claims, the applicant has argued that Bath does not teach limitations “fourth layer health subsystem ... update the health policy based on the fourth health information, a corresponding portion of the updated health policy being provided to each of the first layer health subsystems, the second layer health subsystems, and the third layer health subsystems.”. The examiner respectfully disagrees. Bath teaches in the cited (par 401 “Further, the threshold or range used to trigger or detect a fault condition can be adjusted in real time. … In this way, the FSM 1908 can reduce the likelihood that a particular fault condition is triggered too frequently, which can render the fault condition less useful. Further, the FSM 1908 can dynamically respond to the fault statuses of the individual features. In some cases, the FSM 1908 can adjust the trigger, cease monitoring the feature, or disable itself. In certain cases, this can be done by an administrator.”). The examiner interprets this as limitations “fourth layer health subsystem ... update the health policy based on the fourth health information, a corresponding portion of the updated health policy being provided to each of the first layer health subsystems, the second layer health subsystems, and the third layer health subsystems.”.
With respect to claim 18, the applicant has argued that Venkatraman does not teach limitation “fourth layer health subsystem ... update the health policy based on the fourth health information, a corresponding portion of the updated health policy being provided to each of the first layer health subsystems, the second layer health subsystems, and the third layer health subsystems.” from claim 1. The examiner respectfully disagrees. Venkatraman teaches in the cited (par 36 “In some embodiments, rules repository 155 dictates how often device agents 140 and/or issue log 145 send data to device health manager 105. For example, one rule can dictate weighting factors will be recalculated every week, and/or after a predetermined amount of issues (e.g., six system crashes, etc.) occur. In some embodiments, rules repository 155 includes a user configurable policy. The policy can contain rules about high/low setpoints/thresholds relating to device health, and actions to take if the setpoints/ thresholds are passed. One rule may dictate recalculation upon demand.”) and (par 83 “Device health manager 400 is connected to the network 450 via the network interface 415. Network 450 can comprise a physical, wireless, cellular, or different network.”). Examiner interprets this as teaching limitation “fourth layer health subsystem ... update the health policy based on the fourth health information, a corresponding portion of the updated health policy being provided to each of the first layer health subsystems, the second layer health subsystems, and the third layer health subsystems.” From claim 1 as well as the limitation from claim 18.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 20230171293 A1 - Galtie - good reference, same applicant, published within 1 year of filing date. Layered monitoring system.
US 20170317901 A1 - Agrawal - determines endpoint cluster health and updates policy in response.
US 20230135013 A1 - Wang - policy based agent with plugin infrastructure, device-level, agent-level, and plugin-level health monitors that collectively monitor a health status of discrete components
US 20230109219 A1 - Fleiner- parent and child cluster manager managing a hierarchy of resources in a cluster environment. Pretty good
US 20200162503 A1 - Shurtleff - IoT detection, reporting, and remediation system
US 20030212928 A1 - Srivastava - monitors subsystem health - 2003
US 20220357821 A1 - Roberts - hierarchy of health models
US 20170041197 A1 - Shen - aggregates data from child nodes, can drill down as far as you need.
US 20230112725 A1 - Boyapalle - monitors Peripheral devices
US 20240241778 A1 - Zhou - looks at log data to predict errors and determine which component to fix. - Intel
US 20230384940 A1 - Chandrashekaraiah - predicts memory lifespan and compares to average lifespan. Makes recommendations on what to change to increase lifespan.
US 20230297453 A1 - Viclizki - predicts when GPU/CPU in data centers will fail and alerts users. - Nvidia
US 20210166548 A1 - Ellam - dynamically adjusts alert threshold.
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/MICHAEL XU/Examiner, Art Unit 2113