Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-20 are pending.
Examiner Notes
Examiner cites particular paragraphs and/or columns and lines in the references as applied to Applicant’s claims for the convenience of the Applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings in the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested that, in preparing responses, the Applicant fully consider the references in entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the examiner. The prompt development of a clear issue requires that the replies of the Applicant meet the objections to and rejections of the claims. Applicant should also specifically point out the support for any amendments made to the disclosure. See MPEP § 2163.06.
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
Authorization for Internet Communications in a Patent Application
Applicant is encouraged to file an Authorization for Internet Communications in a Patent Application form (http://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/sb0439.pdf) along with the response to this office action to facilitate and expedite future communication between Applicant and the examiner. If the form is submitted then Applicant is requested to provide a contact email address in the signature block at the conclusion of the official reply.
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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (an abstract idea) without significantly more.
Step 1: The claim is a process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter:
Claim 1. A system comprising.
Step 2A Prong One: The claim recites an abstract idea because it includes limitations that can be considered mental processes (concepts performed in the human mind including an observation, evaluation, judgment, and/or opinion). If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the human mind or via pen and paper, then it falls within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea:
monitoring resource utilization on a plurality of user devices via a device agent executing on each of the plurality of user devices (abstract idea mental process);
assigning, based on the resource requirements of the cluster workload and the resource utilization on the plurality of user devices, the workload execution request to a cluster comprising the plurality of user devices (abstract idea mental process).
Step 2A Prong Two: The abstract idea is not integrated into a practical application because the abstract idea is recited but for generically recited additional computer elements (i.e. data storage, processor, memory, computer readable medium, etc.) which do not add meaningful limitations to the abstract idea amounting to simply implementing the abstract idea on a generic computer using generic computing hardware and/or software (e.g. generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use (see MPEP 2106.05(h)). Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept. The generic computing components are recited at a high-level of generality such that they amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using the recited generic computer components. Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea:
at least one memory that stores instructions (generic computing components); and
one or more processors configured by the instructions to perform operations (generic computing components) comprising:
accessing a workload execution request that identifies resource requirements of a cluster workload (generic computing components performing extra-solution activity of retrieving data/information);
causing the workload execution request to be executed on the cluster, wherein user workloads and a respective portion of the cluster workload execute on each of the plurality of user devices (generic computing components performing extra-solution activity of merely reciting the words "apply it" or an equivalent with the judicial exception, or merely including instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely using the computer as a tool to perform the abstract idea).
Step 2B: The claim includes limitations which can be considered extra-solution activity (see MPEP 2106.05(g)) insufficient to amount to significantly more than the abstract idea because the additional limitations only perform at least one of collecting, gathering, displaying, generating, modifying, updating, storing, retrieving, sending, and receiving data/information data which are well-understood, routine, conventional computer functions as recognized by the court decisions listed in MPEP § 2106.05(d)II. The claim further includes limitations that do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application because they merely recite the words "apply it" (or an equivalent) with the judicial exception, or merely including instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely using a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea, as discussed in MPEP § 2106.05(f). Therefore, the claim, and its limitations when considered separately and in combination, is directed to patent ineligible subject matter:
at least one memory that stores instructions; and
one or more processors configured by the instructions to perform operations comprising:
accessing a workload execution request that identifies resource requirements of a cluster workload (extra-solution activity of retrieving data/information);
causing the workload execution request to be executed on the cluster, wherein user workloads and a respective portion of the cluster workload execute on each of the plurality of user devices (extra-solution activity of merely reciting the words "apply it" or an equivalent with the judicial exception, or merely including instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely using the computer as a tool to perform the abstract idea).
Claim 2. The system of claim 1, wherein the cluster comprises the plurality of user devices and one or more dedicated compute nodes (generic computing components), and a respective portion of the cluster workload executes on each dedicated compute node (extra-solution activity of merely reciting the words "apply it" or an equivalent with the judicial exception, or merely including instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely using the computer as a tool to perform the abstract idea).
Claim 3. The system of claim 1, the operations further comprising, for each user device: assigning the user device to the cluster based on the user device meeting one or more cluster contribution criteria (abstract idea mental process).
Claim 4. The system of claim 1, wherein the monitoring of the resource utilization on the plurality of user devices comprises monitoring resource utilization on a pool of user devices that includes the plurality of user devices, the operations further comprising: selecting the plurality of user devices from the pool of user devices (abstract idea mental process); and assigning the plurality of user devices to the cluster (abstract idea mental process).
Claim 5. The system of claim 1, wherein the monitoring of the resource utilization on the plurality of user devices comprises using the device agent of each user device to determine that the user device has excess resources available to contribute to the cluster (abstract idea mental process).
Claim 6. The system of claim 1, wherein the device agent executing on each user device determines resources that the user device can contribute to the cluster while executing the user workloads (abstract idea mental process).
Claim 7. The system of claim 6, wherein the monitoring of the resource utilization on the plurality of user devices comprises receiving, from the device agent executing on each user device, an indication of the resources that the user device can contribute to the cluster while executing the user workloads (extra-solution activity of sending/receiving data/information).
Claim 8. The system of claim 6, wherein a cluster agent executing on the cluster aggregates resource utilization data from the device agents of the plurality of user devices (extra-solution activity of collecting/gathering/aggregating data/information), and the monitoring of the resource utilization on the plurality of user devices comprises receiving, from the cluster agent, the aggregated resource utilization data (extra-solution activity of sending/receiving data/information).
Claim 9. The system of claim 1, wherein causing the workload execution request to be executed on the cluster comprises: transmitting, to the device agent executing on each user device, an instruction to allocate a first portion of resources on the user device to the cluster (extra-solution activity of sending/receiving data/information), wherein a second portion of the resources on the user device is used to execute the user workloads (extra-solution activity of merely reciting the words "apply it" or an equivalent with the judicial exception, or merely including instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely using the computer as a tool to perform the abstract idea).
Claim 10. The system of claim 1, wherein causing the workload execution request to be executed on the cluster comprises causing, on each user device, at least part of the user workloads and at least part of the respective portion of the cluster workload to be executed simultaneously (extra-solution activity of merely reciting the words "apply it" or an equivalent with the judicial exception, or merely including instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely using the computer as a tool to perform the abstract idea).
Claim 11. The system of claim 1, wherein the cluster workload executes in a cluster environment on the user device, the cluster environment being separated from a user environment on the user device in which the user workloads execute (extra-solution activity of merely reciting the words "apply it" or an equivalent with the judicial exception, or merely including instructions to implement an abstract idea on a computer, or merely using the computer as a tool to perform the abstract idea).
Claim 12. The system of claim 11, wherein the cluster environment comprises at least one of a virtual machine or a container (generic computing components).
Claim 13. The system of claim 1, wherein the workload execution request is assigned to the cluster by a processor-implemented cluster controller that is communicatively coupled to the cluster and to a plurality of other clusters in a distributed computing environment (generic computing components).
Claim 14. The system of claim 1, the operations further comprising, for each user device: transmitting a message to the user device to indicate that the user device has been assigned to the cluster (extra-solution activity of sending/receiving data/information).
As per claim 15, it has similar limitations as claim 1 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
As per claim 16, it has similar limitations as claim 2 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
As per claim 17, it has similar limitations as claim 11 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
As per claim 18, it has similar limitations as claim 1 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
As per claim 19, it has similar limitations as claim 2 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
As per claim 20, it has similar limitations as claim 11 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1, 15, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gray et al. (US 2019/0179673) (hereinafter Gray) in view of Costa et al. (US 2023/0145437) (hereinafter Costa).
As per claim 1, Gray primarily teaches the invention as claimed including a system comprising:
at least one memory that stores instructions (fig. 5A, block 526); and
one or more processors configured by the instructions to perform operations (fig. 5A, block 522) comprising:
monitoring resource utilization on a plurality of user devices via a device agent executing on each of the plurality of user devices ([0015] retroactive refusal component of each node monitors the resource utilization of that node);
assigning, based on the resource utilization on the plurality of user devices, the workload execution request to a cluster comprising the plurality of user devices ([0013] load balancer assigns work items to nodes within the cluster based on the current resource utilization of the nodes); and
causing the workload execution request to be executed on the cluster, wherein user workloads ([0013] a computing task may involve handling data processing for data belonging to different users/entities. This computing task may be divided into work items such that each work item handles the data processing for a single one of the user/entities and [0018] work item C becomes very resource intensive e.g., it is processing new data for a new organization) and a respective portion of the cluster workload execute on each of the plurality of user devices (abstract each node within a cluster of nodes is capable of processing work items wherein work items can be reassigned from one node to another node within the cluster of nodes and [0029] computing tasks for providing one or more services are performed by a cluster of nodes).
Gray does not explicitly teach:
accessing a workload execution request that identifies resource requirements of a cluster workload;
assigning, based on the resource requirements of the cluster workload, the workload execution request to a cluster comprising the plurality of user devices.
However, Costa teaches:
accessing a workload execution request that identifies resource requirements of a cluster workload ([0027] and [0052] identify resource demands of predefined workloads of an application);
assigning, based on the resource requirements of the cluster workload, the workload execution request to a cluster comprising the plurality of user devices ([0052] assign each workload to a compute cluster that has compute resources corresponding to the resource demands of each respective workload and [0055] assign each workload to one of the compute clusters based on a matching between the resource demands of each workload and available compute resources of the respective compute cluster to which each workload is assigned).
Costa and Gray are both concerned with workload execution in cluster computing environments and are therefore combinable/modifiable. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Gray in view of Costa because it would provide a way to implement preemption policies for compute resources of compute devices in a network of on-premises compute devices to enforce resource sharing. The preemption policies can be set to avoid using the full capacity of any one compute device and/or mitigate head-of-line issues. In some examples, if higher priority jobs arrive in the message queue while there are lower priority jobs running, the system may free up compute resources of the compute devices in the network of on-premises compute devices to focus on the higher priority jobs. For example, the lower priority jobs may be temporarily suspended while the higher priority jobs are executed.
As per claim 15, it has similar limitations as claim 1 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
As per claim 18, it has similar limitations as claim 1 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
Claims 2, 16, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gray in view of Costa in view of Bapst et al. (US 2024/0195867) (hereinafter Bapst).
As per claim 2, Gray in view of Costa do not explicitly teach wherein the cluster comprises the plurality of user devices and one or more dedicated compute nodes, and a respective portion of the cluster workload executes on each dedicated compute node.
However, Bapst teaches wherein the cluster comprises the plurality of user devices and one or more dedicated compute nodes, and a respective portion of the cluster workload executes on each dedicated compute node ([0138] an end device may have a dedicated compute node with guaranteed availability. This dedicated compute node may pause or drop other ongoing task workloads to execute tasks from the end device, or may proactively allocate compute resources for the processing task if the execution time of the processing task was previously scheduled).
Bapst and Gray are both concerned with workload execution in computing environments and are therefore combinable/modifiable. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Gray in view of Costa in view of Bapst because it would enable edge nodes to schedule and distribute task workloads more effectively, providing greater performance, power, security, and mission-critical network availability. For example, if the end device transmits a processing task request to a first edge node, the first edge node may assign the processing task to a second edge node according to the network link information. Additionally, or alternatively, the end device may transmit an indication of processing task parameters to one or more edge nodes and may receive an indication of an estimated completion time of the processing task from the one or more edge nodes. Accordingly, the end device may assign the processing task to an edge node with the lowest completion time.
As per claim 16, it has similar limitations as claim 2 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
As per claim 19, it has similar limitations as claim 2 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
Claim 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gray in view of Costa in view of Doyle et al. (US 2004/0215614) (hereinafter Doyle).
As per claim 3, Gray in view of Costa do not explicitly teach the operations further comprising, for each user device: assigning the user device to the cluster based on the user device meeting one or more cluster contribution criteria.
However, Doyle teaches the operations further comprising, for each user device: assigning the user device to the cluster based on the user device meeting one or more cluster contribution criteria ([0018] cluster manager determines whether resources satisfy the cluster criteria for membership in order to add new resources to the cluster and [0026] cluster of resources can include a set of resources which have been added to the cluster based upon each individual resource satisfying a set of criteria for membership in the cluster of resources).
Doyle and Gray are both concerned with cluster computing environments and are therefore combinable/modifiable. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Gray in view of Costa in view of Doyle because it would provide for benefits of using grid services including a reduced cost of ownership of information technology due to the more efficient utilization of computing resources, and an improvement in the ease of integrating various computing components. Thus, the grid mechanism can implement a service-oriented architecture through which a basis for distributed system integration can be provided even across organizational domains. This results in advantages to the quorum process because even where a cluster of resources has been partitioned, once the partitions have been resolved so that all resources can rejoin the single cluster of resources, no further logic will be required to resolve the identity of the locking resource. Thus, partition resolution does not disrupt lock ownership.
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gray in view of Costa in view of Nair et al. (US 2023/0008011) (hereinafter Nair).
As per claim 4, Gray in view of Costa do not explicitly teach wherein the monitoring of the resource utilization on the plurality of user devices comprises monitoring resource utilization on a pool of user devices that includes the plurality of user devices, the operations further comprising: selecting the plurality of user devices from the pool of user devices; and assigning the plurality of user devices to the cluster.
However, Nair teaches wherein the monitoring of the resource utilization on the plurality of user devices comprises monitoring resource utilization on a pool of user devices that includes the plurality of user devices, the operations further comprising: selecting the plurality of user devices from the pool of user devices ([0070] select a host from a pool of hosts and assign it to the cluster); and assigning the plurality of user devices to the cluster ([0077] select an available host from a pool of hosts and assign the selected host to the cluster).
Nair and Gray are both concerned with cluster computing environments and are therefore combinable/modifiable. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Gray in view of Costa in view of Nair because it would provide a way to predict that quality of service will remain unaffected by the removal of a host, and then identify a host that has a lowest resource cost for removal. As a result, if an additional unbilled host has a higher resource cost for removal, then it can be added as a billable host and another host can be removed, causing the number of billed hosts to remain the same. This can provide efficiency benefits because network usage, data transferred, processor usage, and other resource usage for removing a host from the cluster is minimized.
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gray in view of Costa in view of Singwi et al. (US 2024/0396804) (hereinafter Singwi).
As per claim 5, Gray in view of Costa do not explicitly teach wherein the monitoring of the resource utilization on the plurality of user devices comprises using the device agent of each user device to determine that the user device has excess resources available to contribute to the cluster.
However, Singwi teaches wherein the monitoring of the resource utilization on the plurality of user devices comprises using the device agent of each user device to determine that the user device has excess resources available to contribute to the cluster ([0017] device aggregator discovers heterogeneous edge devices that can make spare resources available and adds them to computational cluster).
Singwi and Gray are both concerned with cluster computing environments and are therefore combinable/modifiable. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Gray in view of Costa in view of Singwi because it would provide a way to improve efficiency of computing operations by customizing edge device registration in view of state information for each edge device. This prevents resource constraints, such as, for example, shifting workload among edge devices based on device-specific state information e.g., maintenance schedules and primary functions. This provides customization for the edge devices to maintain efficient operation with minimal interruptions and improved resiliency.
Claims 6-7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gray in view of Costa in view of He et al. (US 2020/0275313) (hereinafter He).
As per claim 6, Gray in view of Costa do not explicitly teach wherein the device agent executing on each user device determines resources that the user device can contribute to the cluster while executing the user workloads.
However, He teaches wherein the device agent executing on each user device determines resources that the user device can contribute to the cluster while executing the user workloads ([0023] each local smart resource scheduler may communicate periodically with the other smart resource schedulers about its status. When a local multi-access edge computing cluster is lightly-loaded, the smart resource scheduler may notify smart resource schedulers in other multi-access edge computing clusters, indicating the types of resources available to contribute, the quantity of resources available to contribute, and estimation of how long the multi-access edge computing cluster can contribute).
He and Gray are both concerned with cluster computing environments and are therefore combinable/modifiable. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Gray in view of Costa in view of He because it would provide for an intelligent resource scheduling service that intelligently shares resources to maximize availability to meet the latency/bandwidth requirements for different types of customer traffic. Resources in more lightly-loaded cluster areas can be used to serve less-latency-sensitive workloads from the heavily-loaded cluster areas. If end device demands increase for a cluster area and exceed a configured threshold for the total resource capacity of the cluster area servicing the end devices, then end devices with lower priority (e.g., from an application latency aspect) can be offloaded to a neighboring cluster area. Distributed intelligence provided in the resource scheduling results in computing resources across all available cluster areas being used efficiently.
As per claim 7, He teaches wherein the monitoring of the resource utilization on the plurality of user devices comprises receiving, from the device agent executing on each user device, an indication of the resources that the user device can contribute to the cluster while executing the user workloads ([0023] each local smart resource scheduler may communicate periodically with the other smart resource schedulers about its status. When a local multi-access edge computing cluster is lightly-loaded, the smart resource scheduler may notify smart resource schedulers in other multi-access edge computing clusters, indicating the types of resources available to contribute, the quantity of resources available to contribute, and estimation of how long the multi-access edge computing cluster can contribute).
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gray in view of Costa in view of He in view of Cole et al. (US 8,938,416) (hereinafter Cole).
As per claim 8, Gray in view of Costa in view of He do not explicitly teach wherein a cluster agent executing on the cluster aggregates resource utilization data from the device agents of the plurality of user devices, and the monitoring of the resource utilization on the plurality of user devices comprises receiving, from the cluster agent, the aggregated resource utilization data.
However, Cole teaches wherein a cluster agent executing on the cluster aggregates resource utilization data from the device agents of the plurality of user devices, and the monitoring of the resource utilization on the plurality of user devices comprises receiving, from the cluster agent, the aggregated resource utilization data (col. 19, ll. 16-24 the dynamic monitoring may include automatically gathering information about various types of resource usage by the distributed execution of a program on a cluster, such as resource usage specific to one or more particular cluster computing nodes and/or aggregate resource usage across the entire cluster of computing nodes).
Cole and Gray are both concerned with cluster computing environments and are therefore combinable/modifiable. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Gray in view of Costa in view of He in view of Cole because it would provide for cluster shrinking to more efficiently use resources. This can occur if the distributed data aggregation operations are progressing faster than expected, if one or more cluster computing nodes are using too many computing resources and those computing nodes are shut down to throttle the excess computing resource usage, and/or if one or more cluster computing nodes are not currently being used (e.g., have completed their portion of the distributed data aggregation operations and are removed from the cluster so as to be available for other uses and/or to prevent the ongoing distributed data aggregation operations from being responsible for ongoing fees for the computing node if it was part of the cluster).
Claims 9-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gray in view of Costa in view of Dong et al. (US 2022/0121928) (hereinafter Dong).
As per claim 9, Gray in view of Costa do not explicitly teach wherein causing the workload execution request to be executed on the cluster comprises: transmitting, to the device agent executing on each user device, an instruction to allocate a first portion of resources on the user device to the cluster, wherein a second portion of the resources on the user device is used to execute the user workloads.
However, Dong teaches wherein causing the workload execution request to be executed on the cluster comprises: transmitting, to the device agent executing on each user device, an instruction to allocate a first portion of resources on the user device to the cluster, wherein a second portion of the resources on the user device is used to execute the user workloads ([0073] management module performs resource allocation to allocate different subsets of the processing nodes in the cluster of processing nodes for different tasks e.g., for the tasks of different users, applications, accounts, sessions, etc. which allows the cluster of processing nodes to be shared concurrently for many different users or tasks).
Dong and Gray are both concerned with cluster computing environments and are therefore combinable/modifiable. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Gray in view of Costa in view of Dong because it would provide for advantages to improve efficiency by reducing the number of physical links or data ports of processors that are not being utilized. In particular, by reconfiguring the network topology to use physical links that were not previously being utilized, e.g., in some cases bandwidth can be increased and in some cases latency can be decreased e.g., through the utilization of diagonal links in certain configurations. This benefit is particularly evident in small scale use cases, where large percentages of the physical data ports and their associated bandwidth would otherwise not be utilized with only single-connection links between nodes.
As per claim 10, Gray in view of Costa do not explicitly teach wherein causing the workload execution request to be executed on the cluster comprises causing, on each user device, at least part of the user workloads and at least part of the respective portion of the cluster workload to be executed simultaneously.
However, Dong teaches wherein causing the workload execution request to be executed on the cluster comprises causing, on each user device, at least part of the user workloads and at least part of the respective portion of the cluster workload to be executed simultaneously ([0019] management system is configured to allocate multiple different subsets of the processing nodes in the cluster such that the different subsets are separately used to concurrently perform different processing tasks of different users).
Dong and Gray are both concerned with cluster computing environments and are therefore combinable/modifiable. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Gray in view of Costa in view of Dong because it would provide for an enhanced reconfigurable interconnect network. The reconfigurable interconnect network can be used to switch between multiple different connection topologies for different sizes of subsets of processing nodes in a cluster. For example, for a given number of processing nodes to be used, different connection topologies can provide different levels of scalability, data transfer bandwidth among processing nodes, and latency for transfers among processing nodes. The connection topologies can assign connections for each of the data ports of the processing nodes used, to maximize utilization of the data ports and provide better performance.
Claims 11-12, 17, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gray in view of Costa in view of Smith et al. (US 2019/0042759) (hereinafter Smith).
As per claim 11, Gray in view of Costa do not explicitly teach wherein the cluster workload executes in a cluster environment on the user device, the cluster environment being separated from a user environment on the user device in which the user workloads execute.
However, Smith teaches wherein the cluster workload executes in a cluster environment on the user device, the cluster environment being separated from a user environment on the user device in which the user workloads execute ([0040] the computing device performs the measurement with a virtual trusted platform module in a separate guest environment i.e., user environment from the container component i.e., cluster environment).
Smith and Gray are both concerned with network computing environments and are therefore combinable/modifiable. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Gray in view of Costa in view of Smith because it would provide a way to utilize a virtual trusted platform module to improve performance compared to a physical trusted platform module, which may be a relatively inexpensive microcontroller with limited resources and/or may be connected to the compute engine via a low-speed I/O connection. Additionally, by using a virtual trusted platform in each trusted container, the computing device may be capable of scaling to handle many containers without the overhead associated with virtual machine exits and/or accesses to the physical trusted platform. Additionally, keys may be securely stored with the physical trusted platform, which may ensure security even if encrypted memory persists across power cycles, which in turn may allow for efficient re-launch of already instantiated trusted containers.
As per claim 12, Gray further teaches wherein the cluster environment comprises at least one of a virtual machine or a container ([0023] software containers each represent a tightly isolated form of a software container called a virtual machine that is run by the hypervisor and may include a guest operating system).
As per claim 17, it has similar limitations as claim 11 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
As per claim 20, it has similar limitations as claim 11 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gray in view of Costa in view of Vasanad et al. (US 2024/0414049) (hereinafter Vasanad).
As per claim 13, Gray in view of Costa do not explicitly teach wherein the workload execution request is assigned to the cluster by a processor-implemented cluster controller that is communicatively coupled to the cluster and to a plurality of other clusters in a distributed computing environment.
However, Vasanad teaches wherein the workload execution request is assigned to the cluster by a processor-implemented cluster controller that is communicatively coupled to the cluster and to a plurality of other clusters in a distributed computing environment ([0103] configuring other nodes may include transmitting instructions to other nodes of the distributed computing cluster, and a cluster controller may execute operations to provide instructions to the nodes).
Vasanad and Gray are both concerned with cluster computing environments and are therefore combinable/modifiable. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Gray in view of Costa in view of Vasanad because it would provide for a device that can be used for machine learning, with models trained in the cloud and running in disconnected locations to improve efficiency, intelligence, and/or productivity in various applications. It can also be used for remote computing requiring elevated security and airtight containment of data. Additionally, the device can be used for low latency database and analytics workloads, with more applications optimized over time. Further, the device can also be used for data collection and migration of large sets of object and database management system data into a cloud service provider, e.g., at faster speeds and lower cost.
Claim 14 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gray in view of Costa in view of Dinker et al. (US 2003/0204273) (hereinafter Dinker).
As per claim 14, Gray in view of Costa do not explicitly teach the operations further comprising, for each user device: transmitting a message to the user device to indicate that the user device has been assigned to the cluster.
However, Dinker teaches the operations further comprising, for each user device: transmitting a message to the user device to indicate that the user device has been assigned to the cluster (claim 9 upon transitioning to the joined state, the node's topology manager sends an event notification to the node's distributed data manager indicating that the node has joined the distributed data cluster).
Dinker and Gray are both concerned with cluster computing environments and are therefore combinable/modifiable. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Gray in view of Costa in view of Dinker because it would provide a way to prevent competing requests from conflicting or complicating the determination of which requesting node may become a previous node in the topology. The node may hold other topology connect request messages as pending to process them after the status of previous requests have been resolved. A cluster node in a transient state may respond to a node seeking membership in the cluster and may reject or ignore subsequent requests while in this state to avoid conflicting requests.
Citation of Relevant Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to Applicant's disclosure:
Zhang (US 2023/0185682) disclose resilient and adaptive cloud processing of parallel computing workloads.
Wu et al. (US 2021/0141923) disclose enforcing data isolation in jobs executed by a multi-tenant system on a secondary platform.
Wang et al. (US 2023/0161633) disclose avoidance of workload duplication among split-clusters.
Walker et al. (US 2006/0179143) disclose distributed client services based on execution of service attributes and data attributes by multiple nodes in resource groups.
Sheoran et al. (US 2022/0129316) disclose workload equivalence class identification for resource usage prediction.
Molkov et al. (US 2014/0130054) disclose a cluster manager responsible for implementing push-based fair scheduling of resources to job trackers.
Malvankar et al. (US 2024/0184609) disclose virtualized environment cluster utilization.
Makaya et al. (US 2023/0012487) disclose machine learning workload orchestration in heterogeneous clusters.
Krishnan et al. (US 2018/0157511) disclose managing a size of clusters by tracking membership of hosts in a cluster.
Chakravorty et al. (US 2012/0096468) disclose a compute cluster with balanced resources.
Baughman et al. (US 2017/0099352) disclose distributed load processing using location-based internet of things device clusters.
Conclusion
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/Adam Lee/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2198 February 6, 2026