DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
This Office Action is responsive to communications filed on January 8, 2026.
Claims 1, 4-6, 12, 15-17 and 20 have been amended.
Claims 1-20 have been examined and are pending.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6-11 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Response to Arguments
Applicants have argued the cited art does not teach or suggest the amended independent claims which now include a portion of limitations formerly recited by claim 6, the claim having been objected to in the prior office action as containing allowable subject matter. However, during the course of a new prior art search, Examiner discovered the amendments could be rejected. Thus, Examiner raises a new ground of rejection in view of US 7484084 B1 - hereinafter "Ranaweera", and in view of "How to update your motherboard's BIOS or UEFI" - hereinafter "Martin", as set forth below.
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 of this title, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1, 2, 12, 13, 17 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20050229173 A1- hereinafter "Mihm", in view of US 7484084 B1 - hereinafter "Ranaweera", and in view of "How to update your motherboard's BIOS or UEFI" - hereinafter "Martin".
With respect to claim 1, Mihm teaches,
A method of managing a data processing system comprising hardware resources and a management controller that operates independently from the hardware resources, the method comprising: - Figs 2-4
making, by the management controller, an identification that a firmware update event has occurred for the hardware resources; - "In one embodiment, the BIOS is to be updated before failing, for instance to deploy a bug fix, or to add a new feature. In this case, a message may be sent to the BMC notifying it of the update." [0017]; Fig. 4
providing, by the management controller and via an out of band communication channel, a request for an updated firmware image for the hardware resources to a server in response to the identification; - "The BIOS firmware image on system A is determined to be invalid or needing an update. The BMC broadcasts a "I need an image" message over the network(s), ..." (Fig. 2) "In one embodiment, it is determined that the BIOS firmware image on server A 110a requires an update, possibly because it is invalid or corrupted. For purposes of this discussion, the system with the corrupted BIOS code which broadcasts a request for verified code is called the "recipient" system. The responding system is called the "donor" system (server)." [0019] "Server A 110a may broadcast its message request via a LAN, or other communication channel. In existing systems, there is often no network capability in the BMC boot block because it adds complexity to the code. However, the BMC may have access to its own network interface card (NIC). If the boot block of server A 110a has network capability in its boot block, then it may broadcast the request through the OOB connection, also." [0020]; Fig. 4
obtaining, by the management controller and via the out of band communication channel, the updated firmware image from the server in response to the providing; - "Other "donor" systems (110b-f and 120) on the communication network may receive the broadcast message (block 251) and validate the received request to see if the request matches their parameters." [0025] "If the message is validated by the donor system (server), the donor system offers the image with a positive acknowledgment message in block 257." [0025] "The donor system determines whether its offer has been accepted in block 259. If so, the donor system uploads the valid image to the recipient system via whatever communication mechanism has been chosen, in block 261." [0026] "In one embodiment, the network server to be managed is compatible with the Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI). The IPMI is a communication protocol for LANs or modem communication to a baseboard management controller (BMC). The IPMI 1.5 specification, jointly developed by Intel Corporation, Hewlett-Packard Company, NEC Corporation and Dell Computer Corporation, for instance, defines a mechanism by which an Out-Of-Band (OOB) connection can pass data back and forth across a variety of networks via the BMC." [0021]
performing, by the management controller and using the updated firmware image, an update process for the hardware resources to modify firmware of a hardware resource of the hardware resources to obtain an updated data processing system; and - "Once the transfer is negotiated and the BIOS code image is transferred to the recipient computer, the BIOS firmware is written over with the new image in block 213, where the recipient system validates the BIOS image as before in block 203." [0026] "The BMC may be connected to the BIOS flash device via a bidirectional buffer, allowing the BMC to have indirect access to the BIOS flash device for the purpose of updating the BIOS flash image." [0028]; Fig. 4
providing, by the updated data processing system, computer-implemented services. - "A typical server today contains both a Baseboard Management Controller (BMC) and a system Basic Input Output System (BIOS). These processes both typically execute code from flash memory devices." [0003] Logically, the BIOS can execute with updated firmware.
Mihm does not explicitly teach wherein the update process comprises: initiating, by the management controller, a restart of the data processing system;
However, in the analogous field of software updating, Ranaweera teaches:
"In addition to the BMC providing the new BIOS image directly, it is possible for the BMC to place a new BIOS image in NVRAM, reboot the machine, and then inform the BIOS at bootup that a new image is available there." (col. 6:48-51)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to implement Mihm with Ranaweera's teachings because doing so would provide Mihm's system with the ability to facilitate installation of firmware in a processing system using a baseboard management controller, as suggested by Ranaweera (Abstract).
Mihm does not explicitly teach wherein the update process comprises: during the restart of the data processing system, interrupting the restart to initiate replacement of the firmware.
However, in the analogous field of software updating, Martin teaches:
"How to update the BIOS/ UEFI" (bottom of page 3)
"Restart your computer and enter the BIOS (UEFI) by pressing the appropriate key on your keyboard (commonly F2, Del or Fl0)" (top of page 4)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to implement Mihm and Ranaweera with Martin's teachings because doing so would provide Mihm/Ranaweera's system with the ability to fix bugs, performance issues or vulnerabilities in a computing system, as suggested by Martin (bottom of page 3).
With respect to claims 2, 13 and 18, Mihm teaches,
wherein the firmware update event is a firmware recovery event in response to a boot failure for the data processing system. - "The BIOS firmware image on system A is determined to be invalid or needing an update. The BMC broadcasts a "I need an image" message over the network(s), ..." (Fig. 2) "If all allowable attempts to boot the system fail, then the BIOS is assumed to be corrupted and requires an update." [0012]
With respect to claim 12, Mihm teaches,
A non-transitory machine-readable medium having instructions stored therein, which when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations for managing a data processing system comprising hardware resources and a management controller that operates independently from the hardware resources, the operations comprising: - Figs 2-4
The remaining limitations are rejected using the mapping from analogous claim 1.
With respect to claim 17, Mihm teaches,
A data processing system, comprising: a processor; and a memory coupled to the processor to store instructions, which when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform operations for managing a data processing system comprising hardware resources and a management controller that operates independently from the hardware resources, the operations comprising: - Figs 2-4
The remaining limitations are rejected using the mapping from analogous claim 1.
Claims 3, 14 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mihm, Ranaweera and Martin, in view of US 20200133681 A1 - hereinafter "Ganesan".
With respect to claims 3, 14 and 19, Mihm does not explicitly teach,
wherein the firmware update event is a scheduled firmware update process for the data processing system.
However, in the analogous field of software updating, Ganesan teaches:
"BMC receives out-of-band communication over a network from an administrative console or development operations (DevOps) environment to schedule maintenance operations such as a firmware update or import server configuration profile." [0017]
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to implement Mihm, Ranaweera and Martin with Ganesan's teachings because doing so would provide Mihm/Ranaweera/Martin's system with the ability to avoid conflicts between power operations carried out by a BMC and maintenance activities carried out by a host processor subsystem, as suggested by Ganesan (Abstract).
Claims 4, 15 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mihm, Ranaweera and Martin, in view of US 20190042752 A1 - "Mihm2".
With respect to claims 4, 15 and 20, Mihm does not explicitly teach the following limitations which, in the analogous field of software updating are taught by Mihm2 as follows:
validating, by the management controller, that the updated firmware image originated from a trusted source; and - "In some examples, the BMC performs a best-effort authentication of the firmware payload prior to saving the payload in the BMC flash region used for staging firmware images. The final signature checking and image authentication are performed by the PFR controller prior to actually performing the firmware update. Any checks performed by the BMC are done to improve the user experience (e.g., to provide faster feedback on obviously invalid images). After receiving and/or validating the payload, the BMC notifies the PFR controller that a new firmware image is available." [0016]
storing, by the management controller, the updated firmware image in non-volatile memory of the hardware resources; and - "In some examples, the BMC performs a best-effort authentication of the firmware payload prior to saving the payload in the BMC flash region used for staging firmware images. The final signature checking and image authentication are performed by the PFR controller prior to actually performing the firmware update. Any checks performed by the BMC are done to improve the user experience (e.g., to provide faster feedback on obviously invalid images). After receiving and/or validating the payload, the BMC notifies the PFR controller that a new firmware image is available. The example PFR controller can then either shut down the host (e.g., force a restart) or wait for a normal admin-directed host shutdown (e.g., based on policy). Once the host shuts down, the PFR controller holds the BMC in reset, and checks the staged firmware image in the BMC memory." [0016]
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to implement Mihm, Ranaweera and Martin with Mihm2's teachings because doing so would provide Mihm/Ranaweera/Martin's system with the ability to improve the efficiency of using a computing device, as suggested by Mihm2 [0066].
Claims 5 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mihm, Ranaweera and Martin, in view of US 11113046 B1 - hereinafter "Bowen".
With respect to claims 5 and 16, Mihm does not explicitly teach,
wherein the update process is performed without user intervention.
However, in the analogous field of software updating, Bowen teaches:
"At 1408, the BMC causes the pre-assembled computer system mounted in the server chassis in a rack of a data center to remotely perform a software update or firmware update without requiring human intervention to execute the software update or the firmware update." (col. 28:37-41)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to implement Mihm, Ranaweera and Martin with Bowen's teachings because doing so would provide Mihm/Ranaweera/Martin's system with the ability to maintain the security of sensitive application data when executed in a third-party software environment, as suggested by Bowen (col. 8:15-17).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. US 10404538 B1 discloses a system and method for temporarily suspending a normal reboot process in order to update configuration values of a firmware of a remote device.
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GEOFFREY R ST LEGER whose telephone number is (571)270-7720. The examiner can normally be reached M-F (IFP) ~9:00-5:00 pm.
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/GEOFFREY R ST LEGER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2192