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 .
Claims 1-20 are currently pending for examination.
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, 3, 7, 8, 10, 14, 15, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hauser (US 11580842 B1) in view of Stanfill (US 20180173577 A1).
As per claim 1, Hauser discloses:
A computer-implemented method comprising: obtaining information indicating one or more priority types of a first set of one or more messages to be processed by a message processing platform (“In particular, a method for managing real-time alerts using machine learning are disclosed. The method includes receiving real-time data for one or more parameters of a device for which an alert is to be generated, from one or more sources associated with the device “, col.2, lines 29-33 ; “Alert Managers 422 also enable two-way communication with the one or more processors 416 and display 428 to communicate alerts, alert priority, alert classification, alert handling instructions, alert impact, etc.”, col.22, lines 49-52 ; Examiner Note: a notification of an alert equates to an event message)
the first set of messages is provided to the message processing platform in response to an occurrence of at least one event ; changing a state of the message processing platform from a first state to a second state based on the information, wherein the second state at least partially suspends processing of at least a second set of one or more messages by the message processing platform; ("In accordance with the embodiments of this disclosure, the method further comprises operating the device in a first state when the priority level of the respective category of the categorized alert is a first priority level, wherein the first state is a self-stopping state of the device, and operating the device in a second state when the priority level of the respective category of the categorized alert is a second priority level, wherein the second state is a slowing down state of the device", col.31, lines 53-61 ; Examiner Note: slowing down the device directly corresponds to partially suspending processing by the device)
changing the state of the message processing platform from the second state to the first state based at least in part on the first set of messages being processed ("In accordance with the embodiments of this disclosure, the method further comprises operating the device in a first state when the priority level of the respective category of the categorized alert is a first priority level, wherein the first state is a self-stopping state of the device, and operating the device in a second state when the priority level of the respective category of the categorized alert is a second priority level, wherein the second state is a slowing down state of the device", col.31, lines 53-61 ; "In one embodiment, similar alerts may be grouped together by executable instructions running on the one or more processors 416 and represented as a single alert. In another embodiment, alerts may be grouped based on the personal preference of the person receiving the alert. In yet another instance alerts may be grouped together by priority, category, or actor, or any relevant criteria. In one embodiment, certain low priority alerts may be grouped and suppressed together. In one embodiment grouped alerts may be batch processed together.", col.27, lines 25-34 ; Examiner Note: it is inherent/necessary that once the ‘second’ priority category alerts are batch processed the system will revert to the first state)
Hauser discloses the above limitations of claim 1, but does not disclose the messages within a first set being processed in order of priority before returning to the first state.
However, Stanfill discloses:
processing the first set of messages in an order determined based at least in part on the one or more priority types of the messages in the first set (“the processing including: prioritizing event messages to deliver event results according to information stored in the event messages indicating priority”, 0021 ; “selecting a next event message to evaluate for potential delivery of an event result from the front of an ordered queue of the highest priority that is not empty.", 0019 ; Examiner Note: the event messages in the ordered queue equate to a first set of messages)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to combine the teachings of Hauser with those of Stanfill in order to provide a shared queue for different kinds of message/priority, allowing the system to process events in a manner which requires fewer operations and more effective use of storage (Stanfill, [0006]).
As per claim 3, Hauser in view of Stanfill fully discloses the limitations of claim 1.
Furthermore, Hauser discloses:
the one or more priority types correspond to at least one of: one or more planned outage events; one or more unplanned alert events; one or more password change events; one or more configuration change events; and one or more user events associated with one or more priority services from among a plurality of services (“image data such as component cracks, placement, operator action, etc.; context data 406, such as the device 103 functioning state, errors, testing data, parts inventory, age and wear on the parts, material details, preventive maintenance schedule, orders and delivery schedules, operator capabilities and other such data that forms the background information that provides a broader understanding of an event, person, or component; and environmental data 408 such as changes surrounding the device 103, such as a fan being on near the device 103, the device 103 being close to a heat source, the device 103 being close to a vibration source, humidity, etc.; changes in dynamics of the device 103, age and wear of device parts; structural damages, and changes in material, all these disparate data sources 400 are accessed in real-time either through an event based mechanism, such as a pub-sub mechanism where any sensor or state change is notified to the listeners”, col.23, lines 15-31)
As per claim 7, Hauser in view of Stanfill fully discloses the limitations of claim 1.
Furthermore, Hauser discloses:
for a given message in the first set, the information identifies one of a plurality of services that is a source of the given message, and wherein the processing of the first set of messages is based at least in part on the source of the given message ("The system comprises a computing device configured to receive real-time data for one or more parameters of a device for which an alert is to be generated, from one or more sources associated with the device, and select a first machine learning model from a plurality of machine learning models based on the received real-time data. ", col.7, lines 26-31)
As per claim 8, it is a non-transitory processor-readable storage medium (Hauser : “Aspects of the embodiments may be provided in a non-transitory computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions to perform one or more of the process steps described herein.”, col.4, lines 26-29) claim comprising substantially the same limitations as claim 1, and as such, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
As per claim 10, it is a non-transitory processor-readable storage medium claim comprising substantially the same limitations as claim 3, and as such, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
As per claim 14, it is a non-transitory processor-readable storage medium claim comprising substantially the same limitations as claim 7, and as such, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
As per claim 15, it is an apparatus claim comprising substantially the same limitations as claim 1, and as such, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
As per claim 17, it is an apparatus claim comprising substantially the same limitations as claim 3, and as such, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
Claims 2, 9, and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hauser (US 11580842 B1) in view of Stanfill (US 20180173577 A1) in further view of Garvey (US 20200382463 A1).
As per claim 2, Hauser in view of Stanfill fully discloses the limitations of claim 1, but does not explicitly disclose that changing back to the first state causes the second set of messages to be processed by the message processing platform.
However, Garvey discloses:
changing the state of the message processing platform from the second state to the first state causes the second set of messages to be processed by the message processing platform (see fig.1 – at step 222, the un-pausing of the low priority topic (equating to a reversion to the first state) causes low priority topic messages (equating to a second set of messages) to again be processed ; “Some embodiments configured for a KAFKA message queue use a KAFKA “Consumer resume( )” API to resume (un-pause) paused low-priority topic partitions at 222.”, 0027)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to combine the teachings of Hauser in view of Stanfill with those of Garvey in order to ensure that all available resources are used to meet current message processing needs, which are also effectively reduced and managed to increase customer satisfaction relative to conventional systems and approaches by making sure that the higher-priority topic messages of said customers are processed before other messages on a lower-priority topic (Garvey, [0019]).
As per claim 9, it is a non-transitory processor-readable storage medium claim comprising substantially the same limitations as claim 2, and as such, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
As per claim 16, it is an apparatus claim comprising substantially the same limitations as claim 2, and as such, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
Claims 4, 11, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hauser (US 11580842 B1) in view of Stanfill (US 20180173577 A1) in further view of Iyer (US 20220043682 A1).
As per claim 4, Hauser in view of Stanfill fully discloses the limitations of claim 1, but does not explicitly disclose publishing the first set of messages to one or more topics of a message queue associated with the message processing platform based at least in part on the one or more priority types.
However, Iyer discloses:
publishing the first set of messages to one or more topics of a message queue associated with the message processing platform based at least in part on the one or more priority types ("The topic manager 113 may assign a priority 117 to each received message 118 and may determine whether each message is to be published to the topic 114 for storage in the portion of the primary device 112 based on the assigned priority 117 of the message. In one aspect, the topic manager 113 receives a plurality of messages 118 to be published to the topic 114. The topic manager 113 assigns a first priority level to a first set of the plurality of messages 118 and assigns a second priority level to a second set of the plurality of messages 118, wherein the first priority level is higher than the second priority level. The topic manager 113 throttles the rate of publishing of the messages 118 by forwarding for publishing to the topic 114 at least a portion of the first set of the plurality of messages 118 and forwards to the secondary storage device 140 the second set of the plurality of messages 118.", 0059)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to combine the teachings of Hauser in view of Stanfill with those of Iyer in order to provide the system with the ability to monitor the rate at which information is being published to the topic and dynamically adjust the rate to keep the memory from being occupied beyond a selected threshold memory occupancy (Iyer, [0005]).
As per claim 11, it is a non-transitory processor-readable storage medium claim comprising substantially the same limitations as claim 4, and as such, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
As per claim 18, it is an apparatus claim comprising substantially the same limitations as claim 4, and as such, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
Claims 5, 12, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hauser (US 11580842 B1) in view of Stanfill (US 20180173577 A1) in further view of Iyer (US 20220043682 A1) in further view of Wong (US 20110071871 A1).
As per claim 5, Hauser in view of Stanfill in further view of Iyer fully discloses the limitations of claim 4, but does not disclose maintaining a data structure comprising the counts and priority ranks of event messages.
However, Wong discloses:
maintaining, in response to the change from the first state to the second state, a data structure, wherein the data structure comprises message counts and rankings for the one or more priority types, wherein a given one of the message counts indicates a number of remaining messages in the first set of messages for the corresponding priority type to be processed. (see fig.15 – the alert type list 1502 comprises an alert type column (equating to priority type), a priority column (equating to priority rank), and a count column (equating to a message count) ; "The alert type list 1502 may be a collapsible table of information (priority, count, escalated count, alert type description, etc.) of types (e.g., consumer projected inventory below zero, consumer projected inventory below minimum, etc.) of the planning alerts.", 0126)
The system of Hauser [col.31, lines 53-61] in view of Stanfill in further view of Iyer in further view of Wong would be capable of maintaining the data structure (alert type list) in response to the shift from the first to the second state. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to combine the teachings of Hauser in view of Stanfill in further view of Iyer with those of Wong in order to provide the message processing system with a data structure module which may store data in a database after shifting to a second state so that supply chain data may be used efficiently and allow a variety of critical operations to be performed, using as few resources (processing time, memory) as possible (Wong, [0073]).
As per claim 12, it is a non-transitory processor-readable storage medium claim comprising substantially the same limitations as claim 5, and as such, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
As per claim 19, it is an apparatus claim comprising substantially the same limitations as claim 5, and as such, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
Claims 6, 13, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hauser (US 11580842 B1) in view of Stanfill (US 20180173577 A1) in further view of Iyer (US 20220043682 A1) in further view of Wong (US 20110071871 A1) in further view of Garvey (US 20200382463 A1).
As per claim 6, Hauser in view of Stanfill in further view of Iyer in further view of Wong fully discloses the limitations of claim 5, but does not disclose the data structure being maintained by a message consumer of the message processing platform.
However, Garvey discloses:
the data structure is maintained by a message consumer of the message processing platform, the message consumer being subscribed to the one or more topics of the message queue associated with one or more of the priority types. (“A KAFKA cluster stores streams of records in categories called “topics.” Each record consists of a key, a value, and a timestamp. The topic is a category or feed name to which records are published: messages are written to a topic wherein another process reads from that topic. Topics in KAFKA are multi-subscriber, wherein a topic can have zero, one, or many consumers that subscribe to the data written thereto”, 0011 ; “The computer-readable program code includes instructions for execution which cause the processor to subscribe a plurality of consumer message threads to each of a plurality of topics that include a high-priority topic and a different, low-priority topic“, 0005 ; Examiner Note: the stream of records stored on the kafka cluster corresponds to the data structure stored on the message processing platform.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date, to combine the teachings of Hauser in view of Stanfill in further view of Iyer in further view of Wong with those of Garvey in order to maximize resource efficiencies by improving consumer utilization of all available threads across different topics, even while giving one topic priority over another (Garvey, [0019]).
As per claim 13, it is a non-transitory processor-readable storage medium claim comprising substantially the same limitations as claim 6, and as such, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
As per claim 20, it is an apparatus claim comprising substantially the same limitations as claim 6, and as such, it is rejected for substantially the same reasons.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Shah (US 11809390 B2) – discloses a method for cleaning and publishing event messages comprising receiving messages corresponding to a plurality of events, identifying, for a first event of the plurality of events, one or more changed tables, assigning an event type to the first event based at least in part on the one or more changed tables, and publishing the first event on an event streaming platform.
Sievers-Tostes (US 8484334 B2) – discloses a method comprising storing a set of rules for assigning resources of the computer system, identifying an event, and assigning the resource to the application based on the event and at least rule in the set of rules- as well as receiving an event message that corresponds to the event, where the event is identified from the event message.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ROSS MICHAEL VINCENT whose telephone number is (703)756-1408. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 8:30AM-5:30PM.
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/R.M.V./
Examiner, Art Unit 2196
/APRIL Y BLAIR/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2196
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