DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
2. This Office Action is sent in response to Applicant’s Communication received 4/25/2023 for application number 18/475,510. The Office hereby acknowledges receipt of the following and placed of record in file: Specification, Drawings, Abstract, Oath/Declaration, claims.
3. Claims 1 – 20 are presented for examination.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
4. 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 17 – 20 are directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claims do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because they recite a computer readable storage device which does not exclude transitory signals. The specification does limit the term computer readable storage media in paragraph [0125] to exclude transitory signals, but this limitation does not extend to the term computer readable storage device.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
5. 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.
6. The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
7. This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
8. Claims 1, 2, 7 – 10 and 15 – 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chan et al. (U.S. Patent 11,243,835) (Chan hereinafter) and Shabi et al. (U.S. Patent 10,795,596) (Shabi hereinafter) in further view of Detlefs et al. (U.S. Publication 2009/0327636) (Detlefs hereinafter).
9. As per claim 1, Chan teaches a computer implemented method for managing log messages, the computer implemented method comprising:
creating, by one or more computer processors, a hierarchical structure identifying
primary and secondary relationships between the log messages [“The message graph construction unit 102 can construct the knowledge graph by writing in pointer to the system log to point a first log message to a second log message based on a semantic, statistical, or functional relationship between the log messages. The direction of the pointer is based on the second lob message being written after the first log message,” col. 9, lines 15 – 29; knowledge graph mapped to hierarchical structure; first log message pointing to second log message based on semantic/functional relationship established primary/secondary relationship];
identifying, by the one or more computer processors, each primary log message in the log messages that has one or more secondary log messages using the hierarchical structure [“The message graph construction unit 102 can construct the knowledge graph by writing in can further remove any redundant edges. For example, a first node can be connected to a second node and a third node. The second node can be connected to a fourth node and the first node can also be connected to the fourth node. There pointer to the system log to point a first log message to a fore, the first node is indirectly connected to the fourth node second log message based on a semantic, statistical, or functional relationship between the log messages,” col. 9, lines 23 – 27;
adding, by the one or more computer processors, one or more pointers to each
primary log message in the log messages having the one or more secondary log
messages, wherein each pointer points to a secondary log message in the hierarchical
structure [“The message graph construction unit 102 can construct the knowledge graph by writing a data structure into a knowledge base 110 (system log) of a mainframe. For example, the data structure can be a pointer that includes a memory address of a correlated log message. The knowledge graph is a directed graph, and therefore a log message points to a subsequent log message. The message graph correlation unit can determine that a message is a subsequent log message based on the time stamps of the log messages or a functional relationship of the log messages,” col. 3, lines 53 – 62].
Chan does not explicitly discloses but Shabi discloses removing, by the one or more computer processors, the one or more secondary log messages from the log messages to form remaining log messages [“wherein the information stored in each entry of the log includes a timestamp indicating when a write request was received for its respective block of data; and wherein sorting the entries of the log by their respective stored logical addresses includes removing from the log entries that include a same logical address as another entry having a later timestamp,” Cl. 3; logical addresses suggest a relationship between the entries].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Chan and Shabi available before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the capability of creating a hierarchical message structure as disclosed by Chan to include the capability of managing log entries as taught by Shabi, thereby providing a mechanism to improve system performance and efficiency by removing unneeded storage data.
Chan and Shabi do not explicitly disclose but Detlefs discloses saving, by the one or more computer processors, header information from log message headers and content information from log message content in the remaining log messages to form compressed log information [“If the header 42 is available for the compressed transactional lock 46A, STM system 10 stores the compressed transactional lock 46A in a portion 46 of an object header 42 as indicated in a block 64 and stores a corresponding write log entry 52 in a corresponding write log 34W in preferred write log memory 18A as indicated by a block 65,” ¶ 0039].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Chan, Shabi and Detlefs available before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the capability of creating a hierarchical message structure as disclosed by Chan and Shabi to include the capability of compressing log data as taught by Shabi, thereby providing a mechanism to improve system performance and efficiency by reducing the need to system resources.
10. As per claim 2, Chan, Shabi and Detlefs teach the computer implemented method of claim 1. Chan further teaches wherein creating, by the one or more computer processors, the hierarchical structure comprises: creating, by the one or more computer processors, the hierarchical structure identifying primary and secondary relationships between the log messages using a log model identifying the primary and secondary relationships between log messages [“The error propagation unit 106 can generate a model-based prediction for a root cause error. The model can be trained using previous instances of log messages written by an application executing on various components of a mainframe. The model can be trained to calculate a probability that each log message is followed by another particular log message. For example, the error propagation unit 106 can calculate that a log message written for initiation of a task is followed by a log message for completion of the task,” col. 6, lines 32 – 40]; determination of a particular log message following each log message suggests a primary (each log message)-secondary (following particular log message) relationship].
11. As per claim 7, Chan, Shabi and Detlefs teach the computer implemented method of claim 1. Chan further teaches training, by the one or more computer processors, a machine learning model using a log history to identify the primary and secondary relationships between the log messages, wherein the machine learning model after training is the log model [“The error propagation unit 106 can generate a model-based prediction for a root cause error. The model can be trained using previous instances of log messages written by an application executing on various components of a mainframe. The model can be trained to calculate a probability that each log message is followed by another particular log message. For example, the error propagation unit 106 can calculate that a log message written for initiation of a task is followed by a log message for completion of the task,” col. 6, lines 32 – 40].
12. As per claim 8, Chan, Shabi and Detlefs teach the computer implemented method of claim 1. Chan further teaches wherein the hierarchical structure is selected from a group comprising a tree structure, a directed acyclic graph, a database, and a multilevel list [“The message graph construction unit 102 can construct the knowledge graph by writing in pointer to the system log to point a first log message to a second log message based on a semantic, statistical, or functional relationship between the log messages. The direction of the pointer is based on the second lob message being written after the first log message,” col. 9, lines 15 – 29; knowledge graph mapped to hierarchical structure].
13. As per claim 9, it is a system claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 1. Thus, claim 9 is also rejected under the same rationale as cited in the rejection of claim 1 above.
14. As per claim 10, it is a system claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 2. Thus, claim 10 is also rejected under the same rationale as cited in the rejection of claim 2 above.
15. As per claim 15, it is a system claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 7. Thus, claim 15 is also rejected under the same rationale as cited in the rejection of claim 7 above.
16. As per claim 16, it is a system claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 8. Thus, claim 16 is also rejected under the same rationale as cited in the rejection of claim 8 above.
17. As per claim 17, it is a media claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 1. Thus, claim 17 is also rejected under the same rationale as cited in the rejection of claim 1 above.
18. As per claim 18, it is a media claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 2. Thus, claim 18 is also rejected under the same rationale as cited in the rejection of claim 2 above.
19. Claims 3, 11 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chan, Shabi and Detlefs in further view of Chunduri et al. (U.S. Publication 2021/0377367) (Chunduri hereinafter).
20. As per claim 3, Chan, Shabi and Detlefs teach the computer implemented method of claim 1. Detlefs further teaches wherein saving, by the one or more computer processors, the header information from the log message headers and the content information from the log message content comprises: splitting, by the one or more computer processors, a log message in the remaining log messages into a log message header and a log message content [“STM system 10 is configured to generate and store compressed transactional locks 46A in a portion 46 of headers 42 of objects 30. FIGS. 2A-2B are block diagrams illustrating embodiments of creating and storing compressed transactional locks 46A, uncompressed transactional locks 72, and write log entries 52,” ¶ 0026; locks associated with the transaction are stored in a header while write log entries are stored in separate write log memory].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Chan, Shabi and Detlefs available before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the capability of creating a hierarchical message structure as disclosed by Chan and Shabi to include the capability of compressing log data as taught by Shabi, thereby providing a mechanism to improve system performance and efficiency by reducing the need to system resources.
Chan, Shabi and Detlefs do not explicitly disclose but Chunduri discloses identifying, by the one or more computer processors, fields in the log message
header to form the header information; identifying, by the one or more computer processors, attributes in the log message content to form the content information; and saving, by the one or more computer processors, the fields and the attributes to
form the compressed log information [“the header comprises a type field, a decompressed length field, a compression identifier field, a type field, and a compressed length field, wherein the type field carries a value indicating that the compressed message carries the compressed data, wherein the decompressed length field carries the length of the data prior to compressing the data, wherein the compressed length field carries the length of the compressed data, wherein the compression identifier field carries the compression identifier, and wherein the type field carries a value identifying a type of the data being compressed,” ¶ 0015].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Chan, Shabi, Detlefs and Chunduri available before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the capability of creating a hierarchical message structure as disclosed by Chan, Shabi and Detlefs to include the capability of creating header data as taught by Chunduri, thereby providing a mechanism to improve system performance and efficiency by distilling critical information.
21. As per claim 11, it is a system claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 3. Thus, claim 11 is also rejected under the same rationale as cited in the rejection of claim 2 above.
22. As per claim 19, it is a media claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 3. Thus, claim 19 is also rejected under the same rationale as cited in the rejection of claim 3 above.
23. Claims 4, 5, 12 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chan, Shabi and Detlefs in further view of Chunduri and Ryu et al. (U.S. Publication 2010/0177693) (Ryu hereinafter).
24. As per claim 4, Chan, Shabi, Detlefs and Chunduri teach the computer implemented method of claim 3. Chan, Shabi, Detlefs and Chunduri do not explicitly disclose but Ryu discloses wherein the fields are selected from at least one of a system name, a timestamp, a job identifier, a user exit flag, or a domain [“wherein the second compressed MAC header includes at least one of a flag field representing whether the second MAC header has been compressed, a identifier for identifying a service flow (SF), an error detection field for detecting whether the header has an error, and a field representing a size of MAC message, the identifier being uniquely used to identify the service flow within a mobile station,” Cl. 14; flag field mapped to user exit flag].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Chan, Shabi, Detlefs, Chunduri and Ryu available before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the capability of creating a hierarchical message structure as disclosed by Chan, Shabi, Detlefs and Chunduri to include the capability of gathering log data as taught by Ryu, thereby providing a mechanism to improve system performance and efficiency by identifying and storing identifiable information.
25. As per claim 5, Chan, Shabi, Detlefs and Chunduri teach the computer implemented method of claim 3. Chan, Shabi, Detlefs and Chunduri do not explicitly disclose but Ryu discloses wherein the attributes are selected from at least one of an event mapping object, a parameters mapping object, an event identifier, a parameter identifier, or a secondary log message identifier [“wherein the second compressed MAC header includes at least one of a flag field representing whether the second MAC header has been compressed, a identifier for identifying a service flow (SF), an error detection field for detecting whether the header has an error, and a field representing a size of MAC message, the identifier being uniquely used to identify the service flow within a mobile station,” Cl. 14; field size mapped to parameter].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Chan, Shabi, Detlefs, Chunduri and Ryu available before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the capability of creating a hierarchical message structure as disclosed by Chan, Shabi, Detlefs and Chunduri to include the capability of gathering log data as taught by Ryu, thereby providing a mechanism to improve system performance and efficiency by identifying and storing identifiable information.
26. As per claim 12, it is a system claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 4. Thus, claim 12 is also rejected under the same rationale as cited in the rejection of claim 4 above.
27. As per claim 13, it is a system claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 5. Thus, claim 13 is also rejected under the same rationale as cited in the rejection of claim 5 above.
28. Claims 6, 14 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chan, Shabi and Detlefs in further view of Peterson et al. (U.S. Publication 2012/0005542) (Peterson hereinafter).
29. As per claim 6, Chan, Shabi and Detlefs teach the computer implemented method of claim 1. Chan, Shabi and Detlefs do not explicitly disclose but Peterson discloses identifying, by the one or more computer processors, a log relationship policy
identifying the primary and secondary relationships between the log messages [“As another example, the at least one policy may include additional log processing rules such as a second log processing rule for use in identifying a second subset of logs. In this case, the method may include processing, at the processing platform, the received logs using said second log processing rule; identifying, from the second log processing rule processing step, a second subset of the received logs based on one or more metadata fields of the received logs and a classification of the received logs; and distributing, from the processing platform to the receiving entity, information related to the second subset,” ¶ 0008]; and
creating, by the one or more computer processors, logic implementing rules for
the primary and secondary relationships between the log messages in the log relationship policy, wherein the logic generates the hierarchical structure in response to receiving the log messages [“a utility is provided for use in monitoring one or more platforms of a data system. The utility includes: establishing, on a processing platform, a number of log processing rules for selectively processing logs associated with one or more monitored platforms based on a content of one or more data fields of the logs; identifying, using the processing platform, a log message associated with one of the one or more monitored platforms (e.g., selecting said log message on a user interface associated with said processing platform); first operating the processing platform to establish at least one correlation filter (e.g., classification, impacted country, impacted origin, direction and domain) based on one or more metadata fields of the identified log message; and second operating the processing platform to correlate logs previously received and processed by the processing platform using the at least one correlation filter,” ¶ 0022].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Chan, Shabi, Detlefs, Chunduri and Peterson available before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the capability of creating a hierarchical message structure as disclosed by Chan, Shabi, Detlefs and Chunduri to include the capability of implementing policy-based message log storage rules as taught by Peterson, thereby providing a mechanism to improve system performance and efficiency by facilitating identification of entity relationships.
30. As per claim 14, it is a system claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 6. Thus, claim 14 is also rejected under the same rationale as cited in the rejection of claim 6 above.
31. As per claim 20, it is a media claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 6. Thus, claim 20 is also rejected under the same rationale as cited in the rejection of claim 6 above.
Conclusion
32. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WILLIAM C WOOD whose telephone number is (571)272-5285. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 8:00 am - 4:30 pm.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Chat C Do can be reached at 571-272-3721. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/WILLIAM C WOOD/Examiner, Art Unit 2193
/Chat C Do/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2193
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