DETAILED ACTION
This Office Action is in response to the application 18/478,327 filed on 09/29/2023.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claim Objections
Claim 2 is objected to because of the following informality:
Claim 2 is missing a period at the end. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
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.
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.
Claims 1-12 and 14-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oliveira et al. (Pub. No. 2019/0109757 A1 hereinafter Oliveira) in view of Roest et al. (Pub. No. 2021/0224173 A1 hereinafter Roest), and further in view of Faisal Padinjareveetil et al. (Patent No. US 11,411,845 B1 hereinafter Faisal).
Regarding claim 1, Oliveira teaches “a system comprising: a plurality of monitoring control devices,” as [(Para. 0028), In some embodiments, a system, process, and/or computer program product for traffic outage detection in the Internet includes deploying a plurality of agents and a plurality of tests to be executed by the deployed agents] “each of the plurality of monitoring control devices comprising processing circuitry to:” [(Para. 0018), a processor, such as a processor configured to execute instructions stored on] “determine internet status data indicating that an internet outage has occurred at the respective premises;” [(Para. 0028), detecting a network outage based on the one or more terminal events. For example, network traffic test results can be collected for a plurality of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to detect network outages in the Internet using the below described techniques] “and transmit a status report comprising the power status data and the internet status data;” [(Para. 0029), collecting test results from each of the plurality of agents for the plurality of tests... (Para. 0033), In some embodiments, a system, process, and/or computer program product for traffic outage detection in the Internet further includes generating a report of the outage detection and outputting the report of the outage detection…. Note: Requesting ISP/provider data from distributed monitoring agents would have been an obvious data-collection variation of the disclosed monitoring systems.] “each status report of the plurality of status reports being associated with a respective one of the plurality of monitoring control devices;” [(Para. 0103), In particular, FIG. 6 illustrates an environment in which a platform 600 for performing traffic outage detection in the Internet includes agents 616-620 (e.g., cloud and/or enterprise agents, which can be configured to perform certain tests, have labels, and/or perform on demand, event/context triggered, and/or scheduled tests, such as similarly described herein) that collect data based on configured tests, and the agents 616-620 send this data to a controller(s) 614 (e.g., agent controller(s)). Controller 614 stores the data in a storage tier 612 (e.g., providing permanent storage) that can be used by a web tier 604 to generate visualizations, alerts, and/or reports to users accessing platform 600 using client/endpoint devices 606 and 608 (e.g., computers, laptops, smartphones, and/or various other computing devices), such as various visualizations, alerts, and/or reports as similarly described above.] “correlate each of the plurality of status reports with a respective physical address of a plurality of physical addresses corresponding to the plurality of premises monitoring systems;” [(Para. 0039), In some embodiments, a system, process, and/or computer program product for traffic outage detection in the Internet further includes applying a geo-based filter (e.g., geo filter), such as further described below… (Para. 0055), As a fifth example filter, a geo filter can be applied. Specifically, a geo filter can be utilized to exclude interfaces that cannot be geolocated precisely] “determine that a power outage has occurred in a first geographical area covering at least a first subset of the plurality of addresses based at least on the plurality of status reports received from the monitoring control devices;” [(Para. 0039), In some embodiments, a system, process, and/or computer program product for traffic outage detection in the Internet further includes applying a geo-based filter (e.g., geo filter), such as further described below… (Para. 0025), Contextual information about outages can be used to determine performance degradation of applications, and contextual information about outages can also be used to pinpoint root causes of events to specific providers and geographic locations… Note: Oliveira determines outage conditions over geographic regions] “determine that an internet outage has occurred in a second geographical area covering at least a second subset of the plurality of addresses based at least on the plurality of status reports received from the monitoring control devices;” [(Para. 0039), In some embodiments, a system, process, and/or computer program product for traffic outage detection in the Internet further includes applying a geo-based filter (e.g., geo filter), such as further described below… (Para. 0025), Contextual information about outages can be used to determine performance degradation of applications, and contextual information about outages can also be used to pinpoint root causes of events to specific providers and geographic locations… Note: Oliveira determines outage conditions over geographic regions] “and initiate at least one action based at least on determining that the power outage and the internet outage has occurred” [(Para. 0034), In some embodiments, a system, process, and/or computer program product for traffic outage detection in the Internet further includes generating an alert for the outage detection… Note: Generating alerts constitutes initiating responsive actions].
However, Oliveira does not specifically disclose each of the plurality of monitoring control devices being associated with a respective one of a plurality of premises monitoring systems for monitoring a respective premises, determine power status data indicating that a power outage has occurred at the respective premises; a computing environment comprising at least one computing device, the at least one computing device comprising processing circuitry configured to: receive, from the plurality of monitoring control devices, a plurality of status reports.
In an analogous art, Roest teaches “each of the plurality of monitoring control devices being associated with a respective one of a plurality of premises monitoring systems for monitoring a respective premises” as [(Para. 0050), a plurality of processors located in different geolocations… (Para. 0051), Each processor may perform the exact same check suites on the same internet-based software at geographically different locations or sites… Note: This teaches geographically distributed monitoring systems associated with different locations/premises.].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings as in Oliveira to provide an effective technique as taught by Roest to automated uptime monitoring of internet-based software operating on computer systems, for example reporting uptime and downtime statistics and identified root causes of the down time [Roest: Para. 0002].
However, the combination of Oliveira and Roest does not specifically disclose determine power status data indicating that a power outage has occurred at the respective premises; a computing environment comprising at least one computing device, the at least one computing device comprising processing circuitry configured to: receive, from the plurality of monitoring control devices, a plurality of status reports.
In an analogous art, Faisal teaches “determine power status data indicating that a power outage has occurred at the respective premises” as [(Col. 8, lines 5-12), As described above, a triangulation process may be used to determine a cause of network issues in a network. The triangulation may be performed at a network level (e.g., to determine a general presence of an impairment and an identification of a network path that is estimated to have an impairment) and/or at a client/customer level (e.g., to determine if an application is causing an impairment to accessing the network)… (Col. 8, lines 1-4), As noted above, at 222, the method includes continuing to monitor conditions (e.g., returning to 202) in order to provide continuous real-time output relating to the performance of the network…. Note: Outage/Impairment determination teaches detecting failure conditions including power-related outage] “a computing environment comprising at least one computing device,” [(Col. 15, lines 65-68), the computing environment 800 can be any of a variety of computing devices (e.g., desktop computer, laptop computer, server computer, tablet computer, etc.)] “the at least one computing device comprising processing circuitry configured to: receive, from the plurality of monitoring control devices, a plurality of status reports” [(Col. 6, lines 64-65), the method includes receiving Internet and/or network metrics data from a plurality of sources]
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings as in Oliveira and Roest to provide an effective technique as taught by Faisal for monitoring services that combine and process network and internet metrics from multiple sources in an intelligent manner to detect, pinpoint, and report anomalous events (e.g., to parties of interest, such as clients, operators, etc.) in real-time [Faisal: Col. 1, lines 65-67 and Col. 2, lines 1-2].
Regarding claim 2, the combination of Oliveira and Roest, specifically Oliveira teaches “wherein the processing circuitry of the at least one computing device is further configured to: in response to determining the internet outage has occurred in the geographical area,” as [(Para. 0025), For example, the disclosed techniques for traffic outage detection in the Internet facilitate detecting Internet-wide outages across different service providers] “for each of the plurality of monitoring control devices that are physically located in the geographical area,” [(Para. 0028), In some embodiments, a system, process, and/or computer program product for traffic outage detection in the Internet includes deploying a plurality of agents and a plurality of tests to be executed by the deployed agents… (Para. 0073), (3) number/list of geographic locations affected by the outage as shown at 108] “determine an Internet Service Provider (ISP) used for internet access by the monitoring control device;” [(Para. 0026), In some embodiments, a system, process, and/or computer program product for traffic outage detection in the Internet includes collecting network traffic data from agents performing active network tests (e.g., for a plurality of ISPs across the Internet); filtering the collected network traffic data; and determining a network traffic outage event on the Internet.] “determine that the internet outage in the geographical area is associated with one ISP and not with another ISP based at least on each ISP correlated with each respective status report;” [(Para. 0039), In some embodiments, a system, process, and/or computer program product for traffic outage detection in the Internet further includes applying a geo-based filter (e.g., geo filter) … (Para. 0055), As a fifth example filter, a geo filter can be applied. Specifically, a geo filter can be utilized to exclude interfaces that cannot be geolocated precisely… (Para. 0073), the Locations shown at 108 and Interfaces shown at 110 can be similarly selected to drill-down for the more detailed information for the number/list of geographic locations affected by the outage and number/list of interfaces affected by the outage, respectively… Note: Oliveira suggest distinguish outages attributable to one provider/network versus another provider/network].
However, the combination of Oliveira and Roest does not specifically disclose correlate the respective status report associated with the monitoring control device with the ISP.
In an analogous art, Faisal teaches “correlate the respective status report associated with the monitoring control device with the ISP” as [(Col. 6, lines 64-65), the method includes receiving Internet and/or network metrics data from a plurality of sources… (Col. 8, lines 48-49), performing a triangulation process to determine a cause of the impairment … (Col. 2, lines 19-20), system 100 for monitoring and reporting network conditions… Note: Correlating reports with providers/ISPs would have been an obvious implementation detail for diagnosing provider-specific outages].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings as in Oliveira and Roest to provide an effective technique as taught by Faisal for monitoring services that combine and process network and internet metrics from multiple sources in an intelligent manner to detect, pinpoint, and report anomalous events (e.g., to parties of interest, such as clients, operators, etc.) in real-time [Faisal: Col. 1, lines 65-67 and Col. 2, lines 1-2].
Regarding claim 3, the combination of Oliveira, Roest and Faisal, specifically Oliveira teaches “wherein the processing circuitry of the at least one computing device is further configured to: in response to determining the internet outage has occurred in the geographical area and for each of the plurality of monitoring control devices that are physically located in the geographical area,” as [(Para. 0028), In some embodiments, a system, process, and/or computer program product for traffic outage detection in the Internet includes deploying a plurality of agents and a plurality of tests to be executed by the deployed agents… (Para. 0073), (3) number/list of geographic locations affected by the outage as shown at 108] “request ISP data from the monitoring control device;” [(Para. 0029), collecting test results from each of the plurality of agents for the plurality of tests... Note: Requesting ISP/provider data from distributed monitoring agents would have been an obvious data-collection variation of the disclosed monitoring systems] “receive ISP data from the monitoring control device;” [(Para. 0029), collecting test results from each of the plurality of agents for the plurality of test] “and determine the ISP used for internet access by the monitoring control device based at least on the ISP data” [(Para. 0026), In some embodiments, a system, process, and/or computer program product for traffic outage detection in the Internet includes collecting network traffic data from agents performing active network tests (e.g., for a plurality of ISPs across the Internet); filtering the collected network traffic data; and determining a network traffic outage event on the Internet.].
Regarding claim 4, the combination of Oliveira, Roest and Faisal, specifically Oliveira teaches “wherein the processing circuitry of each of the plurality of monitoring control devices that are physically located in the geographical area” as [(Para. 0028), In some embodiments, a system, process, and/or computer program product for traffic outage detection in the Internet includes deploying a plurality of agents and a plurality of tests to be executed by the deployed agents… (Para. 0073), (3) number/list of geographic locations affected by the outage as shown at 108] “is configured to: receive the request for the ISP data indicating the ISP used for internet access by the monitoring control device;” [(Para. 0029), collecting test results from each of the plurality of agents for the plurality of tests…. (Para. 0026), In some embodiments, a system, process, and/or computer program product for traffic outage detection in the Internet includes collecting network traffic data from agents performing active network tests (e.g., for a plurality of ISPs across the Internet); filtering the collected network traffic data; and determining a network traffic outage event on the Internet.] “determine the ISP data based at least on at least one of: domain name system (DNS) associated with internet use by the monitoring control device; or Internet Protocol (IP) address associated with intent use by the monitoring control device; or cause transmission of the ISP data” [(Para. 0087), FIG. 3A is an outage topology visualization showing interfaces that are not grouped (IP addresses) in accordance with some embodiments. In one embodiment, the system generates a user interface 302 (e.g., a GUI) that can represent the outage topology, such as shown in FIG. 3A (e.g., in which IP addresses have been provided with example/mock IP addresses and domain names have been provided with example/mock domain names, and for the other nodes such would also include their corresponding IP addresses but have been anonymized for purposes of this visualization)].
Regarding claim 5, the combination of Oliveira and Roest, specifically Oliveira teaches “a computing environment comprising at least one computing device, the computing environment being configured to communicate with a plurality of monitoring control devices,” as [(Para. 0028), In some embodiments, a system, process, and/or computer program product for traffic outage detection in the Internet includes deploying a plurality of agents and a plurality of tests to be executed by the deployed agents] “each of the plurality of monitoring control devices being associated with a respective one of a plurality of premises monitoring systems for monitoring a respective premises,” [(Para. 0029), collecting test results from each of the plurality of agents for the plurality of tests…. (Para. 0026), In some embodiments, a system, process, and/or computer program product for traffic outage detection in the Internet includes collecting network traffic data from agents performing active network tests (e.g., for a plurality of ISPs across the Internet); filtering the collected network traffic data; and determining a network traffic outage event on the Internet] “the computing environment comprising: processing circuitry configured to: each status report being associated with a respective one of the plurality of monitoring control devices” [(Para. 0103), In particular, FIG. 6 illustrates an environment in which a platform 600 for performing traffic outage detection in the Internet includes agents 616-620 (e.g., cloud and/or enterprise agents, which can be configured to perform certain tests, have labels, and/or perform on demand, event/context triggered, and/or scheduled tests, such as similarly described herein) that collect data based on configured tests, and the agents 616-620 send this data to a controller(s) 614 (e.g., agent controller(s)). Controller 614 stores the data in a storage tier 612 (e.g., providing permanent storage) that can be used by a web tier 604 to generate visualizations, alerts, and/or reports to users accessing platform 600 using client/endpoint devices 606 and 608 (e.g., computers, laptops, smartphones, and/or various other computing devices), such as various visualizations, alerts, and/or reports as similarly described above.] “and including at least one of power status data or internet status data for a respective premises;” [(Para. 0028), detecting a network outage based on the one or more terminal events. For example, network traffic test results can be collected for a plurality of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to detect network outages in the Internet using the below described techniques] “correlate each of the plurality of status reports with a respective physical address of a plurality of physical addresses corresponding to the plurality of premises monitoring systems;” [(Para. 0039), In some embodiments, a system, process, and/or computer program product for traffic outage detection in the Internet further includes applying a geo-based filter (e.g., geo filter), such as further described below… (Para. 0055), As a fifth example filter, a geo filter can be applied. Specifically, a geo filter can be utilized to exclude interfaces that cannot be geolocated precisely] “determine that at least one of a power outage or an internet outage has occurred in a geographical area covering at least a subset of the plurality of physical addresses based at least on the plurality of status reports received from the monitoring control devices;” [(Para. 0028), detecting a network outage based on the one or more terminal events. For example, network traffic test results can be collected for a plurality of Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to detect network outages in the Internet using the below described techniques] “and initiate at least one action based at least on determining that at least one of the power outage or the internet outage has occurred” [(Para. 0113), generating alerts, reports, and/or visualizations based on the merged outage events is performed. For example, various alerts, reports, and/or visualizations based on the merged and enriched outage events can be performed using the platform as similarly described above].
However, the combination of Oliveira and Roest does not specifically disclose receive a plurality of status reports.
In an analogous art, Faisal teaches “receive a plurality of status reports” as [(Col. 6, lines 64-65), the method includes receiving Internet and/or network metrics data from a plurality of sources.].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings as in Oliveira and Roest to provide an effective technique as taught by Faisal for monitoring services that combine and process network and internet metrics from multiple sources in an intelligent manner to detect, pinpoint, and report anomalous events (e.g., to parties of interest, such as clients, operators, etc.) in real-time [Faisal: Col. 1, lines 65-67 and Col. 2, lines 1-2].
Regarding claim 6, the combination of Oliveira and Roest, specifically Oliveira teaches “wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: in response to determining that the internet outage occurred in the geographical area” as [(Para. 0025), For example, the disclosed techniques for traffic outage detection in the Internet facilitate detecting Internet-wide outages across different service providers] “and for each of the plurality of monitoring control devices that are physically located in the geographical area,” [(Para. 0028), In some embodiments, a system, process, and/or computer program product for traffic outage detection in the Internet includes deploying a plurality of agents and a plurality of tests to be executed by the deployed agents… (Para. 0073), (3) number/list of geographic locations affected by the outage as shown at 108] “determine an Internet Service Provider (ISP) used for internet access by the monitoring control device;” [(Para. 0026), In some embodiments, a system, process, and/or computer program product for traffic outage detection in the Internet includes collecting network traffic data from agents performing active network tests (e.g., for a plurality of ISPs across the Internet); filtering the collected network traffic data; and determining a network traffic outage event on the Internet.] “and determine the internet outage in the geographical area is associated with a first ISP and not with a second ISP based at least on each ISP correlated with each respective status report” [(Para. 0039), In some embodiments, a system, process, and/or computer program product for traffic outage detection in the Internet further includes applying a geo-based filter (e.g., geo filter) … (Para. 0055), As a fifth example filter, a geo filter can be applied. Specifically, a geo filter can be utilized to exclude interfaces that cannot be geolocated precisely… (Para. 0073), the Locations shown at 108 and Interfaces shown at 110 can be similarly selected to drill-down for the more detailed information for the number/list of geographic locations affected by the outage and number/list of interfaces affected by the outage, respectively… Note: Oliveira suggest distinguish outages attributable to one provider/network versus another provider/network].
However, the combination of Oliveira and Roest does not specifically disclose correlate the status report associated with the monitoring control device with the ISP.
In an analogous art, Faisal teaches “correlate the status report associated with the monitoring control device with the ISP” as [(Col. 6, lines 64-65), the method includes receiving Internet and/or network metrics data from a plurality of sources… (Col. 8, lines 48-49), performing a triangulation process to determine a cause of the impairment … (Col. 2, lines 19-20), system 100 for monitoring and reporting network conditions… Note: Correlating reports with providers/ISPs would have been an obvious implementation detail for diagnosing provider-specific outages].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings as in Oliveira and Roest to provide an effective technique as taught by Faisal for monitoring services that combine and process network and internet metrics from multiple sources in an intelligent manner to detect, pinpoint, and report anomalous events (e.g., to parties of interest, such as clients, operators, etc.) in real-time [Faisal: Col. 1, lines 65-67 and Col. 2, lines 1-2].
Regarding claim 7, the combination of Oliveira, Roest and Faisal, specifically Oliveira teaches “wherein the at least one action comprises notifying the first ISP of the internet outage” as [(Para. 0113), generating alerts, reports, and/or visualizations based on the merged outage events is performed. For example, various alerts, reports, and/or visualizations based on the merged and enriched outage events can be performed using the platform as similarly described above].
Regarding claim 8, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claim 3.
Regarding claim 9, the combination of Oliveira and Roest, specifically Oliveira teaches “wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to determine that the internet outage has occurred in the geographical area” as [(Para. 0025), For example, the disclosed techniques for traffic outage detection in the Internet facilitate detecting Internet-wide outages across different service providers] “further based at least on: a quantity of the plurality of monitoring control devices, in a predefined area, that indicate the internet outage via the internet status data;” [(Para. 0029), In some embodiments, a system, process, and/or computer program product for traffic outage detection in the Internet further includes collecting test results from each of the plurality of agents for the plurality of tests].
However, the combination of Oliveira and Roest does not specifically disclose the quantity meeting a threshold number of monitoring control devices.
In an analogous art, Faisal teaches “the quantity meeting a threshold number of monitoring control devices” as [(Col. 8, lines 1-4), As noted above, at 222, the method includes continuing to monitor conditions (e.g., returning to 202) in order to provide continuous real-time output relating to the performance of the network… (Col. 8, lines 5-12), a triangulation process may be used to determine a cause of network issues in a network. The triangulation may be performed at a network level (e.g., to determine a general presence of an impairment and an identification of a network path that is estimated to have an impairment) and/or at a client/customer level (e.g., to determine if an application is causing an impairment to accessing the network)… Note: It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art that outage determination based on multiple reporting devices conventionally uses thresholds or minimum quantities of reports to avoid false positives and improve reliability.].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings as in Oliveira and Roest to provide an effective technique as taught by Faisal for monitoring services that combine and process network and internet metrics from multiple sources in an intelligent manner to detect, pinpoint, and report anomalous events (e.g., to parties of interest, such as clients, operators, etc.) in real-time [Faisal: Col. 1, lines 65-67 and Col. 2, lines 1-2].
Regarding claim 10, the combination of Oliveira, Roest and Faisal, specifically Roest teaches “wherein the predefined area corresponds to an area defined by at least one of: a zip code; latitude and longitude coordinates; or an intersection of a plurality of streets” as [(Para. 0050), a plurality of processors located in different geolocations… Note: Geolocations inherently include latitude/longitude coordinate information.].
Regarding claim 11, the combination of Oliveira, Roest and Faisal, specifically Oliveira teaches “wherein the internet status data of at least one of the plurality of reports further indicates a time duration of the internet outage at the respective premises;” as [(Para. 0026), In some embodiments, a system, process, and/or computer program product for traffic outage detection in the Internet includes collecting network traffic data from agents performing active network tests (e.g., for a plurality of ISPs across the Internet); filtering the collected network traffic data; and determining a network traffic outage event on the Internet.] “and wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to determine that the internet outage has occurred in the geographical area further based at least on the time duration indicated in the internet status data of at least one of the plurality of reports” [(Para. 0029), collecting test results from each of the plurality of agents for the plurality of tests... (Para. 0033), In some embodiments, a system, process, and/or computer program product for traffic outage detection in the Internet further includes generating a report of the outage detection and outputting the report of the outage detection].
Regarding claim 12, the combination of Oliveira and Roest, specifically Oliveira teaches “wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to determine that the power outage has occurred in the geographical area” as [(Para. 0022), However, a significant drawback of cloud-based/web-based services (e.g., distributed applications and SaaS-based solutions available as web services via web sites and/or using other cloud-based implementations of distributed applications) is that troubleshooting performance problems can be very challenging and time consuming. For example, determining whether performance problems are the result of the cloud-based/web-based service provider, the customer's own internal IT network (e.g., the customer's enterprise IT network), a user's client device, and/or intermediate network providers between the user's client device/internal IT network and the cloud-based/web-based service provider of a distributed application and/or web site (e.g., in the Internet) can present significant technical challenges for detection of such networking related performance problems and determining the locations and/or root causes of such networking related performance problems] “further based at least on: a quantity of the plurality of monitoring control devices that indicated the power outage via the power status data;” [(Para. 0029), In some embodiments, a system, process, and/or computer program product for traffic outage detection in the Internet further includes collecting test results from each of the plurality of agents for the plurality of tests].
However, the combination of Oliveira and Roest does not specifically disclose the quantity meeting a threshold number of monitoring control devices.
In an analogous art, Faisal teaches “the quantity meeting a threshold number of monitoring control devices” as [(Col. 8, lines 1-4), As noted above, at 222, the method includes continuing to monitor conditions (e.g., returning to 202) in order to provide continuous real-time output relating to the performance of the network… (Col. 8, lines 5-1), a triangulation process may be used to determine a cause of network issues in a network. The triangulation may be performed at a network level (e.g., to determine a general presence of an impairment and an identification of a network path that is estimated to have an impairment) and/or at a client/customer level (e.g., to determine if an application is causing an impairment to accessing the network)… Note: It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art that outage determination based on multiple reporting devices conventionally uses thresholds or minimum quantities of reports to avoid false positives and improve reliability.]
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings as in Oliveira and Roest to provide an effective technique as taught by Faisal for monitoring services that combine and process network and internet metrics from multiple sources in an intelligent manner to detect, pinpoint, and report anomalous events (e.g., to parties of interest, such as clients, operators, etc.) in real-time [Faisal: Col. 1, lines 65-67 and Col. 2, lines 1-2].
Regarding claim 14, the combination of Oliveira, Roest and Faisal, specifically Oliveira teaches “wherein the at least one action comprises at least one of: generating a notification for a plurality of customers associated with the geographical area, the notification indicating: the geographical area; and that the power outage or the internet outage has occurred in the geographical area” as [(Para. 0113), generating alerts, reports, and/or visualizations based on the merged outage events is performed. For example, various alerts, reports, and/or visualizations based on the merged and enriched outage events can be performed using the platform as similarly described above].
Regarding claim 15, Oliveira teaches “being configured to communicate with a plurality of monitoring control devices” as [(Para. 0028), In some embodiments, a system, process, and/or computer program product for traffic outage detection in the Internet includes deploying a plurality of agents and a plurality of tests to be executed by the deployed agents] “each status report being associated with a respective one of the plurality of monitoring control devices;” [(Para. 0103), In particular, FIG. 6 illustrates an environment in which a platform 600 for performing traffic outage detection in the Internet includes agents 616-620 (e.g., cloud and/or enterprise agents, which can be configured to perform certain tests, have labels, and/or perform on demand, event/context triggered, and/or scheduled tests, such as similarly described herein) that collect data based on configured tests, and the agents 616-620 send this data to a controller(s) 614 (e.g., agent controller(s)). Controller 614 stores the data in a storage tier 612 (e.g., providing permanent storage) that can be used by a web tier 604 to generate visualizations, alerts, and/or reports to users accessing platform 600 using client/endpoint devices 606 and 608 (e.g., computers, laptops, smartphones, and/or various other computing devices), such as various visualizations, alerts, and/or reports as similarly described above.] “and including at least one of power status data or internet status data for a respective premises;” [(Para. 0029), collecting test results from each of the plurality of agents for the plurality of tests... (Para. 0033), In some embodiments, a system, process, and/or computer program product for traffic outage detection in the Internet further includes generating a report of the outage detection and outputting the report of the outage detection…. Note: Requesting ISP/provider data from distributed monitoring agents would have been an obvious data-collection variation of the disclosed monitoring systems.] “correlating each of the plurality of status reports with a respective physical address of a plurality of physical addresses corresponding to the plurality of premises monitoring systems;” [(Para. 0039), In some embodiments, a system, process, and/or computer program product for traffic outage detection in the Internet further includes applying a geo-based filter (e.g., geo filter), such as further described below… (Para. 0055), As a fifth example filter, a geo filter can be applied. Specifically, a geo filter can be utilized to exclude interfaces that cannot be geolocated precisely] “determining that at least one of a power outage or an internet outage has occurred in a geographical area covering at least a subset of the plurality of physical addresses based at least on the plurality of status reports received from the monitoring control devices” [(Para. 0039), In some embodiments, a system, process, and/or computer program product for traffic outage detection in the Internet further includes applying a geo-based filter (e.g., geo filter), such as further described below… (Para. 0025), Contextual information about outages can be used to determine performance degradation of applications, and contextual information about outages can also be used to pinpoint root causes of events to specific providers and geographic locations… Note: Oliveira determines outage conditions over geographic regions] “and initiating at least one action based at least on determining that at least one of the power outage or the internet outage has occurred” [(Para. 0034), In some embodiments, a system, process, and/or computer program product for traffic outage detection in the Internet further includes generating an alert for the outage detection… Note: Generating alerts constitutes initiating responsive actions].
However, Oliveira does not specifically disclose a method performed by a computing environment, the computing environment comprising at least one computing device; each of the plurality of monitoring control devices being associated with a respective one of a plurality of premises monitoring systems for monitoring a respective premises; the method comprising: receiving a plurality of status reports.
In an analogous art, Roest teaches “each of the plurality of monitoring control devices being associated with a respective one of a plurality of premises monitoring systems for monitoring a respective premises” as [(Para. 0050), a plurality of processors located in different geolocations… (Para. 0051), Each processor may perform the exact same check suites on the same internet-based software at geographically different locations or sites… Note: This teaches geographically distributed monitoring systems associated with different locations/premises.].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings as in Oliveira to provide an effective technique as taught by Roest to automated uptime monitoring of internet-based software operating on computer systems, for example reporting uptime and downtime statistics and identified root causes of the down time [Roest: Para. 0002].
However, the combination of Oliveira and Roest does not specifically disclose a method performed by a computing environment, the computing environment comprising at least one computing device; the method comprising: receiving a plurality of status reports.
In an analogous art, Faisal teaches “a method performed by a computing environment, the computing environment comprising at least one computing device” [(Col. 15, lines 65-68), the computing environment 800 can be any of a variety of computing devices (e.g., desktop computer, laptop computer, server computer, tablet computer, etc.)] “the method comprising: receiving a plurality of status reports” [(Col. 6, lines 64-65), the method includes receiving Internet and/or network metrics data from a plurality of sources]
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings as in Oliveira and Roest to provide an effective technique as taught by Faisal for monitoring services that combine and process network and internet metrics from multiple sources in an intelligent manner to detect, pinpoint, and report anomalous events (e.g., to parties of interest, such as clients, operators, etc.) in real-time [Faisal: Col. 1, lines 65-67 and Col. 2, lines 1-2].
Regarding claim 16, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claim 6.
Regarding claim 17, the combination of Oliveira, Roest and Faisal, specifically Oliveira teaches “wherein the at least one action comprises at least one of: generating a notification for the first ISP of the internet outage; and generating a notification for a plurality of customers associated with the geographical area, the notification for the plurality of customers indicating: the geographical area; and that the power outage or the internet outage has occurred in the geographical area” as [(Para. 0113), generating alerts, reports, and/or visualizations based on the merged outage events is performed. For example, various alerts, reports, and/or visualizations based on the merged and enriched outage events can be performed using the platform as similarly described above].
Regarding claim 18, the combination of Oliveira and Roest, specifically Oliveira teaches “further comprising: determining that the internet outage has occurred in the geographical area” as [(Para. 0025), For example, the disclosed techniques for traffic outage detection in the Internet facilitate detecting Internet-wide outages across different service providers] “further based at least on: a quantity of the plurality of monitoring control devices, in a predefined area, that indicate the internet outage via the internet status data; or determining that the power outage has occurred in the geographical area further based at least on: a quantity of the plurality of monitoring control devices, in the predefined area, that indicate the power outage via the power status data” [(Para. 0029), In some embodiments, a system, process, and/or computer program product for traffic outage detection in the Internet further includes collecting test results from each of the plurality of agents for the plurality of tests].
However, the combination of Oliveira and Roest does not specifically disclose the quantity meeting a threshold number of monitoring control devices.
In an analogous art, Faisal teaches “the quantity meeting a threshold number of monitoring control devices” as [(Col. 8, lines 1-4), As noted above, at 222, the method includes continuing to monitor conditions (e.g., returning to 202) in order to provide continuous real-time output relating to the performance of the network… (Col. 8, lines 5-1), a triangulation process may be used to determine a cause of network issues in a network. The triangulation may be performed at a network level (e.g., to determine a general presence of an impairment and an identification of a network path that is estimated to have an impairment) and/or at a client/customer level (e.g., to determine if an application is causing an impairment to accessing the network)… Note: It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art that outage determination based on multiple reporting devices conventionally uses thresholds or minimum quantities of reports to avoid false positives and improve reliability.].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings as in Oliveira and Roest to provide an effective technique as taught by Faisal for monitoring services that combine and process network and internet metrics from multiple sources in an intelligent manner to detect, pinpoint, and report anomalous events (e.g., to parties of interest, such as clients, operators, etc.) in real-time [Faisal: Col. 1, lines 65-67 and Col. 2, lines 1-2].
Regarding claim 19, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claim 10.
Regarding claim 20, the claim is interpreted and rejected for the same reason as set forth in claim 13.
Claim 13 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oliveira in view of Roest, and further in view of Lewin et al. (Pub. No. 2022/0060017 A1 hereinafter Lewin).
Regarding claim 13, the combination of Oliveira, Roest and Faisal, specifically Faisal teaches “exclude the power status data corresponding to the at least one premises of the plurality of premises that has backup power when determining that the power outage or the internet outage has occurred” as [(Col. 8, lines 1-4), As noted above, at 222, the method includes continuing to monitor conditions (e.g., returning to 202) in order to provide continuous real-time output relating to the performance of the network… (Col. 8, lines 5-1), a triangulation process may be used to determine a cause of network issues in a network. The triangulation may be performed at a network level (e.g., to determine a general presence of an impairment and an identification of a network path that is estimated to have an impairment) and/or at a client/customer level (e.g., to determine if an application is causing an impairment to accessing the network)… Note: It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art that those premises could skew outage analysis and therefore should be excluded during triangulation/correlation processing to improve outage-detection accuracy.].
However, the combination of Oliveira, Roest and Faisal does not specifically disclose wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: determine that at least one premises of the plurality of premises has a backup power source.
In an analogous art, Lewin teaches “wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: determine that at least one premises of the plurality of premises has a backup power source;” as [(Para. 0010), transition from receiving power from the grid power supply to receiving power from a local power supply].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings as in Oliveira, Roest and Faisal to provide an effective technique as taught by Lewin for a supplemental power supply that protects against power interruption events in addition to providing a way for individuals to manage power consumption of one or more devices [Lewin: Para. 0008].
Conclusion
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/NATALI PASCUAL PEGUERO/Examiner, Art Unit 2463
/ASAD M NAWAZ/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2463
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