Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
DETAILED ACTION
The instant application having Application No. 18/494,464 filed on 10/25/2023 is presented for examination.
Examiner Notes
Examiner cites particular columns and line numbers in the references as applied to the claims below for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings in the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested that, in preparing responses, the applicant fully consider the references in entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the examiner.
Drawings
The applicant’s drawings submitted are acceptable for examination purposes.
Authorization for Internet Communications
The examiner encourages Applicant to submit an authorization to communicate with the examiner via the Internet by making the following statement (from MPEP 502.03):
“Recognizing that Internet communications are not secure, I hereby authorize the USPTO to communicate with the undersigned and practitioners in accordance with 37 CFR 1.33 and 37 CFR 1.34 concerning any subject matter of this application by video conferencing, instant messaging, or electronic mail. I understand that a copy of these communications will be made of record in the application file.”
Please note that the above statement can only be submitted via Central Fax, Regular postal mail, or EFS Web.
Information Disclosure Statement
As required by M.P.E.P. 609, the applicant’s submissions of the Information Disclosure Statement dated 10/25/2023 is acknowledged by the examiner and the cited references have been considered in the examination of the claims now pending.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract ide without significantly more.
Step 1: Claim 1 is a processor claim as such it is a method.
Step 2:
2A Prong 1:
The claim recites
sensing a thermal event in a data center, responsive to the sensed thermal event, identifying an affected server, deciding to migrate a workload from the affected server to a target server, the deciding comprising:
for each of a plurality of servers, sensing a performance metric, a temperature and a proximity from the thermal event, responsive to the sensed performance metric, the temperature and the proximity, computing a weighted score;
generating a ranking based on the weighted score of each of the plurality of servers; and
selecting the target server from the plurality of servers according to the ranking.
Under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind, then it falls within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas (concepts performed in the human mind including an observation, evaluation, judgment, and opinion).
2A Prong 2:
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the
sensing a thermal event
generating a ranking
selecting the target server
are recited at a high-level of generality such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. (see MPEP 2106.05(f)).
2B:
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional elements of the “data center” and “plurality of servers” are merely a generic computer or generic computer components to apply the judicial exception which cannot provide an inventive concept. Accordingly, the claim does not appear to be patent eligible under 35 USC 101.
As such, claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101.
Claims 2-7 depend from claim 1 and do not add additional elements that would overcome the rejection of claim 1 and are thus rejected for at least the same reason.
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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bash (US 2011/0107332) in view of Cencini (US 2017/0264493).
As per claim 1, Bash discloses a computer-implemented method comprising:
sensing a thermal event in a data center, responsive to the sensed thermal event, identifying an affected server (Paragraph 13 “In one embodiment, thermal imbalances are corrected by incorporating thermal monitoring and virtual machine placement policies into a resource manager or controller (as shown in FIGS. 3 and 4). The resource manager or controller monitors servers and storage components and determines real-time temperature distribution from variously positioned sensors in the data center. Through the workload placement policies implemented by the resource manager and/or controller, the servers and storage components in the data center are operated under a dynamic thermal management scheme designed to enable efficient cooling operation. In one regard, the dynamic thermal management scheme enables real-time and dynamic movement of virtual machines to promote uniform temperature distribution that reduces local hot spots, quickly responds to thermal emergencies, reduces energy consumption costs, reduces initial cooling system capital costs and improves equipment reliability.), deciding to migrate a workload from the affected server to a target server (Paragraph 11 “deploy and migrate computational workloads among physical machines within data centers. Movement and placement of virtual machines is automated and based on environmental conditions that are detected and/or exhibited in the data center. By way of example, such environmental conditions include, but are not limited to, dynamic information such as cooling, airflow, temperature, humidity, etc.”), the deciding comprising:
for each of a plurality of servers, sensing a performance metric, a temperature and a proximity from the thermal event, responsive to the sensed performance metric, the temperature and the proximity, computing a weighted score (Paragraph 59 “The cost function is represented by some aggregation of terms, where each term is multiplied by a weight factor. Generally, the cost function has the form: f=W.sub.1.times.t.sub.1+W.sub.2.times.t.sub.2+ . . . , where the t.sub.i terms (i=1 to N) represent corresponding criteria (N total criteria, where N is an integer) to be considered, and the w, parameters represent weights to be applied to the terms. As examples, the t.sub.i terms can represent resource loading criteria (n terms to correspond to the n dimensions of resources), balancing criteria, cooling criteria, power criteria, environmental criteria, and so forth. The weight to be multiplied to each term generally represents the importance of the corresponding term in computing the goodness rating for a particular layout of virtual machines.”).
Bash does not expressly disclose but Cencini discloses generating a ranking based on the weighted score of each of the plurality of servers (Paragraph 171 “In some cases, durations of time since the last signal was received may serve as a health score for each rack controller, and these health scores may be propagated through the management system 70 according to the illustrated topology, with a given rack controller reporting health scores for those below it, and advancing those health scores upward, while distributing health scores for those upward to those below. This is expected to scale better relative to systems that implement a fully connected graph, though embodiments are also consistent with this approach.”); and
selecting the target server from the plurality of servers according to the ranking (Paragraph 206 “In some cases, computing devices or nodes in the data centers may be ranked according to a score calculated based on values in the policy, and a highest ranking computing device or node thereon may be allocated next.).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the method of Bash to include the teachings of Cencini because it provides for the purpose of ensuring that the most capable server is chosen for the next deployment. In this way, the combination benefits from the increased efficiency and speed at which the servers operate.
As per claim 2, Bash further discloses wherein the weighted score is computed by comparing with a range of values (Paragraph 16).
As per claim 3, Bash further discloses wherein the thermal event comprises a cooling failure event (Paragraph 50 “cooling criteria (which specify temperatures in physical machines that should not be exceeded.”).
As per claim 4, Bash further discloses further comprising computing a risk assessment based on the weighted score (Paragraph 59).
As per claim 5, Bash further discloses, wherein generating the ranking further comprises ranking a proximity computed based on a data center topology from the affected server of each of the plurality of servers (Paragraph 2 and 59).
As per claim 6, Bash further discloses wherein the performance metric of each of a plurality of servers comprises application type (Paragraph 33).
As per claim 7, Bash further discloses wherein the performance metric of each of a plurality of servers comprises frequency of access (Paragraph 59).
As per claims 8-14, they are product claims having similar limitations as cited in claims 1-7 and are rejected under the same rationale.
As per claims 15-20, they are system claims having similar limitations as cited in claims 1-7 and are rejected under the same rationale.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Campbell (US 2011/0093856) discloses thermal-based job scheduling among server chassis of a data center including identifying, by a data center management module in dependence upon a threshold fan speed for each server chassis, a plurality of server chassis having servers upon which one or more compute intensive jobs are executing, the data center management module comprising a module of automated computing machinery; identifying, by the data center management module, the compute intensive jobs currently executing on the identified plurality of server chassis; and moving, by the data center management module, the execution of the compute intensive jobs to one or more servers of chassis for compute intensive jobs.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to TIMOTHY A MUDRICK whose telephone number is (571)270-3374. The examiner can normally be reached 9am-5pm Central Time.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Pierre Vital can be reached at (571)272-4215. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/TIMOTHY A MUDRICK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2198 2/19/2026
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