DETAILED ACTION
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 .
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.
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.
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for foreign priority based on an application filed in United Kingdom on 10/06/2023. It is noted, however, that applicant has not filed a certified copy of the 2315387.7 application as required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 11/06/2023, 09/09/2024, 1/15/2025, 7/15/2025, 12/5/2025 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Objections
Claims 1-20 are objected to because of the following informalities: Claim 1, 2, 5, 11, 12, 13, and 16 appears to have a typographic error: “analysing” should be spelled –analyzing—for American English, as the application is filed in America. Appropriate correction is required.
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 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Regarding claim 11, recite “a computer readable storage media,” the claimed media is directed to both transitory (i.e. signals as mentioned in ¶ [0186]) and non-transitory embodiments. Therefore, using the broadest reasonable interpretation the claimed product appears to be directed to signals, which is non-statutory subject matter.
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, 6, 10, 11, 12, 17, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Teepell et al. (U.S. PG PUB 2013/0188483).
Regarding claim 1, Teepell teaches a computer-implemented method for managing requests in a server queue, the method comprising:
analysing a request to be added to the server queue to determine a client wait time limit; determining an application for processing the request (see ¶0012] “The monitored resource may be a queue of received requests and the status monitor is configured to measure the size of the queue. The resource critical threshold level may be approximately 90% of a processing rate of the monitored resource times an expected timeout length of a request.”);
analysing the application to determine an indicator of intent of the request (see ¶[0053] “Type field 320 may indicate a type of the operation. If the operation is processing a Diameter request, type field 320 may indicate the type of request for the application. Data structure 300 may include more than one entry 340 for a type of request. Data structure 300, however, may include only one entry 340 for each unique combination of application field 310 and type field 320. If the operation is not processing a request, type field 320 may indicate information such as the frequency of the operation.”); and
determining a queue action for the request based on the client wait time limit and the indicator of intent of the request (see ¶[0054] ”Overload rejection level field 330 may indicate a level at which load manager 235 should shed an operation. An entry 340 for overload rejection level field 330 may indicate an overload usage state. In various exemplary embodiments, possible entries in overload rejection level field 330 may include 2: minor, 3: major, 4: critical, and 5: resource critical. Overload usage state 1: normal, however, may not be used because there may be no need to shed entries when the monitored resource is not overloaded. An entry 340 for an overload rejection level field 330 may also indicate that the operation should never be shed. In various exemplary embodiments, only an entry 340 for emergency requests may indicate that the operation should never be shed.”).
Because Teepell discloses multiple embodiments and implementations, and all the findings may be disclosed in different embodiments/implementations, obviousness rejection is made. One of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention would be able to combine different embodiments adjacent to each other in the prior art and does not require a leap of inventiveness. Teepell discloses that these embodiments/implementations are used in order to manage the incoming requests from overload (see ¶ [0004] of Teepell.).
Regarding claim 3, Teepell teaches wherein the request is received at the server from a client, and wherein the client wait time limit describes an absolute time at which the client will stop waiting for the request (see ¶[0012] “he resource critical threshold level may be approximately 90% of a processing rate of the monitored resource times an expected timeout length of a request.”).
Regarding claim 6, Teepell teaches wherein the indicator of intent of the request indicates whether the request is safe to discard (see ¶[0048] “If the overload rejection state is equal to or greater than the overload rejection level, load manager 235 may shed the operation.”).
Regarding claim 10, Teepell teaches wherein determining the queue action for the request comprises: determining the queue action is to remove the request from the queue in response to determining that the client wait time has a third predetermined value and an impact of the request has a fourth predetermined value (see ¶0048] “Load manager 235 may receive an operation from request queue 225 and determine the type of request. Load manager 235 may then use rejection level mapping 215 to determine the overload rejection level for the type of request. Load manager 235 may then compare the overload rejection level to the overload usage state of a monitored resource. If the overload rejection state is equal to or greater than the overload rejection level, load manager 235 may shed the operation.”).
Regarding claim 11, is an independent product claim, corresponding to method claim 1 above, and is rejected for the same reasons. In addition, Teepell teaches a computer program product comprising one or more computer readable storage media, and program instructions collectively stored on the one or more computer readable storage media, the program instructions comprising instructions (see ¶[0079]).
Regarding claim 12, is an independent system claim, corresponding to method claim 1 above, and is rejected for the same reasons. In addition, Teepell teaches a system comprising: one or more processors; and one or more computer-readable storage media collectively storing program instructions which, when executed by the one or more processors, are configured to cause the one or more processors to perform a method for managing requests in a server queue (see ¶[0049])
Regarding claim 17, is a dependent system claim corresponding to method claim 6, and is rejected for the same reasons.
Regarding claim 18, Teepell teaches wherein the queue action for the request comprises removing the request from the server queue (see ¶[0054] “Overload rejection level field 330 may indicate a level at which load manager 235 should shed an operation. An entry 340 for overload rejection level field 330 may indicate an overload usage state. In various exemplary embodiments, possible entries in overload rejection level field 330 may include 2: minor, 3: major, 4: critical, and 5: resource critical. Overload usage state 1: normal, however, may not be used because there may be no need to shed entries when the monitored resource is not overloaded. An entry 340 for an overload rejection level field 330 may also indicate that the operation should never be shed. In various exemplary embodiments, only an entry 340 for emergency requests may indicate that the operation should never be shed.”).
Claims 2, 4, 13, 14, 15, and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Teepell et al. (U.S. PG PUB 2013/0188483) in view of Rich, JR. et al. (U.S. PG PUB 2013/0308652).
Regarding claim 2, Teepell does not expressly disclose, however, Rich JR teaches wherein analysing a request to determine a client wait time limit comprises: analysing timeout metadata associated with the request (see ¶[0065] “Metadata or data of the message contains an expiration time for the message, such as in the form of a key-value pair stored with the message or in association with the message”); and
calculating, based on the timeout metadata, the client wait time limit (see ¶0062] “If it is not appropriate to manage messages at the current time, the message manager 700 waits for a period of time (802), before returning to determine again whether it is appropriate to manage messages (801). In one alternative embodiment, the message manager waits until some condition occurs before making the determination again, for example, an event indication that a new message has been added or a message has been modified by a message processing application.”).
Hence, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the teachings of Teepell by adapting Rich JR to manage messages effectively (see ¶[0064] of Rich JR).
Regarding claim 4, Teepell does not expressly disclose, however, Rich JR teaches wherein determining the queue action involves comparing the client wait time limit to a current time (see ¶0063] “The message manager 700 determines whether the message is expired by comparing the expiration time value of the message with the current time (1001).”).
Hence, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the teachings of Teepell by adapting Rich JR to manage messages effectively (see ¶[0064] of Rich JR).
Regarding claim 13, is a dependent system claim corresponding to method claim 2, and is rejected for the same reasons.
Regarding claim 14, wherein the timeout metadata of the request comprises a duration of time the request has been in the server queue.
Regarding claim 15, is a dependent system claim corresponding to method claim 4, and is rejected for the same reasons.
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Teepell et al. (U.S. PG PUB 2013/0188483) in view of Segal et al. (U.S. PG PUB 2020/0267155).
Regarding claim 5, Teepell does not expressly disclose, however, Allen teaches wherein analysing the application comprises analysing an application configuration file (see ¶ 0048] “The extracting, analyzing and learning steps can be performed using various techniques such as, but not limited to: static analysis of the code and configuration files, by observing application behavior in real time through code instrumentation, by analyzing application log files, or any other technique which may help to learn about the normal behavior of the application, its users and data.”).
Hence, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the teachings of Teepell by adapting Segal to learn the behavior of the application (see ¶[0048] of Segal).
Claims 8, 9, 19, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Teepell et al. (U.S. PG PUB 2013/0188483) in view of Williams (U.S. PG PUB 2008/0317058).
Regarding claim 7, Teepell does not disclose, however, Williams teaches wherein the queue action for the request comprises changing a position of the request in the queue (see ¶ [0074] “repositioning a client within a queue (moving or modifying a record 122 within the queue table 120 or changing a records priority number 124 (or designated time 102 of FIG. 4)); or removing a client from a queue (e.g. deleting a record 122 (or a record 96 of FIG. 4) or tagging the record in a manner to indicate that the client 11 no longer requires service).”).
Hence, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the teachings of Teepell by adapting Williams to obtain and control queue data to effect handling of clients waiting to be connected to a resource (see ¶[0001] of Williams).
Regarding claim 8, Teepell does not disclose, however, Williams teaches wherein determining the queue action for the request comprises: determining the queue action is to maintain the position of the request in the queue in response to determining that the client wait time limit equals a first predetermined value (see ¶[0054] “As examples, the secondary queuing system 19 may maintain a client's position in queue for a resource 20 within the appropriate resource group 22a-22e while: i) the client 11 takes advantage of services provided by a secondary resource 13 such as an information on-demand system; or ii) the client 11 disconnects and waits for a return call when an appropriate resource is available.”).
Hence, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the teachings of Teepell by adapting Williams to obtain and control queue data to effect handling of clients waiting to be connected to a resource (see ¶[0001] of Williams).
Regarding claim 9, Teepell does not disclose, however, Williams teaches wherein determining the queue action for the request comprises: determining the queue action is to maintain the position of the request in the queue in response to determining that an impact of the request equals a second predetermined value (see ¶0055] “In the example wherein the secondary queuing system 19 maintains the client's position in queue while the client 11 takes advantage of a secondary resource 13, the secondary queue may, when the client 11 has completed his/her session with the secondary resource 13 and a primary resource 20 within the appropriate resource group 22a-22e is available, generate a priority connection to such available resource.”).
Hence, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the teachings of Teepell by adapting Williams to obtain and control queue data to effect handling of clients waiting to be connected to a resource (see ¶[0001] of Williams).
Regarding claim 19, is a dependent system claim corresponding to method claim 8, and is rejected for the same reasons.
Regarding claim 20, is a dependent system claim corresponding to method claim 9, and is rejected for the same reasons.
Claim 16 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Teepell et al. (U.S. PG PUB 2013/0188483) in view of Brazier (U.S. PG PUB 2013/0054684).
Regarding claim 16, Teepell does not disclose, however, Brazier teaches wherein analysing the application includes making a callback to the application (see ¶[0018] “sending, using the interaction manager, at least a first plurality of data elements pertaining to the callback request to an intent analysis engine software module operating on a network-attached server; (e) receiving, from the intent analysis engine, a second plurality of data elements pertaining to the callback request, the second plurality of data elements being determined based at least on an analysis of the intent of the callback request;”).
Hence, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the teachings of Teepell by adapting Brazier to determine intent of an application for managing the needs of the caller (see ¶[0016] of Brazier).
Support for Amendments and Newly Added Claims
Applicants are respectfully requested, in the event of an amendment to claims or submission of new claims, that such claims and their limitations be directly mapped to the specification, which provides support for the subject matter. This will assist in expediting compact prosecution. MPEP 714.02 recites: “Applicant should also specifically point out the support for any amendments made to the disclosure. See MPEP § 2163.06. An amendment which does not comply with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.121(b), (c), (d), and (h) may be held not fully responsive. See MPEP § 714.” Amendments not pointing to specific support in the disclosure may be deemed as not complying with provisions of 37 C.F.R. 1.121(b), (c), (d), and (h) and therefore held not fully responsive. Generic statements such as “Applicants believe no new matter has been introduced” may be deemed insufficient.
Interview Requests
In accordance with 37 CFR 1.133(a)(3), requests for interview must be made in advance. Interview requests are to be made by telephone (571-270-7848) call or FAX (571-270-8848). Applicants must provide a detailed agenda as to what will be discussed (generic statement such as “discuss §102 rejection” or “discuss rejections of claims 1-3” may be denied interview). The detail agenda along with any proposed amendments is to be written on a PTOL-413A or a custom form and should be faxed (or emailed, subject to MPEP 713.01.I / MPEP 502.03) to the Examiner at least 5 business days prior to the scheduled interview. Interview requests submitted within amendments may be denied because the Examiner was not notified, in advance, of the Applicant Initiated Interview Request and due to time constraints may not be able to review the interview request to prior to the mailing of the next Office Action.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Yeager et al. (U.S. PG PUB 2005/0157865) teaches tracking a service request queue. The queue is electronically maintained and the system calculates current estimated wait time and tracks current place in queue. The system also initiates events based upon queue changes. Events include notifying users when service is ready or about ready.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CARINA YUN whose telephone number is (571)270-7848. The examiner can normally be reached Mon, Tues, Thurs, 9-4 (EST).
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 call.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kevin Young can be reached at (571) 270-3180. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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Carina Yun
Patent Examiner
Art Unit 2194
/CARINA YUN/Examiner, Art Unit 2194
Prosecution Insights