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. 18/518,332 filed on 11/22/2023 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 2/10/2025 and 5/14/2025 are acknowledged by the examiner and the cited references have been considered in the examination of the claims now pending.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(d):
(d) REFERENCE IN DEPENDENT FORMS.—Subject to subsection (e), a claim in dependent form shall contain a reference to a claim previously set forth and then specify a further limitation of the subject matter claimed. A claim in dependent form shall be construed to incorporate by reference all the limitations of the claim to which it refers.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, fourth paragraph:
Subject to the following paragraph [i.e., the fifth paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112], a claim in dependent form shall contain a reference to a claim previously set forth and then specify a further limitation of the subject matter claimed. A claim in dependent form shall be construed to incorporate by reference all the limitations of the claim to which it refers.
Claims 18 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(d) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, 4th paragraph, as being of improper dependent form for failing to further limit the subject matter of the claim upon which it depends, or for failing to include all the limitations of the claim upon which it depends.
Claim 18 recites “A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing computer instructions, wherein the computer instructions are used to cause a computer to implement the task processing method according to claim 1.”
Applying the infringement test, what is needed to infringe claim 18 is, for example, a CD-ROM or floppy disk having computer executable code that if and when executed would cause a computer to do the method steps of claim 1. However, such a CD-ROM or floppy disk would not infringe the method steps of claim 1, since the CD-ROM or floppy disk itself never performs any of the active steps recited in claim 1. In other words, mere possession of such a CD-ROM would infringe claim 4, but this is not enough to infringe claim 1. As a result, claim 18 is an improper dependent claim. Claim 19 suffers the same deficiency as claim 18.
Applicant may cancel the claim(s), amend the claim(s) to place the claim(s) in proper dependent form, rewrite the claim(s) in independent form, or present a sufficient showing that the dependent claim(s) complies with the statutory requirements.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 2, 6-10, and 14, 15 and 17-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Wu (US 2014/0129285).
As per claim 1, Wu discloses a task processing method, comprising:
receiving a remote shuffling service request of a target task, and generating a topological graph of the target task according to execution flow information of the target task in response to a remote system service request of the target task, wherein the topological graph comprises a plurality of target nodes, and each target node corresponds to at least one subtask of the target task (Paragraph 25 “Fig 3 can be used to generate a similarity graph of a set of workflows. More particularly, the method of FIG. 3 can be used to thin out the number of computationally-intensive comparisons between pairs of workflows by eliminating from the comparison workflows that do not meet a threshold similarity comparison as detailed herein. The method of FIG. 3 can also be used to quickly determine whether a pair of workflows are not similar.”
matching information of the target node with information of at least one historical node to obtain a first matching result, wherein the historical node is a node of a topological graph corresponding to a historical task, and the first matching result comprises at least one target historical task, that matches the target task, in one or more historical tasks (Paragraph 31 “At block 310, the method n-level buckets the serialized, sorted workflows. Here, n-level bucketing means that the serialized, sorted components are grouped according to identical initial n-character segments. A divide-and-conquer approach can be used to this end.”);
sifting the target historical task based on a preset attribute condition (Paragraph 16 “Embodiments of the present invention can be used to detect similar workflows. More particularly, embodiments can be used to filter out dissimilar workflows, so that a more precise and computationally intensive comparison can be performed on the remaining workflows. Some embodiments accomplish this by filtering out workflows that do not have sufficient numbers of joins and merges in particular places in common with the workflow to which they are to be compared. This process is detailed below in reference to the figures.”); and
determining, based on a sifting result, execution parameter recommendation information for the target task as a processing result of the remote shuffling service request (Paragraph 33 “At block 314, the method performs a workflow comparison between the workflows paired at block 314. The comparison can be computationally intensive, because many pairs will be omitted by the preceding steps of the method. The comparison can be based on a similarity metric, in which workflows that are sufficiently similar according to the metric are indicated as being similar. Examples of algorithms for performing such comparisons include the following. As a first example, workflow comparison can be accomplished using label similarity comparison, in which the method computes an alignment between each pair of workflows. This technique can utilize a topological sort to detect the alignment. As a second example, workflow comparison can be accomplished using behavior similarity, in which workflows are compared by first representing them in n-grams based on execution paths.).
As per claim 2, Wu further discloses wherein matching the information of the target node with the information of the at least one historical node to obtain the first matching result comprises:
matching first information of the target node with first information of the at least one historical node to obtain a first historical task, wherein a structure similarity between a topological graph of the first historical task and the topological graph of the target task is greater than a first threshold (Paragraphs 27-30);
matching second information of the target node with second information of a historical node of the first historical task to obtain a second historical task, wherein a similarity between operator information of the second historical task and operator information of the target node is greater than a second threshold (Paragraphs 27-30); and
obtaining the first matching result according to the second historical task (Paragraph 32-34).
As per claim 6, Wu further discloses wherein sifting the target historical task based on the preset attribute condition comprises:
based on the preset attribute condition, sifting one or more target historical tasks, where a time difference between task execution time and current time is less than a preset time threshold, as the sifting result (Paragraph 25 “The method of FIG. 3 can be used to generate a similarity graph of a set of workflows. More particularly, the method of FIG. 3 can be used to thin out the number of computationally-intensive comparisons between pairs of workflows by eliminating from the comparison workflows that do not meet a threshold similarity comparison as detailed herein. The method of FIG. 3 can also be used to quickly determine whether a pair of workflows are not similar.”).
As per claim 7, Wu further discloses wherein determining, based on the sifting result, the execution parameter recommendation information for the target task, comprises:
setting the execution parameter recommendation information of the target task with reference to an execution parameter of a target historical task corresponding to the sifting result (Paragraph 25).
As per claims 9, 10, and 14-16, they are apparatus claims having similar limitations as cited in claims 1, 2 and 6-8 and are rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 17, it is a device claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 1 and is thus rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 18, it is a device claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 1 and is thus rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 19, it is a device claim having similar limitations as cited in claim 1 and is thus rejected under the same rationale.
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 3-5 and 11-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wu in view of Eshghi (US 7,895,666).
As per claim 3, Wu does not expressly disclose but Eshghi discloses wherein the first information of the target node is obtained based on an identification number of the target node, the second information of the target node is obtained based on the identification number of the target node, and the identification number of the target node is obtained by hash calculation according to a depth of the target node and an identification number of a parent node of the target node (Column 5, lines 12-45 “The following is an example of how the automatic structure-sharing property is useful in a single filesystem. Initially, a first HDAG 10 is generated based on a snapshot of a filesystem. Next, one of the files that is included in the filesystem is modified. Finally, a second HDAG is generated based on a snapshot of the filesystem that includes the modified file. The difference between the first and second HDAGs is the node 24 that represents the modified file. Since the hash 36 of the node that is associated with the modified file is incorporated into the node representing that file's directory, the hash of the node representing that directory is different from its initial value. Thus, the hash of every node that is an ancestor to the modified file going from the modified file to the root will be different from its initial value. But none of the other nodes in the HDAGs are changed, so the sub-HDAGs representing the unchanged directories are identical to their initial values.”).
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 Wu to include the teachings of Eshghi because it increases the security of the combination by hashing the node identifiers.
As per claim 4, Wu does not expressly disclose but Eshghi discloses wherein the target node comprises a root node and a target descendant node of a target root node, the first information of the at least one historical node comprises an identification number of the at least one historical node, and matching the first information of the target node with the first information of the at least one historical node comprises:
matching an identification number of the target root node, as first information of the target root node, with an identification number of a root node in the at least one historical node to obtain a third historical task in the one or more historical tasks, wherein the identification number of the target root node is calculated based on an identification number of the target descendant node (Column 5, lines 12-45); and
matching the identification number of the target descendant node, as first information of the target descendant node, with identification numbers of descendant nodes in historical nodes of the third historical task, wherein the identification number of the target descendant node is obtained based on an identification number of a child node of the target descendant node (Column 5, lines 12-45).
As per claim 5, Wu further discloses wherein the second information of the target node comprises operator name information and operator parameter information, and matching the second information of the target node with the second information of the historical node of the first historical task comprises:
matching operator name information of the target node with operator name information of the historical node of the first historical task to obtain a fourth historical task, wherein operator type information of the target node is calculated according to a code of the target node, and an operator name and an input table name comprised in a subtask corresponding to the target node (Paragraph 27-30); and
matching operator parameter information of the target node with operator parameter information of the fourth historical task, wherein the operator parameter information of the target node is calculated according to the code of the target node, the operator name comprised in the subtask corresponding to the target node, the input table name comprised in the subtask corresponding to the target node, and partitions and operator parameters comprised in the subtask corresponding to the target node (Paragraphs 27-30).
As per claims 11-13, they are apparatus claims having similar limitations as cited in claims 3-5 and are rejected under the same rationale.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 8 and 16 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
The prior art fails to disclose or make obvious the following claimed features:
wherein setting the execution parameter recommendation information of the target task with reference to the execution parameter of the target historical task corresponding to the sifting result comprises:
reading group counter information of the target historical task, and
if it is determined based on the group counter information that there is a memory overflow situation in the target historical task:
based on a partition setting corresponding to the execution parameter of the target historical task, increasing the partition setting according to a set step size, and
determining the execution parameter recommendation information according to the partition setting after being increased; and
reading executor resource idle information of the target historical task, and
if it is determined based on the executor resource idle information that a read amount of a shuffling operation of a single task is less than a set threshold:
based on the partition setting corresponding to the execution parameter of the target historical task, reducing the partition setting according to the set step size, and
determining the execution parameter recommendation information according to the partition setting after being reduced.
The difference between the prior art and the claimed invention is that none of the prior art discloses the steps above in such a manner in order to determine the execution parameter recommendation information.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Altschuler (US 6,556,983) discloses a pattern lattice data space as a framework for analyzing data, in which both schema-based and statistical analysis are accommodated, is defined. Ways to manage the size of the lattice structures in the pattern lattice data space are described. Utilities to classify or cluster, search (find similar data), or relate data using lattice fragments in the pattern lattice data space are also described. Superpattern cone or lattice generation function, which may be used by the classification and clustering functions, is also described. In addition, a subpattern cone or lattice generation process, which may be used by the search (find similar data) and data relating functions, is also described. Finally, a function to label, in readily understandable "pidgin", categories which classify information, is also described.
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 2/25/2026