DETAILED ACTION
This office action is in response to amendment filed on 6/20/2026.
Claims 1 and 11 are amended.
Claims 1 – 11 are pending.
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 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.
Claim(s) 1 – 9 and 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mullen et al (USPAT 10853115, hereinafter Mullen), in view of Krishnan et al (US 20160217010, hereinafter Krishnan), and further in view of Tofte et al (USPAT 9563201).
As per claim 1, Mullen discloses: An onboard edge computation device, comprising: at least one electronic memory unit; and at least one processor forming local computation resources, the at least one processor configured for implementing:
a module for managing a plurality of software applications stored in the at least one electronic memory, each software application being suitable for providing at least one control parameter and/or for receiving at least one datum from at least one onboard electronic device with certified operation via the first communication interface; (Mullen col 12, lines 10 – 19: “The on-demand code execution system further includes one or more worker managers 140 that manage the instances used for servicing incoming calls to execute tasks, and that manage the sidecars used to provide auxiliary functions for these instances. In the example illustrated in FIG. 1, each worker manager 140 manages an active pool 140A, which is a group (sometimes referred to as a pool) of virtual machine instances, implemented by one or more physical host computing devices, that are currently assigned to one or more users.”. Examiner notes that the VM instances are mapped to the claimed “a plurality of software applications”.)
a module for activating an in-flight execution of at least one of the stored software applications, configured for receiving at least one request for execution of at least one software application from an external control device and/or for validating an activation condition for execution of the at least one software application; (Mullen col 7, lines 31 – 51: “users, by way of user computing devices 102, may interact with the on-demand code execution system 110 to provide executable code, and establish rules or logic defining when and how such code should be executed on the on-demand code execution system 110, thus establishing a “task.”… the user may alternatively provide the code to the on-demand code execution system 110, and request that the on-demand code execution system 110 execute the code. The on-demand code execution system 110 can handle the acquisition and configuration of compute capacity (e.g., containers, instances, etc., which are described in greater detail below) based on the code execution request, and execute the code using the compute capacity.”. Examiner notes that the claimed term “in-flight” execution merely claims the intended use of execution of at least one stored software applications and is therefore not given patentable weight in this office action.)
and a management module for in-flight management of an execution stack, configured for launching the local execution of the part of the application to be executed, and for requesting, via the second radio communication interface, in the case where a first part of the application is executed locally, a remote execution, by the remote computation system, of a second part of the application to be executed, complementary to the first part. (Mullen col 20, lines 31 – 44: “At block 710, the worker manager 140 provisions a virtual machine instance to execute the task code. In some embodiments, the worker manager 140 configures the virtual machine instance in accordance with the sidecar configuration. For example, the worker manager 140 may configure the virtual machine instance to accept input from a sidecar, provide output to a sidecar, provide access to internals of the virtual machine (e.g., stack or memory contents), or otherwise configure the virtual machine instance to work with sidecars. In other embodiments, the virtual machine instance may not be configured and the interactions with sidecars may be transparent to the virtual machine instance. At block 712, the worker manager 140 provisions one or more sidecars in accordance with the sidecar configuration.”. Examiner notes that the claimed term “in-flight” execution merely claims the intended use of execution of at least one stored software applications and is therefore not given patentable weight in this office action.)
Mullen did not explicitly disclose:
a first communication interface configured for communicating, according to a first communication protocol, with at least one aircraft onboard electronic device with certified operation according to an avionics certification standard; a second radio communication interface, distinct from the first communication interface, configured for communicating, according to a second radio communication protocol, with a remote computation system located on the ground;
determining, for each software application to be executed, an allocation of local computation resources of the edge computation device, in order to execute all or part of the software application to be executed;
However, Krishnan teaches:
determining, for each software application to be executed, an allocation of local computation resources of the edge computation device, in order to execute all or part of the software application to be executed; (Krishnan [0021] – [0022])
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Krishnan into that of Mullen in order to determine for each software application to be executed, an allocation of local computation resources of the edge computation device, in order to execute all or part of the software application to be executed. Mullen col 20, lines 31 – 44 teaches provisioning of VMs. Krishnan [0021] – [0022] has merely reinforced that the claimed limitation is merely a commonly known step for provisioning a VM, applicant thus have merely claimed the combination of known parts in the field to achieve predictable results and is therefore rejected under 35 USC 103.
Tofte teaches:
a first communication interface configured for communicating, according to a first communication protocol, with at least one aircraft onboard electronic device with certified operation according to an avionics certification standard; (Tofte figure 2 and col 9, lines 8 – 20.)
a second radio communication interface, distinct from the first communication interface, configured for communicating, according to a second radio communication protocol, with a remote computation system located on the ground; (Tofte figure 2 and col 10, lines 20 – 28: communication unit 212.)
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Tofte into that of Mullen and Krishnan in order to have a first communication interface configured for communicating, according to a first communication protocol, with at least one aircraft onboard electronic device with certified operation according to an avionics certification standard; a second radio communication interface, distinct from the first communication interface, configured for communicating, according to a second radio communication protocol, with a remote computation system located on the ground. Mullen figure 1 shows a cloud based on-demand code execution framework allowing dynamic offloading of tasks to sidecar VMs for acceleration, it would be obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to see that the virtualization technology allows implementations of a variety of computing environments and it would be obvious to try to implement in aircraft environment as well and is therefore rejected under 35 USC 103.
As per claim 2, the combination of Mullen, Krishnan and Tofte further teach:
The device according to claim 1, wherein the management module for the execution stack implements, for the determination of local computation resources allocated per application to be executed, at least one among: a criterion of availability of computation resources, a criterion of connectivity, a criterion of data protection, and a criterion of priority. (Krishnan [0021] – [0022])
As per claim 3, the combination of Mullen, Krishnan and Tofte further teach:
The device according to claim 1, configured for dynamically receiving from an external control device at least one parameter of allocation of computational resources and/or of connectivity and/or of priority of execution. (Mullen col 7, lines 31 – 51: “users, by way of user computing devices 102, may interact with the on-demand code execution system 110 to provide executable code, and establish rules or logic defining when and how such code should be executed on the on-demand code execution system 110, thus establishing a “task.”… the user may alternatively provide the code to the on-demand code execution system 110, and request that the on-demand code execution system 110 execute the code. The on-demand code execution system 110 can handle the acquisition and configuration of compute capacity (e.g., containers, instances, etc., which are described in greater detail below) based on the code execution request, and execute the code using the compute capacity.”)
As per claim 4, the combination of Mullen, Krishnan and Tofte further teach:
The device according to claim 1, further comprising a data and results management module, configured for consolidating and storing results obtained by the execution of each software application, for communicating the results to the external controller and/or to the remote computation system. (Mullen col 10, line 56 – col 11, line 4.)
As per claim 5, the combination of Mullen, Krishnan and Tofte further teach:
The device according to claim 1, wherein the module for managing the plurality of software applications is configured for downloading new software applications or an update of a previously stored software application, and/or for deleting a previously stored software application. (Mullen col 16, line 63 – col 17, line 47.)
As per claim 6, the combination of Mullen, Krishnan and Tofte further teach:
An electronic software application execution system comprising: an onboard computation system on an aircraft, comprising: an edge computation device according to claim 1; and at least one onboard electronic device with certified operation according to an avionics certification standard; and at least one remote computation system located on the ground. (Tofte figure 2)
As per claim 7, the combination of Mullen, Krishnan and Tofte further teach:
The system according to claim 6, wherein said at least one remote computation system comprises a supervision device, the supervision device including a human-machine interface and being configured for: receiving observability signals from said edge computation device, the observability signals comprising data on local computation resources and information on the execution of at least one of the software applications; calculating a state of operation of said edge computation device and a state of execution of the at least one software application from the received observability signals; and displaying the state of operation and the state of execution on the human-machine interface. (Mullen col 16, line 52 – col 17, line 25.)
As per claim 8, the combination of Mullen, Krishnan and Tofte further teach:
The system according to claim 7, wherein said edge computation device is configured for: recording, during a mission of the aircraft, a set of information in at least one execution report, comprising status and execution information of said edge computation device and of said onboard electronic devices with certified operation, as well as additional information comprising information on the environment and information on connectivity; and sending the execution report to said supervision device, said supervision device being further configured for executing and displaying on the human-machine interface a replay of the states of said edge computation device and of said at least one onboard electronic device. (Tofte figure 1 and Mullen figure 7)
As per claim 9, the combination of Mullen, Krishnan and Tofte further teach:
A method for executing software applications implemented by an electronic system for executing software applications according to claim 6, comprising: receiving a command to add/delete a software application, coming from an external control device, or from the ground computation system or from one of the onboard devices; updating a storage of software applications according to the command received; and activating the execution of one or a plurality of the stored software applications, based either on the reception of a request to execute at least one software application from an external device, or on the validation of a condition for activation of execution and/or pause or stop of execution of one or a plurality of software applications upon reception of a command or automatic validation of a stop condition. (Mullen col 20, lines 31 – 44: “At block 710, the worker manager 140 provisions a virtual machine instance to execute the task code. In some embodiments, the worker manager 140 configures the virtual machine instance in accordance with the sidecar configuration. For example, the worker manager 140 may configure the virtual machine instance to accept input from a sidecar, provide output to a sidecar, provide access to internals of the virtual machine (e.g., stack or memory contents), or otherwise configure the virtual machine instance to work with sidecars. In other embodiments, the virtual machine instance may not be configured and the interactions with sidecars may be transparent to the virtual machine instance. At block 712, the worker manager 140 provisions one or more sidecars in accordance with the sidecar configuration.”)
As per claim 11, the combination of Mullen, Krishnan and Tofte further teach:
A non-transient computer readable memory storing including software instructions which, when executed by a programmable electronic system, cause the system to implement a method for executing software applications according to claim 9. (Mullen col 22, lines 10 - 16)
Claim(s) 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mullen, Krishnan and Tofte, and further in view of Burger et al (US 20220350644, hereinafter Burger).
As per claim 10, the combination of Mullen, Krishnan and Tofte did not explicitly teach:
The method according to claim 9, further comprising: managing a stack of applications, implementing, for each software application to be executed, an allocation of local computational resources for executing a first part of the software application, and in the case where the first part is less than 100%, sending a command to execute a second part of the software application, complementary to the first part, to the remote computation system.
However, Burger teaches:
The method according to claim 9, further comprising: managing a stack of applications, implementing, for each software application to be executed, an allocation of local computational resources for executing a first part of the software application, and in the case where the first part is less than 100%, sending a command to execute a second part of the software application, complementary to the first part, to the remote computation system. (Burger [0021] – [0022])
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Burger into that of Mullen, Krishnan and Tofte in order to implementing, for each software application to be executed, an allocation of local computational resources for executing a first part of the software application, and in the case where the first part is less than 100%, sending a command to execute a second part of the software application, complementary to the first part, to the remote computation system. Burger [0021] – [0022] has shown that the claimed limitations are merely commonly known steps for resource allocation in a networked system as it allows efficient deployment of an application. Applicants have thus merely claimed the combination of known parts in the field to achieve predictable results of provisioning VM in a networked environment and is therefore rejected under 35 USC 103.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1 – 11 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHARLES M SWIFT whose telephone number is (571)270-7756. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday: 9:30 AM - 7PM.
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/CHARLES M SWIFT/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2196
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