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 § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
1. Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The term “low-level” is a relative term which renders Claim 1 as indefinite. The term “low-level” is not defined by the claim, the specification does not provide a standard for ascertaining the requisite degree, and one of ordinary skill in the art would not be reasonably apprised of the scope of the invention.
Specification [0003] provides as an example of low-level network communications “e.g. Layer 2, data link layer.” However, merely providing an example is insufficient to define a term via the specification. For example, Layers 1-3 are often group together and referenced variously as the “media layers” or “lower layers.” However in reviewing prior art, Examiner has also found Layer 1-4 referenced as “transport layers,” but also as “lower layers.”
Claims 2-20 are rejected for the same reasons as Claim 1.
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.
2. Claims 1-4. 9-10, 12, and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Singh (US 20060114939 A1) in view of Goodman et al. (US 20240346366 A1) and Summers (US 20160098362 A1).
Claim 1 Singh teaches a non-transitory computer-readable medium comprising computer-executable instructions that, when executed, are configured to cause processing circuitry to perform operations comprising:
receiving, at a communications stack of an operating system, communications; (Singh, ¶0012, intercepting, at an OSI stack, communications) and
identifying a subset of the communications, wherein the subset of the communications comprises one or more low-level communication frames. (Singh, ¶0012, intercepting packets at layer 3 or below, wherein the layer 3 or below packets comprise the subset of communication comprising low-level communication frames)
However Singh does not explicitly teach one or more industrial automation devices;
determining a networking operation indicated by the low-level communication frames; and
transmitting the one or more low-level communication frames to one or more simulated industrial automation devices according to the determined networking operation.
From a related technology, Goodman teaches receiving, at a communications stack of an operating system, communications from one or more industrial automation devices; (Goodman, FIG. 3, step 302, ¶0082, receiving communications from an industrial plant system, FIG. 1, 104 associated with the plant)
determining a networking operation indicated by the low-level communication frames; (Goodman, FIG. 3, step 304, determining based on received data, that received dataset comprises operational data that indicates a network operation, i.e. a process of a process simulation model) and
transmitting the one or more low-level communication frames to one or more simulated industrial automation devices according to the determined networking operation. (Goodman, FIG. 3, step 306, ¶0092, outputting the operational data to apparatus 200, FIG. 2, including process modeling simulation circuitry 212, i.e. one or more simulated industrial automation devices determined by the network operation)
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Singh to incorporate the simulation techniques taught by Goodman in order to test and measure performance without requiring physical testing and therefore reducing overhead material costs to testing that would improve efficiency.
However, Singh in view of Goodman does not explicitly teach forwarding the remaining communications to the operating system.
From a related technology, Summers teaches forwarding the remaining communications to the operating system. (Summers, FIG. 4, ¶0049, forwarding filtered messages to an operating system)
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Singh in view of Goodman to further incorporate the teachings of Summers in order to handle better handle filtered communications
Claim 2 Singh in view of Goodman and Summers teaches Claim 1 and further teaches wherein the communications are received via one or more network card drivers of the one or more industrial automation devices. (Goodman, ¶0062, wherein the communication circuitry comprises the network elements of the industrial automation devices)
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to further modify the invention with techniques taught by Goodman in order to test and measure performance without requiring physical testing and therefore reducing overhead material costs to testing that would improve efficiency.
Claim 3 Singh in view of Goodman and Summers teaches Claim 1 and further teaches wherein a firmware component of each of the one or more simulated industrial automation devices correspond to a respective firmware component of an industrial automation device. (Goodman, ¶0092, wherein the simulated components correspond to their respective devices which are being simulated)
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to further modify the invention with techniques taught by Goodman in order to test and measure performance without requiring physical testing and therefore reducing overhead material costs to testing that would improve efficiency.
Claim 4 Singh in view of Goodman and Summers teaches Claim 1 and further teaches wherein the one or more simulated industrial automation devices comprise one or more applications. (Goodman, ¶0092, wherein the simulation comprises an application)
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to further modify the invention with techniques taught by Goodman in order to test and measure performance without requiring physical testing and therefore reducing overhead material costs to testing that would improve efficiency.
Claim 9 Singh in view of Goodman and Summers teaches Claim 1, and further teaches wherein the one or more low-level communication frames comprise one or more Ethernet frames. (Singh, ¶0005), wherein the communication is via ethernet frames)
Claim 10 is taught by Singh in view of Goodman and Summers as for Claim 1.
Claim 12 Singh in view of Goodman and Summers teaches Claim 10, and further teaches wherein the one or more simulated devices comprise one or more applications stored in the storage. (Goodman, ¶0092, the simulated device comprises an application)
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to further modify the invention with techniques taught by Goodman in order to test and measure performance without requiring physical testing and therefore reducing overhead material costs to testing that would improve efficiency.
Claim 16 is taught by Singh in view of Goodman and Summers as for Claim 1.
3. Claims 5-8, 13-15, 17 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Singh (US 20060114939 A1) in view of Goodman et al. (US 20240346366 A1) and Summers (US 20160098362 A1) and in further view of Rouvellou et al (US 20050119984 A1).
Claim 5 Singh in view of Goodman and Summers teaches Claim 4, but does not explicitly teach wherein the one or more applications comprise an application connector, and wherein the one or more low-level communication frames are received at the one or more simulated industrial automation devices via the application connector.
From a related technology, Rouvellou teaches one or more applications comprise an application connector, and wherein the one or more communication frames are received via the application connector. (Rouvellou, ¶0128, wherein the application comprises an application connector that receives the receives the communications)
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Singh in view of Goodman and Summer to incorporate the teachings of Rouvellou in order to more effectively manage operations via an application connector that receives communication data for the other devices.
Claim 6 Singh in view of Goodman, Summer, and Rouvellou teaches Claim 5 wherein the networking operation is performed by the application connector. (Rouvellou, ¶0128, wherein the application connector that performs the networking operations)
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Singh in view of Goodman and Summer to incorporate the teachings of Rouvellou in order to more effectively manage operations via an application connector that receives communication data for the other devices.
Claim 7 Singh in view of Goodman, Summer, and Rouvellou teaches Claim 5
receiving, at the communications stack of the operating system, a request to register the application connector; (Rouvellou, ¶0049, wherein the connector register is used to handle requests to add to the application connector) and
adding the application connector to a connector registry based on the request, (Rouvellou, ¶0049, wherein the connector register is used to handle requests to add to the application connector) wherein the communication frames are transmitted to the one or more simulated industrial automation devices based at least on the application connector being present in the connector registry. (Rouvellou, ¶0049, wherein the connector register is used to determine the application for execution)
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Singh in view of Goodman and Summer to incorporate the teachings of Rouvellou in order to more effectively manage operations via an application connector that receives communication data for the other devices.
Claim 8 Singh in view of Goodman, Summer, and Rouvellou teaches Claim 5
receiving, at the communications stack of the operating system, a networking command corresponding to a request to transmit a simulated low-level communication frame from the application connector; (Rouvellou, ¶0128, wherein the application comprises an application connector that receives the receives the communications) and
transmitting the simulated low-level communication frame to the one or more industrial automation devices based on the networking command and the determination. (Summers, FIG. 4, ¶0049, forwarding filtered messages to an operating system)
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Singh in view of Goodman and Summer to incorporate the teachings of Summers in order to more effectively manage operations via an application connector that receives communication data for the other devices.
Claim 13 Singh in view of Goodman and Summers teach Claim 12, but does not explicitly teach wherein the one or more low-level communication frames are transmitted to the one or more simulated industrial automation devices via an application connector of the one or more applications.
From a related technology Rouvellou teaches communication frames are transmitted to the one or more devices via an application connector of the one or more applications. (Rouvellou, ¶0128, wherein the application comprises an application connector that receives the receives the communications)
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Singh in view of Goodman and Summer to incorporate the teachings of Rouvellou in order to more effectively manage operations via an application connector that receives communication data for the other devices.
Claim 14 Singh in view of Goodman, Summers, and Rouvellou teach Claim 13, and further teaches wherein the application connector is configured to transmit a request to perform a networking operation in response to an application programming interface (API) of the application connector being called by the application. (Rouvellou, ¶0128-¶0129, wherein the API calls the application connector to transmit request)
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Singh in view of Goodman and Summer to incorporate the teachings of Rouvellou in order to more effectively manage operations via an application connector that receives communication data for the other devices.
Claim 15 Singh in view of Goodman, Summers, and Rouvellou teach Claim 14, and further teaches wherein the application is configured to call the API of the application connector in response to user input corresponding to the networking operation. (Rouvellou, ¶0128-¶0129, wherein the API calls the application connector due to user input)
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Singh in view of Goodman and Summer to incorporate the teachings of Rouvellou in order to more effectively manage operations via an application connector that receives communication data for the other devices.
Claim 17 Singh in view of Goodman and Summer teaches Claim 16, and further teaches receiving, at a communications stack of an operating system, a request from an additional application to perform a networking operation.
However, Singh in view of Goodman and Summer but does not explicitly teach determining whether the additional application is present in a connector registry; and performing the networking operation based on the determination that additional application is present in a connector registry.
From a related technology, Rouvellou teaches determining whether the additional application is present in a connector registry; (Rouvellou, ¶0049, wherein the connector register is used to determine the presence of an application) and
performing the networking operation based on the determination that additional application is present in a connector registry. (Rouvellou, ¶0049, wherein the connector register is used to determine the application for execution)
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Singh in view of Goodman and Summer to incorporate the teachings of Rouvellou in order to more effectively manage operations via a registry that would manage which operations to simulate or not.
Claim 19 Singh in view of Goodman, Summer, and Rouvellou teaches Claim 17, and further teachers wherein the networking operation corresponds to user input at a user interface of the additional application. (Goodman, ¶0072, wherein the simulation operation corresponds to user inputs via the user interface)
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to further modify the invention with techniques taught by Goodman in order to test and measure performance without requiring physical testing and therefore reducing overhead material costs to testing that would improve efficiency.
Claim 20 Singh in view of Goodman, Summer, and Rouvellou teaches Claim 17, and further teachers wherein the networking operation comprises transmitting an additional low-level communication frame to an industrial automation device of the one or more industrial automation devices. (Singh, ¶0012, intercepting, at an OSI stack, communications, low level communications)
4. Claims 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Singh (US 20060114939 A1) in view of Goodman et al. (US 20240346366 A1) and Summers (US 20160098362 A1) and in further view of Stefan (US 20190369584 A1).
Claim 11 Singh in view of Goodman and Summers teaches Claim 10, but does not explicitly teach wherein the kernel module is configured to be loaded to and unloaded from a kernel of the operating system.
From a related technology, Stefan teaches kernel module is configured to be loaded to and unloaded from a kernel of the operating system. (¶0012, wherein the kernel module has the functionality of loading and unloading modules)
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of Stefan to implement kernel modules that can more easily load and unload testing and simulation modules.
5. Claim 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Singh (US 20060114939 A1) in view of Goodman et al. (US 20240346366 A1) and Summers (US 20160098362 A1) and in further view of Rouvellou et al (US 20050119984 A1) and Prusov et al. (US 20220263857 A1).
Claim 18 Singh in view of Goodman, Summer, and Rouvellou teaches Claim 17, but does not explicitly teach wherein the request from the additional application to perform the networking operation comprises an indication of a Media Access Control (MAC) address of the additional application, and wherein determining whether the additional application is present in the connector registry comprises determining whether the MAC address of the additional application is present in the connector registry.
From a related technology, Prusov teaches the request from the additional application to perform the networking operation comprises an indication of a Media Access Control (MAC) address of the additional application, (¶0085, wherein the request comprises an MAC address for the application) and wherein determining whether the additional application is present in the connector registry comprises determining whether the MAC address of the additional application is present in the connector registry. (¶0085, therein the MAC address for the application is present in the registry)
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 teachings of Singh, Goodman, Summers, and Rouvellou to incorporate the teachings of Pursov in order to more effectively utilize network resources by utilizing networking techniques for identification and control.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHRISTOPHER PALACA CADORNA whose telephone number is (571)270-0584. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 10:00-7:00.
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 use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, John Follansbee can be reached at (571) 272-3964. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/CHRISTOPHER P CADORNA/ Examiner, Art Unit 2444
/JOHN A FOLLANSBEE/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2444