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
This action is in response to the claimed listing filed on 02/29/2024.
Claims 1-21 are pending.
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, 7-10, 14-17, 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Michael Ernst, “Version Control Concepts and Best Practices”, 2023, https://homes.cs.washington.edu/~mernst/advice/version-control.html , 9 pages, in view of Siemens AG, “SIMATIC PCS 7 Process Control System”, 2018, retrieved from www.siemens.com/simatic-pcs7 , 92 pages (hereinafter: Siemens)
As per Claim 1: Ernst discloses the limitations in bold as below:
1. At least one non-transitory machine-readable medium comprising
machine-readable instructions to cause at least one processor circuit to at least:
cause presentation of [ a first graphical user interface](1) to enable editing
(See p. 2, Repositories and working copies, and the Figure in the right with Working copy : ‘presentation’)
of [a second graphical user interface of a process control system, the second
graphical user interface](2 ) based on information stored in a database (See p. 2, Repositories and working copies, and the Figure in the right with Repository (database of edits/versions) and para. ‘A repository is a database of all the edits to, and/or historical versions (snapshots) of, your
project. It is possible for the repository to contain edits that have not yet been applied to your
working copy.’: ‘information’);
access a user instruction to modify the second [ graphical user interface](2 )
from a first version to a second version; access user commit information associated with the second version; (See p. 2, Repositories and working copies and in para. ‘You can update your working copy [first version] to incorporate any new edits or versions that have been added to the repository [second version]since the last time you updated’. See Figures in p.2 and p. 3 represented with commit/update, where second version is of versions in Repository with commit arrow )
export the second version of the second [graphical user interface](2 ) from the database to a local file repository; and synchronize the second version from the local file repository to a remote repository, the synchronization to include the user commit information.
(See Figures with Centralized version control and Distributed version control in p. 3, and with Server/Repository shown in Figure as ‘remote repository’ and Workstation/PC/Repository as ‘local repository’ and Pull/update as export the second version, and referred the versioning herein as with distributed version control, and database as Server/Repository. See the third paragraph in p. 3, ‘Notice that the commit and update commands only move changes between the working copy and the local repository, without affecting any other repository. By contrast, the push and pull commands move changes between the local repository and the central repository, without affecting your working copy.’. The pair of commit/update, push/pull reads on ‘synchronization’).
Ernst does not mention (1) a first graphical user interface and (2) a second graphical user interface of a process control system.
Siemens discloses (1) “a first graphical user interface to enable editing” (See Siemen: P. 12, Graphic Configuration Tool, SFC editor, Graphics Designer, shown as the Figure in the right column, and Figure in p. 12, Process tags, and in p. 23, Figure in the right col., ‘Process tag browser’: First graphical user interface) – This GUI appears is at a local computing device like a computer; and
Siemens discloses (2) “a second graphical user interface of a process control system, the second graphical user interface”
(See Figure in p. 6 SIMATIC CPS 7, See in p. 23, Figure in left col.: Second GUI of PCS) :This as is “graphical user interface of a process control system”: a second GUI. See further in p. 16: right column, in Version Cross Manager, “The Version Cross Manager detects differences between different versions of a single or multi-project by tracing missing, additional or differing objects by comparing hardware configuration, communication, plant hierarchy, CFCs/ SFCs, SFC details, block types, alarms, global variables, signals and run sequences”).
Ernst uses “working copy” as the term that encompasses a development tool in a local computer, this working copy can cover a tool such as graphical user interface. The working copy is able to edit, correct or to update its copy in according to a version in a remote server like a central sever or a database in the manner of a second GUI . The working copy has been in sync with both local and remote for versioning using version control concept. Thus, with a work at a local GUI for a graphical user interface of process control system as of Siemens, the local GUI is a working copy. The modification simply a substitution of the term.
Therefore, it is obvious to an ordinary of skills in the art before the effective filing of the application to combine the teaching version control of a working copy in sync with versions in a remote server/database of Ernst with the teaching the works of using local GUI for editing and updating a design of a GUI of a process control system of Siemens, the combination would yield results predictable as a utilization of a version control concept, a standard versioning process for maintaining update and managing development in GUI designing.
As per claim 2: Ernst and in combining Siemens,
where Ernst discloses the limitations in bold as below:
2. The at least one non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the machine-readable instructions are to cause one or more of the at least one processor circuit to:
synchronize a third version of [the second graphical user interface](2) from the remote repository to the local file repository;
(See in p. 2, the figure in the right and the figures with version 1, version 2, version3,… by time )
import the third version of [the second graphical user interface](2) from the local file repository to the database;
(First: import or export is relative to the direction of data transporting: for the direction from local to remote repository, see in p. 3, Figure as ‘remote repository’ and Workstation/PC/Repository as ‘local repository’ and Pull/update as import the third version, and referred the versioning herein as with distributed version control, and database as Server/Repository.
and cause presentation of the third version of [the second graphical user interface](2) for editing within the [first graphical user interface](1).
(See the second figure in p. 3, Distributed version control, and refer model of figure in p. 2 for the model in Workstation/PC)
Ernst does not mention (1) a first graphical user interface and (2) a second graphical user interface.
Siemens discloses (1) a first graphical user interface (provided in Claim 1) and (2) a second graphical user interface (provided in claim 1).
Therefore, it is obvious to an ordinary of skills in the art before the effective filing of the application to combine the teaching many more versions in version control of the working copy versions in a remote server/database of Ernst with the teaching the works of using local GUI for editing and updating a design of a GUI of a process control system of Siemens, the combination would yield results predictable as a utilization of a version control concept, a standard versioning process for maintaining update and managing development in GUI designing.
As per claim 3: Ernst and in combining Siemens,
where Ernst discloses the limitations in bold as below:
3. The at least one non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the machine-readable instructions are to cause one or more of the at least one processor circuit to cause presentation of a version history of versions of [the second graphical user interface](2) stored at the remote repository (Ernst: See in p. 2, in the fourth para. of Repositories and working copies, ‘possibility is that different users made edits simultaneously (this is sometimes called “branching”). In that case, the version history splits and then merges again. The picture below gives examples’, and the picture examples with versions 1, 2, 3, 4.. with time as the presentation of version history of versions ).
But Ernst does not mention (1) a first graphical user interface and (2) the second graphical user interface.
Siemens discloses (2) the second graphical user interface (provided in claim 1).
Therefore, it is obvious to an ordinary of skills in the art before the effective filing of the application to combine the teaching version history of version of the working copy versions of Ernst with the teaching the works of using local GUI for editing and updating the design of a GUI of a process control system of Siemens, the combination would yield results predictable as a utilization of a version control concept for storing version history for conforming to management requirement.
As per claim 7: Ernst and in combining Siemens,
where Ernst discloses the limitations in bold as below:
7. The at least one non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the user commit information includes a username of a user that is logged into [the first graphical user interface.](1) .
(See Ernst: See in p. 8, Caching your password, for example “googlecode.username = michael.ernst”. And see in Figures in p. 3, where user is with working copy in a PC and commit/update, push/pull with server ).
But Ernst does not mention (1) a first graphical user interface.
Siemens discloses (1) the second graphical user interface (provided in claim 1).
Therefore, it is obvious to an ordinary of skills in the art before the effective filing of the application to combine the teaching commit/update with logging using username/password of Ernst with the teaching the works of using local GUI for editing and updating the design of a GUI of a process control system of Siemens, the combination would yield results predictable as a utilization of a version control concept with remote repository using logging in for conforming to network security requirement.
As per claims 8-10-14: The Claims are directed to an apparatus which recites the limitations having functionality corresponding to the limitations of Claims 1-3, 7 above. The claims are rejected with the same rationales addressed in Claims 1-3, 7.
As per claims 15-17, 21: The Claims are directed to a method which recites the limitations having functionality corresponding to the limitations of Claims 1-3, 7 above. The claims are rejected with the same rationales addressed in Claims 1-3, 7.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-6, 11-13, 18-20 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Ted T Vo whose telephone number is (571)272-3706. The examiner can normally be reached 8am-4:30pm ET.
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TTV
January 24, 2026
/Ted T. Vo/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2191