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) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Perusse(US 2011/0191571) and Mohalik(US 2023/0096832).
Regarding claim 1, Perusse discloses an Information Handling System (IHS), comprising: a controller, wherein the controller comprises firmware that, upon execution by a processing core, causes the processing core to instantiate an orchestrator(Paragraph 22, the embedded management ecosystem includes a unified extensible firmware interface (UEFI), internal persistent storage and a service processor to provide a single interface that allows the administrator to consistently manage system hardware independent of any operating system without installing an operating system or specific agents); and a plurality of devices coupled to the controller, wherein each device comprises firmware that, upon execution by a corresponding processing core, causes the corresponding processing core to instantiate a node, and wherein each node is configured to communicate, to the orchestrator(Paragraph 23, the embedded management system 300 includes a service processor 310, an extensible firmware interface (EFI) 312, a plurality of hardware storage modules 314 (e.g., Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) modules, network interface cards (NICs), etc.) and at least one persistent storage module 316 (e.g., an option read only memory such as an iSCSI module) that contains drivers applications and logic for the embedded management systems), without any involvement by any Operating System (OS) of the IHS(Paragraph 22, the embedded management ecosystem includes a unified extensible firmware interface (UEFI), internal persistent storage and a service processor to provide a single interface that allows the administrator to consistently manage system hardware independent of any operating system without installing an operating system or specific agents).
Perusse does not specifically disclose the nodes communicating one or more exposed capabilities and one or more exposed interfaces usable to access the one or more exposed capabilities. However, Mohalik discloses orchestration of different modules of firmware modules and systematic exposure of current capabilities(Paragraph 286) and device firmware may be understood to expose a set of capabilities through Application Program Interfaces (APIs)(Paragraph 8). It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art have the nodes communicating one or more exposed capabilities and one or more exposed interfaces usable to access the one or more exposed capabilities. The motivation would be the discover device capabilities.
Regarding claim 2, Perusse and Mohalik disclose IHS of claim 1, wherein the controller comprises an Embedded Controller (EC) or Baseband Management Controller (BMC)(Perusse: Paragraph 23, the embedded management system 300 includes a service processor 310, i.e. embedded controller).
Regarding claim 3, Perusse and Mohalik disclose IHS of claim 1, wherein the plurality of devices comprises at least one of: a sensor, a sensor hub, a Central Processing Unit (CPU), a Graphical Processing Unit (GPU), an audio Digital Signal Processor (aDSP), a Neural Processing Unit (NPU), a Tensor Processing Unit (TSU), a Neural Network Processor (NNP), an Intelligence Processing Unit (IPU), an Image Signal Processor (ISP), or a Video Processing Unit (VPU), a camera controller, an audio controller, a memory, a Universal Serial Bus (USB) device, a Peripheral Component Interconnect express (PCIe) device, or a Trusted Platform Module (TPM)(Mohalik: Paragraph 5, communication devices, e.g., physical devices, embedded with electronics, software, sensors).
Regarding claim 4, Perusse and Mohalik disclose IHS of claim 1, but does not specifically teach at least one of the plurality of devices is coupled to the controller via at least one of: a Systems-on-Chip (SoC) interconnect, a Peripheral Component Interconnect Express (PCIe) bus, or a Universal Serial Bus (USB) port. However, Perusse discloses IHS 200 has components interconnected by busses 212(Paragraph 18) official notice being taken that these are well known standard busses and it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to uses these standard for the interconnection of components. The motivation to do so would be to that these would be using well known standards that are commonly used in the art, thereby increasing compatibility of components used.
Regarding claim 5, Perusse and Mohalik disclose IHS of claim 4, but does not specifically teach the SoC interconnect comprises at least one of: an Advanced Microcontroller Bus Architecture (AMBA) bus, a QuickPath Interconnect (QPI) bus, or a HyperTransport (HT) bus. However, Perusse discloses IHS 200 has components interconnected by busses 212(Paragraph 18) official notice being taken that these are well known standard busses and it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to uses these standard for the interconnection of components. The motivation to do so would be to that these would be using well known standards that are commonly used in the art, thereby increasing compatibility of components used.
Regarding claim 6, Perusse and Mohalik disclose IHS of claim 1, wherein the one or more exposed capabilities are selected from the group consisting of: a sensor reading, a device setting, a device operation, and execution of an Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) model)(Mohalik: Paragraph 5, communication devices, e.g., physical devices, embedded with electronics, software, sensors).
Regarding claim 7, Perusse and Mohalik disclose IHS of claim 1, wherein the one or more exposed interfaces comprise at least one of: a SET interface, or a GET interface. However, official notice being taken that these are well known standard interfaces and it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use these standard interfaces for communication. The motivation to do so would be to that these would be using well known standards that are commonly used in the art, thereby increasing compatibility of communication.
Regarding claim 8, Perusse and Mohalik disclose IHS of claim 1, wherein the orchestrator is configured to provide, in the firmware framework, one or more orchestration services selected from the group consisting of: a discovery service, a capabilities/interfaces service, a telemetry service, and a security service(Mohalik: Paragraph 286, orchestration of different modules of firmware modules and systematic exposure of current capabilities; Paragraph 8: device firmware may be understood to expose a set of capabilities through Application Program Interfaces (APIs); Paragraph 5, communication devices, e.g., physical devices, embedded with electronics, software, sensors).
Regarding claim 9, Perusse and Mohalik disclose IHS of claim 8, wherein the capabilities/interfaces service is configured to advertise one or more exposed capabilities and interfaces of one or more orchestrators or nodes to a consumer, and wherein the consumer is configured to invoke the one or more advertised capabilities through one or more advertised interfaces(Mohalik: Paragraph 67, Such a user equipment 130 may be assigned tasks that may involve capabilities across devices).
Regarding claim 10, Perusse and Mohalik disclose IHS of claim 9, wherein the consumer comprises at least one of: an OS agent or driver, a remote service, a secondary IHS, or a given node(Perusse: Paragraph 23, An administrator can gain remote access to the embedded management system 300 via a service type operating system 320 executing on information handling system 200).
Regarding claim 11, Perusse and Mohalik disclose IHS of claim 9, wherein the capabilities/interfaces service is configured to: receive a request or command from a consumer invoking one of the advertised capabilities through one of the advertised interfaces; and enforce an access control rule to determine whether to process the request or command(Mohalik: Paragraph 219: determine a state of the user equipment 130, which may be e.g., an IoT device. The state may comprise one or more of: a) which modules of firmware are installed and/or enabled in the user equipment 130, b) which actions to be performed by the user equipment 130 are enabled in the user equipment 130, each action corresponding to a respective module of a respective plurality of modules of firmware to perform the respective action, and c) which respective module of the respective plurality of modules of firmware to perform the respective action is installed and/or enabled in the user equipment 130).
Regarding claim 12, Perusse and Mohalik disclose IHS of claim 11, wherein the capabilities/interfaces service is configured to enforce the access control rule differently based, at least in part, upon a determination of whether the given node is internal or external with respect to a chassis of the IHS(Mohalik: Paragraph 219: determine a state of the user equipment 130, which may be e.g., an IoT device. The state may comprise one or more of: a) which modules of firmware are installed and/or enabled in the user equipment 130, b) which actions to be performed by the user equipment 130 are enabled in the user equipment 130, each action corresponding to a respective module of a respective plurality of modules of firmware to perform the respective action, and c) which respective module of the respective plurality of modules of firmware to perform the respective action is installed and/or enabled in the user equipment 130).
Regarding claim 13, Perusse and Mohalik disclose IHS of claim 9, wherein the capabilities/interfaces service is configured to: receive a request or command from a consumer invoking one of the advertised capabilities through one of the advertised interfaces; and select one among two or more nodes to execute the request or command(Mohalik: Paragraph 219: determine a state of the user equipment 130, which may be e.g., an IoT device. The state may comprise one or more of: a) which modules of firmware are installed and/or enabled in the user equipment 130, b) which actions to be performed by the user equipment 130 are enabled in the user equipment 130, each action corresponding to a respective module of a respective plurality of modules of firmware to perform the respective action, and c) which respective module of the respective plurality of modules of firmware to perform the respective action is installed and/or enabled in the user equipment 130).
Regarding claim 14, Perusse and Mohalik disclose IHS of claim 13, wherein to select the one among the two or more nodes, the capabilities/interfaces service is configured to enforce a policy based, at least in part, upon context information(Mohalik: Paragraph 219: determine a state of the user equipment 130, which may be e.g., an IoT device. The state may comprise one or more of: a) which modules of firmware are installed and/or enabled in the user equipment 130, b) which actions to be performed by the user equipment 130 are enabled in the user equipment 130, each action corresponding to a respective module of a respective plurality of modules of firmware to perform the respective action, and c) which respective module of the respective plurality of modules of firmware to perform the respective action is installed and/or enabled in the user equipment 130).
Regarding claim 15, Perusse discloses a method, comprising: producing, via a controller within an Information Handling System (IHS), an orchestrator of a firmware framework(Paragraph 22, the embedded management ecosystem includes a unified extensible firmware interface (UEFI), internal persistent storage and a service processor to provide a single interface that allows the administrator to consistently manage system hardware independent of any operating system without installing an operating system or specific agents); and producing, via a plurality of devices coupled to the controller, a plurality of nodes, wherein each node is configured to communicate, to the orchestrator, without any involvement by any Operating System (OS) of the IHS(Paragraph 23, 22, the embedded management system 300 includes a service processor 310, an extensible firmware interface (EFI) 312, a plurality of hardware storage modules 314 (e.g., Internet Small Computer System Interface (iSCSI) modules, network interface cards (NICs), etc.) and at least one persistent storage module 316 (e.g., an option read only memory such as an iSCSI module) that contains drivers applications and logic for the embedded management systems and to provide a single interface that allows the administrator to consistently manage system hardware independent of any operating system without installing an operating system or specific agents).
Perusse does not specifically disclose the nodes communicating one or more exposed capabilities and one or more exposed interfaces usable to access the one or more exposed capabilities. However, Mohalik discloses orchestration of different modules of firmware modules and systematic exposure of current capabilities(Paragraph 286) and device firmware may be understood to expose a set of capabilities through Application Program Interfaces (APIs)(Paragraph 8). It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art have the nodes communicating one or more exposed capabilities and one or more exposed interfaces usable to access the one or more exposed capabilities. The motivation would be the discover device capabilities.
Regarding claim 16, Perusse and Mohalik disclose method of claim 15, further comprising: in response to a coupling of a child node to a parent node, communicating from the child node or the parent node to the orchestrator, one or more exposed capabilities and one or more exposed interfaces of the child node; and enabling, at least in part by the orchestrator, at least one of the plurality of nodes to invoke the one or more exposed capabilities the child node through the one or more exposed interfaces as part of the firmware framework(Mohalik: Paragraph 219: determine a state of the user equipment 130, which may be e.g., an IoT device. The state may comprise one or more of: a) which modules of firmware are installed and/or enabled in the user equipment 130, b) which actions to be performed by the user equipment 130 are enabled in the user equipment 130, each action corresponding to a respective module of a respective plurality of modules of firmware to perform the respective action, and c) which respective module of the respective plurality of modules of firmware to perform the respective action is installed and/or enabled in the user equipment 130).
Regarding claim 17, Perusse and Mohalik disclose method of claim 16, further comprising, in response to a decoupling of the child node from the parent node, removing the one or more exposed capabilities and the one or more exposed interfaces from the firmware framework(Mohalik: Paragraph 219: determine a state of the user equipment 130, which may be e.g., an IoT device. The state may comprise one or more of: a) which modules of firmware are installed and/or enabled in the user equipment 130, b) which actions to be performed by the user equipment 130 are enabled in the user equipment 130, each action corresponding to a respective module of a respective plurality of modules of firmware to perform the respective action, and c) which respective module of the respective plurality of modules of firmware to perform the respective action is installed and/or enabled in the user equipment 130).
Regarding claim 18, Perusse discloses an Embedded Controller (EC) integrated into or coupled to a heterogeneous computing platform of an Information Handling System (IHS), the EC comprising: a processing core(Figure 3, 310) distinct from any host processor(Figure 2, 202) of the heterogeneous computing platform; and a memory coupled to the processing core, the memory having firmware instructions stored thereon that, upon execution by the processing core(Paragraph 22, the embedded management ecosystem includes a unified extensible firmware interface (UEFI), internal persistent storage and a service processor to provide a single interface), cause the EC to: produce an orchestrator as part of a firmware framework(Paragraph 22, the embedded management ecosystem includes a unified extensible firmware interface (UEFI), internal persistent storage and a service processor to provide a single interface that allows the administrator to consistently manage system hardware independent of any operating system without installing an operating system or specific agents).
Perusse does not specifically disclose discovering an exposed capability and an exposed interface of a node coupled to the orchestrator, wherein the node is configured to participate in the firmware framework. However, Mohalik discloses orchestration of different modules of firmware modules and systematic exposure of current capabilities(Paragraph 286) and device firmware may be understood to expose a set of capabilities through Application Program Interfaces (APIs)(Paragraph 8). It would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art have the nodes communicating one or more exposed capabilities and one or more exposed interfaces usable to access the one or more exposed capabilities. The motivation would be the discover device capabilities.
Regarding claim 19, Perusse and Mohalik disclose EC of claim 18, wherein the firmware instructions, upon execution by the processing core, further cause the EC to distribute or advertise the exposed capability and the exposed interface to another node coupled to the orchestrator without any involvement by any Operating System (OS) of the IHS(Perusse: Paragraph 22, the embedded management ecosystem includes a unified extensible firmware interface (UEFI), internal persistent storage and a service processor to provide a single interface that allows the administrator to consistently manage system hardware independent of any operating system without installing an operating system or specific agents).
Regarding claim 20, Perusse and Mohalik disclose EC of claim 18, wherein the firmware instructions, upon execution by the processing core, further cause the EC to distribute or advertise the exposed capability and the exposed interface to a remote service without any involvement by any Operating System (OS) of the IHS(Perusse: Paragraph 22, the embedded management ecosystem includes a unified extensible firmware interface (UEFI), internal persistent storage and a service processor to provide a single interface that allows the administrator to consistently manage system hardware independent of any operating system without installing an operating system or specific agents).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NIMESH G PATEL whose telephone number is (571)272-3640. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday, 8:15-4:15.
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/NIMESH G PATEL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2187
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