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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the independent claims have been considered but are unpersuasive. They essentially assert that Lai does not teach or suggest delaying performance. . . based up on any thermal characteristics. But the claim language is not this specific. The delay in the claims recites delaying based on the operating context and that operating context “comprises” the thermal status, but this means the delay could be based on other information in the context other than the thermal status. The claims do not directly indicate that the delay is based on the thermal status. The claims are written broadly enough to be taught by the references as detailed below.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention. There does not appear to be support in the original disclosure for the operating context comprising a thermal status associated with an external skin of the IHS in the independent claims or for obtaining a thermal status of the external skin by measuring a temperature of a heatsink, network controller, or ambient temperature sensor. Paragraphs 0072-075 of the specification do discuss measuring these temperatures, but do not discuss that they are associated with an external skin of the IHS or used to determine the thermal status of the skin. The external skin is only mentioned generally in 0074 and 0075 regarding problems with doing tests when a user is holding an HIS that may get hot or scheduling the test where the HIS is idle, not in transit and thus not in an enclosed space.
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.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
As to claims 21 and 22, there is a lack of antecedent basis in the claims for “the thermal status of the external skin. The examiner believes this was intended to refer to the thermal status associated with the external skin of the IHS.
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) 1-3, 7, 12, and 14-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Swierk (US 20160371163 A1) in view of Lai (US 20160155514 A1) and Hollowell (US 5590061 A).
As to claim 1, Swierk teaches an Information Handling System (IHS), comprising:
a memory device; and
one or more processors coupled to the memory device (see Fig. 2), wherein the memory device comprises instructions that, upon execution by the processors, cause the IHS to:
determine when a diagnostic test supported by the IHS has been requested (see paragraph 0120, disclosing initiating a firmware-based diagnostics);
determine an operating context of the IHS (see paragraph 0121, disclosing accessing failure codes for use in targeting test to specific problems; also see Fig. 4); and
the requested diagnostic test to be performed during operation of one or both of a diagnostic boot mode of the IHS and a host operating system of the HIS (see paragraph 0121, disclosing accessing failure codes for use in targeting test to specific problems; also see paragraph 0122, disclosing that OS-level testing may be performed and tailored; also see Fig. 4 and corresponding text).
Swierk does not explicitly teach wherein the operating context comprises a thermal status associated with an external skin of the IHS.
However, Hollowell teaches monitoring temperatures of a computer system to keep it within temperatures above witch the shell of the computer system would burn human skin (see col. 3, lines 11-35).
It would have been obvious, before the effective filing date, to a person of ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains to combine Swierk with the methods of Hollowell because it enables aa computer system to keep temperatures within operating limits of componens as well as preventing burning of human skin (see col. 1 lines 64-67 and col. 2 lines 1-5).
Swierk does not explicitly teach based on the current operating context of the IHS, delay performance of the diagnostic test.
However, Lai teaches deferring testing when a computing system is running on battery power and not connected to AC power (see paragraph 0063).
It would have been obvious, before the effective filing date, to a person of ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains to combine the references with Lai because it helps protect against crashes due to memory failures (see paragraph 0064). It also prevents overuse of resources that may be reduced while on battery power alone.
As to claim 2, the references teach claim 1 as referenced above. They further teach when a diagnostic boot mode has been configured, boot the IHS to a diagnostic boot mode to perform the diagnostic test on one or more hardware components of the HIS (see Swierk paragraph 0121, disclosing that when firmware-based testing is performed, targeting testing of a hard drive).
As to claim 3, the references teach claim 2 as referenced above. They further teach an embedded controller, wherein execution of the instructions by the processors further causes the IHS to boot, using the diagnostic boot mode, the IHS to a diagnostic mode supported by the embedded controller (see Swierk Fig. 2 and paragraph 0037, disclosing an embedded controller).
As to claim 7, the references teach claim 1 as referenced above. They further teach execution of the instucations by the processors further causes the IHS to store results of the diagnostic boot mode are stored to a shared portion of the memory device and retrieve the results upon a subsequent booting of the host operating system of the IHS (see Figs. 6 and 7 and corresponding text, disclosing storing testing information in memory for the next stage of diagnostics and that health information is used on a subsequent boot to SOS).
As to claim 12, the references teach claim 1 as referenced above. They further teach the operating context of the IHS comprises a status of a user that operates the HIS (see Swierk paragraph 0008, disclosing getting a user’s account information or obtaining it using a user credential hash).
As to claim 17, the references teach claim 1 as referenced above. They further teach the operating context of the IHS comprises at least one of a thermal status of the IHS, a status of a user that operates the IHS and an ongoing transport of the HIS (see Swierk paragraph 0008, disclosing getting a user’s account information or obtaining it using a user credential hash)..
As to claims 14 and 18, they are rejected on grounds corresponding to above rejected claim 1 because they are substantially equivalent.
As to claims 15 and 19, they are rejected on grounds corresponding to above rejected claim 2 because they are substantially equivalent.
As to claim 16, it is rejected on grounds corresponding to above rejected claim 3 because they are substantially equivalent.
As to claims 20, it is rejected on grounds corresponding to above rejected claim 17.
As to claim 21, the references teach claim 1 as referenced above. Hollowell further teaches execution of the instructions by the processors further causes the IHS to obtain the thermal status of the external skin by measuring a temperature of at least at one of a heatsink, a network controller, or an ambient temperature sensor of the HIS (see fig. 1,2 and associated text, disclosing a temperature sensor; the examiner interprets the internal temperature may be the ambient temperature inside the computer system).
Claim(s) 4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Swierk, Lai and Hollowell, in view of Dubal (US 20030115509 A1).
As to claim 4, the references teach claim 2 as referenced above. They do not explicitly teach the operating context of the IHS comprises constrained availability of hardware resources of the IHS that restricts running of the requested diagnostic test during operation of the host operating system mode of the HIS.
However, Dubal teaches delaying running diagnostics in the absence of enough resources to run the diagnostics (see Fig. 3 and corresponding text, ee Dubal, Abstract, disclosing CPU and memory availability).
It would have been obvious, before the effective filing date, to a person of ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains to combine Swierk with the delays of Dubal because it prevents system disruptions from running diagnostics (see abstract).
Claim(s) 5, and 11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Swierk, Lai, and Hollowell in view of Chien (US 20210286692 A1).
As to claim 5, the references teach claim 3 as referenced above. Swierk further teaches the diagnostic test is performed by the embedded controller (see Fig. 2 and paragraph 0037, disclosing an embedded controller).
Swierk does not explicitly teach execution of the instructions by the proessors further causes the IHS to stress test, using the diagnostic test the one or more hardware components of the IHS.
However, Chien teaches performing hardware stress tests (see Summary, paragraph 0034, 0064, 0065).
It would have been obvious, before the effective filing date, to a person of ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains to combine Swierk with the methods of Chien because it enables diagnostics and identifying and disabling faulty hardware components (see Summary).
As to claim 11, the references teach claim 1 as detailed above. They do not explicitly teach the operating context of the IHS comprises a thermal status of the IHS.
However, Chien teaches examining thermal data during a hardware diagnostics boot up (see paragraph 0033).
It would have been obvious, before the effective filing date, to a person of ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains to combine Swierk with the methods of Chien because it enables diagnostics and identifying and disabling faulty hardware components (see Summary).
Claim(s) 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Swierk, Lai, and Hollowell, in view of Chen (US 11675648 B2).
As to claim 6, the references teach claim 1 as detailed above. Swierk further teaches execution of the instructions by the processors further causs the IHS to select, using the requested diagnostic test to be performed both during operation of the diagnostic boot mode and of the host operating system (see above discussion.
Swierk does not explicitly teach that this is selected in order to generate training inputs to a diagnostic machine learning system.
However, Chen teaches diagnostic data can be supplied to machine learning (see col. 3, lines 10-20).
It would have been obvious, before the effective filing date, to a person of ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains to combine Swierk with the methods of Chen because it enables detecting health, severity of an anomaly, or predict its impact (see col. 3, lines 10-20).
Claim(s) 8 and 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Swierk, Lai, and Hollowell, in view of Vecoven (US 20040221198 A1).
As to claim 8, the references teach claim 1 as detailed above. Swierk further teaches execution of the instructions by the processors further causes the IHS to booting, using the diagnostic boot mode, a service operating system (see Fig. 6; for purposes of this claim, the examiner is interpreting the diagnostic boot mode as corresponding to the SOS boot rather than the firmware testing mode). The references do not explicitly teach that this is done in order to replicate a reported error.
However, Vecoven teaches recreating errors for diagnostic purposes (see background).
It would have been obvious, before the effective filing date, to a person of ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains to combine Swierk with the methods of Vecoven because it allows faulty components to be diagnosed and deconfigured (see Background).
As to claim 9, the references teach claim 8 as detailed above. Swierk further teaches the service operating system is run by an SoC (System-on-Chip) of the IHS during the diagnostic boot mode (see Fig. 2 and paragraph 0037, disclosing an embedded controller).
Claim(s) 13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Swierk, Lai, and Hollowell, in view of Bowers (US 20160133340 A1).
As to claim 13, the references teach claim 1 as detailed above. They do not explicitly teach the operating context of the IHS comprises ongoing transport of the IHS.
However, Bowers teaches using a sensor to detect motion of a device (see paragraph 0042).
It would have been obvious, before the effective filing date, to a person of ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains to combine Swierk with the methods of Bowers because it enables diagnostics and warning before a data loss and permanent failure (see paragraph 0015).
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 JASON B BRYAN whose telephone number is (571)270-7091. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri, 8-5 First Friday off.
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, Ashish Thomas can be reached at 5712720631. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JASON B BRYAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2114
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