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 .
Detail Action
This office action is in response to the application filed on 4/4/2024.
Claims 1-20 are pending.
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
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Claim 9 is rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claim 1 of U.S. co-pending Application 18/411,450 in view of Chung (US 20240303066 A1)
Table 1,
Instant Application No. 18/626,474
Co-pending Application No. 18/411,450
9. A method of updating firmware by
a build orchestrator, comprising: detecting, by the build orchestrator, a change in a hardware component of a data center secure control module (DC-SCM) in a modular hardware system; constructing, by the build orchestrator, a consolidated firmware update image containing
1. A method of building a customized firmware image, comprising: initializing a build orchestrator configured to monitor system events from different server systems; receiving, at the build orchestrator, an event indicating a hardware change in a modular hardware system;
selecting, by the build orchestrator, appropriate
one or more firmware modules or one or more components of the DC-SCM based on the detected change; and
deploying, by the build orchestrator, the consolidated firmware update image to a baseboard management controller
(BMC) of the DC-SCM.
firmware components for the identified hardware change; and assembling the selected firmware components into the customized firmware image tailored to the identified hardware change.
7. transmitting the customized firmware to the modular hardware system.
Per claim 9, co-pending application 18/411,450 discloses
detecting, by the build orchestrator, a change in a hardware component in a modular hardware system;
constructing, by the build orchestrator, a consolidated firmware update image containing one or more firmware modules for one or more components based on the detected change;
and
deploying, by the build orchestrator, the consolidated firmware update image to component. (see table 1)
18/411,450 does not, however, Chung (US 20240303066 A1) discloses
one or more components including BMC of a DC-SCM ([0035]-[0036] , discloses BMC performs monitoring and management functions including firmware update to the first/second logic circuit. [0027], see DC-SCM)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of Chung into the teachings of 18/411,450 to include the limitation disclosed by Chung. The modification would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to want to include firmware update to data center because data center firmware upgrade is widely needed.
This is a provisional nonstatutory double patenting rejection because the patentably indistinct claims have not in fact been patented.
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 and 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chung (US 20240303066 A1) in view of Wiginton et al. (US 2021/0303287 Al)
Per claim 1,
Chung discloses
receiving, by the BMC, a consolidated firmware update image containing one or more firmware modules for one or more components of a data center secure control module (DC-SCM); ([0035]-[0036] , discloses BMC performs monitoring and management functions including firmware update to the first/second logic circuit. [0027], see DC-SCM)
parsing, by the BMC, the consolidated firmware update image to identify the one or more firmware modules; ([0041-0042] discloses reading information area A1 to indicate target device for first logic circuit or second logic circuit)
selecting, by the BMC, a hardware component to be updated based on the parsing of the consolidated firmware update image; ([0036], see selecting first logic circuit or second circuit with control signal C1 or C2)
and
updating, by the BMC, firmware of the selected hardware component using the corresponding firmware modules from the consolidated firmware update image.
Chung does not, however, Wiginton discloses
Selecting a set of hardware components to be updated based on the parsing of the consolidated firmware update image, updating firmware of the selected hardware components using the corresponding firmware modules from the consolidated firmware update image. ([0029] discloses an update image for with a header containing information indicating payload, location/offset…information identifying which hardware component(s) to target for the firmware update. [0030], see managing updates for all or some of the hardware components)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of Wiginton into the teachings of Chung to include the limitation disclosed by Wiginton. The modification would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to want to update multiple hardware components with firmware image containing corresponding firmware update as suggested by Wiginton([0029-30])
Per claim 17, see rejection of claim 1.
Claim(s) 2-5, and 18-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chung (US 20240303066 A1) in view of Wiginton et al. (US 2021/0303287 Al) and Zhang et al. (US 20230305833 A1)
Per claim 2, rejection of claim 1 is incorporated.
Chung/Wiginton does not specifically disclose, however, Zhang discloses
wherein the one or more firmware modules include at least one of a basic input/output system (BIOS) firmware module, a BMC firmware module, and a hardware root of trust (HROT) firmware module. ([0083], discloses BIOS extracted from firmware update capsule.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of Zhang into the teachings of Chung/Wiginton to include the limitation disclosed by Zhang. The modification would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to want to include BIOA firmware update in any firmware update because BOIS is critical to computing system.
Per claim 3, rejection of claim 1 is incorporated.
Chung/Wiginton discloses
wherein the parsing the consolidated firmware update image comprises reading a header for each of the one or more firmware modules to determine an offset and for a corresponding payload containing the each firmware module. ([0029] discloses an update image for with a header containing information indicating payload, location/offset…information identifying which hardware component(s) to target for the firmware update. [0030], see managing updates for all or some of the hardware components)
Chung/Wiginton does not, however, Zhang discloses
Size for payload ([0090], discloses header includes…size, offsets of a payload )
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of Zhang into the teachings of Chung/Wiginton to include the limitation disclosed by Zhang. The modification would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to want to include size information for payload to assist updating to estimate target memory requirement.
Per claim 4, the rejection of claim 3 is incorporated.
Chung/Wiginton/Zhang discloses
wherein the header contains information about the corresponding payload, the information including at least one of a component type, a version, a payload size, and a flash offset. (Zhang, [0090], see size and offset of a payload and version. )
Per claim 5, the rejection of claim 3 is incorporated.
Chung/Wiginton/Zhang discloses
wherein the updating the firmware of the selected set of hardware components comprises: extracting, for each of the selected set of hardware components, a corresponding firmware module from the consolidated firmware update image based on the offset and the size determined from the header of the corresponding firmware module; (continue Wiginton, [0029], [0030], Zhang, disclose size) and
flashing the firmware of the each hardware component with the extracted corresponding firmware module. ([0030], see managing updates for all or some of the hardware components)
Per claims 18-20, see rejections of claims 2-4.
Claim(s) 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chung (US 20240303066 A1), Wiginton et al. (US 2021/0303287 Al), EL-AZZAMI et al. (US 20250245334 A1) and in view of Nallagatla (7,590,835).
Per claim 6,
Chung/Wigiton discloses
The consolidated firmware update image is received, and hardware component of the DC-SCM (Chung, [0035-36], [0027], continue from rejection of claim 1)
Chung/Wingiton does not, however, EL-AZZAMI discloses
wherein the consolidated firmware update image is received from a build orchestrator ([0040], discloses firmware update image received from a build orchestrator.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of EL-AZZAMI into the teachings of Chung/Wingiton to include the limitation disclosed by EL-AZZAMI. The modification would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to want to manage firmware update using the orchestrator as suggested by EL-AZZAMI ([0040])
Chung/Wingiton/ EL-AZZAMI does not, however, Nallagatla discloses
Detecting a change in hardware components (c1:34-46) and construct a consolidated update image.(c1:40-45)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of Nallagatla into the teachings of Chung/Wingiton/ EL-AZZAMI to include the limitation disclosed by Nallagatla. The modification would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to want to the system to function properly as suggested by Nallagatla (c1:40).
Claim(s) 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chung (US 20240303066 A1), Wiginton et al. (US 2021/0303287 Al) and Suryanarayana et al. (US 20230112734 A1).
Per claim 7, The method of claim 1,
Chung/Winginton does not specifically disclose, however, Suryanarayana discloses
wherein the consolidated firmware update image has a firmware module marked as blank. ([0040], discloses a flash offset table including an empty space corresponding to blank.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of Suryanarayana into the teachings of Chung/Winginton to include the limitation disclosed by Suryanarayana. The modification would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to want to have storage that is empty to store firmware update image as suggested by Suryanarayana (see [0054])
Claim(s) 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chung (US 20240303066 A1), Wiginton et al. (US 2021/0303287 Al) and Suryanarayana et al. (US 20230112734 A1) and further in view of Kochar et al. US 20160283221 A1
Per claim 8, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated.
Chung/Winginton does not specifically disclose, however,
Suryanarayana discloses
wherein the consolidated firmware update image has a firmware module marked as blank. ([0040], discloses a flash offset table including an empty space corresponding to blank.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of Suryanarayana into the teachings of Chung/Winginton to include the limitation disclosed by Suryanarayana. The modification would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to want to have storage that is empty to store firmware update image as suggested by Suryanarayana (see [0054])
Chung/Winginton/ Suryanarayana does not specifically disclose, however, Kochar discloses
prior to receiving the consolidated firmware update image: receiving, by the BMC, a BMC firmware image containing a BMC firmware module; ([0035] discloses updating firmware to BMC and then BMC can perform updates to certain hardware components or BMC itself.
) and flashing, by the BMC, the received BMC firmware module to update the BMC firmware to support the consolidated firmware update image, ( continue see update BMC itself)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of Kochar into the teachings of Chung/Winginton/ Suryanarayana to include the limitation disclosed by Kochar. The modification would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to want to ensure BMC firmware is up-to-date prior to updating firmware(s) of other components.
Claim(s) 9-10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over EL-AZZAMI et al. (US 20250245334 A1) in view of Chung (US 20240303066 A1) and further in view of Nallagatla (7,590,835).
Per claim 9,
EL-AZZAMI et al. discloses
A method of updating firmware by a build orchestrator to a hardware system: ([0040], discloses an orchestrator communicating with controllers of data processing systems to implement changes to firmware ) deploying, by the build orchestrator, to the hardware system([0040])
EL-AZZAMI does not, however, Chung discloses
Deploying a consolidated firmware update image to a baseboard management controller (BMC) of the DC-SCM. ([0035]-[0036] , discloses BMC performs monitoring and management functions including firmware update to the first/second logic circuit. [0027], see DC-SCM)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of Chung into the teachings of EL-AZZAMI to include the limitation disclosed by Chung. The modification would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to want to use BMC to further update firmware of a hardware system as BMC is widely available on computer systems.
EL-AZZAMI/Chung does not, however, Nallagatla discloses
detecting, a change in hardware components (c1:34-46, (col. 1 lines 34-40, see hardware components are added or removed…firmware image must by updated…customized firmware image is created…)
constructing a consolidated firmware update image containing one or more firmware modules( c1:40 -45, see firmware image is created for hardware components added or removed.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of Nallagatla into the teachings of EL-AZZAMI/Chung to include the limitation disclosed by Nallagatla. The modification would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to want to the system to function properly as suggested by Nallagatla (c1:40).
Per claim 10, the rejection of claim 9 is incorporated.
EL-AZZAMI/Chung/ Nallagatla
wherein the one or more firmware modules include at least one of a basic input/output system (BIOS) firmware module, a BMC firmware module, and a hardware root of trust (HROT) firmware module. (Nallagatla, c5: 45-50, see firmware comprises BIOS)
Claim(s) 11-12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over EL-AZZAMI et al. (US 20250245334 A1) in view of Chung (US 20240303066 A1), Nallagatla (7,590,835) and further in view of Wiginton et al. (US 2021/0303287 Al).
Per claim 11, the rejection of claim 9 is incorporated.
EL-AZZAMI/Chung/Nallagatla discloses
wherein the constructing the consolidated firmware update image comprises: determining a set of hardware components to be updated based on the detected change; (Chung, [0035-36], management functions including firmware update to the first/second logic circuit. [0027], see DC-SCM)
retrieving, for each of the set of hardware components, a corresponding firmware module; (see above)
and packaging the retrieved firmware modules into the consolidated firmware update image,(Chung, [0035-0036] )
EL-AZZAMI/Chung/Nallagatla does not discloses, however, Wiginton discloses
wherein each firmware module is associated with a header containing information about the firmware module. ([0029], see header and capsule body for firmware update)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of Wiginton into the teachings of Chung to include the limitation disclosed by Wiginton. The modification would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to want to update multiple hardware components with header including information related firmware image containing corresponding firmware update as suggested by Wiginton([0029-30])
Per claim 12, the rejection of claim 11 is incorporated.
EL-AZZAMI/Chung/Nallagatla/Wingiton discloses
wherein the header contains information including at least one of a component type, a version, a payload size, and a flash offset. (Wingiton, [0029-30], see offset )
Claim(s) 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over EL-AZZAMI et al. (US 20250245334 A1), Chung (US 20240303066 A1) and further in view of Nallagatla (7,590,835) and further in view of Shah et al. (US 20230388194 A1)
Per claim 16, the rejection claim 9 is incorporated.
EL-AZZAMI/Chung/Nallagatla does not, however, Shah discloses
wherein the constructing the consolidated firmware update image comprises: retrieving a platform configuration for the modular hardware system from a configuration database; and constructing the consolidated firmware update image based on the retrieved platform configuration. ([0052], discloses build firmware images specific to anticipated platform using standardized SDK corresponding to configuration database.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate the teachings of Shah into the teachings of EL-AZZAMI/Chung/Nallagatla to include the limitation disclosed by Shah. The modification would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to want to firmware to run on the specific platform.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 13-15 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
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
It is noted that any citation [[s]] to specific, pages, columns, lines, or figures in the prior art references and any interpretation of the references should not be considered to be limiting in any way. A reference is relevant for all it contains and may be relied upon for all that it would have reasonably suggested to one having ordinary skill in the art. [[See, MPEP 2123]]
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Philip Wang whose telephone number is 571-272-5934. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday – Friday 8:00AM -4:00PM. Any inquiry of general nature or relating to the status of this application should be directed to the TC2100 Group receptionist: 571-272-2100.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Lewis Bullock, can be reached at 571-272-3759. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/PHILIP WANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2199