DETAILED ACTION
This is the initial Office action based on the preliminary amendment submitted on April 11, 2024.
Claims 1-26 are pending.
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 § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-13 and 26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Claims 1 and 26 are directed to a non-transitory computer readable medium. However, it is noted that the specification explicitly describes such non-transitory computer readable medium as including “A non-transitory storage medium includes any medium for storing or transmitting information in a form readable by a machine (e.g., a computer)” (paragraph [0070], emphasis added). Consequently, the claimed non-transitory computer readable medium can be reasonably interpreted as covering signals per se. Therefore, the claimed non-transitory computer readable medium is ineligible subject matter under § 101.
Claims 2-13 depend on Claim 1, and do not cure the deficiency of Claim 1. Therefore, Claims 2-13 are rejected for the same reason set forth in the rejection of Claim 1.
Claim 26 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
Claim Interpretation: Under the broadest reasonable interpretation (BRI), the limitations of Claim 26 are presumed to have their plain meaning consistent with the specification as it would be interpreted by one of ordinary skill in the art. See MPEP § 2111.
Step 1: Claim 26 is directed to a non-transitory computer readable medium. However, the non-transitory computer readable medium can be construed to cover a transitory form of signal transmission ( often referred to as “signals per se”) and thus, the claim does not fall within one of the statutory categories of invention. However, the claim can be amended to fall within one of the statutory categories of invention.
Step 2A, Prong One: Claim 26 recites the limitations:
determine one or more regular subexpressions for filtering the log data wherein each regular subexpression is contained in at least one regular expression of the set of regular expressions;
These recited steps, under the broadest reasonable interpretation (BRI), cover performance of the steps in the human mind alone or with the aid of pen and paper. That is, other than reciting:
1. At least one non-transitory computer readable medium storing:
2. instructions readable and executable by a first computer to:
These recited steps, under the broadest reasonable interpretation (BRI), cover performance of the steps in the human mind alone or with the aid of pen and paper. That is, the limitations in (a) can be reasonably interpreted as mental processes that can be practically performed in the human mind alone using observation, evaluation, judgment, and opinion or with the aid of pen and paper. For example, the limitation (a) for the determining step, a human can read the given regular expressions using observation, evaluation, judgment, and opinion to determine one or more regular subexpressions for filtering the log data. See MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2)(III).
If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the human mind alone or with the aid of pen and paper but for the recitation of generic computer components, then it falls within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea.
Step 2A, Prong Two: This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claim recites the additional elements:
At least one non-transitory computer readable medium storing:
log data comprising log data strings generated […];
a set of regular expressions for analyzing the log data; and
instructions readable and executable by a first computer to:
filtering the log data by applying the determined regular subexpressions to the log data strings to select a subset of the log data; and
transfer a portion of the log data consisting of only the subset of the log data […] via a local area network (LAN) and/or the Internet.
The additional elements (1) and (4) are recited at a high-level of generality such that they amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the judicial exception using generic computer components. The at least one non-transitory computer readable medium, the medical imaging device, the first computer, and the second computer are used as tools to perform the storing, generating, filtering, transferring and determining steps of the claim. See MPEP § 2106.05(f).
The additional element (2), (3), (5) and (6) are mere data gathering/outputting/transmitting recited at a high level of generality, and thus are insignificant extra-solution activities. See MPEP § 2106.05(g). Furthermore, all uses of the recited judicial exception require such data gathering/outputting/transmitting and, as such, the additional elements do not impose any meaningful limits on the claim. The additional elements amount to necessary data gathering/transmitting. See MPEP § 2106.05.
Accordingly, even when viewed in combination, the additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claim is directed to an abstract idea.
Step 2B: The claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional elements when considered both individually and as a combination do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the claim recites the additional elements:
At least one non-transitory computer readable medium storing:
log data comprising log data strings generated […];
a set of regular expressions for analyzing the log data; and
instructions readable and executable by a first computer to:
filtering the log data by applying the determined regular subexpressions to the log data strings to select a subset of the log data; and
transfer a portion of the log data consisting of only the subset of the log data […] via a local area network (LAN) and/or the Internet.
The additional elements (1) and (4) amount to no more than mere instructions to apply the judicial exception using generic computer components. Mere instructions to apply a judicial exception using generic computer components cannot provide an inventive concept.
The additional element (2), (3), (5) and (6) simply append well-understood, routine, and conventional activities previously known to the industry, specified at a high level of generality, to the judicial exception is not indicative of an inventive concept. MPEP § 2106.05(d)(II) expressly states that the courts have recognized the computer functions of receiving or transmitting data over a network, e.g., using the Internet to gather data as well‐understood, routine, and conventional computer functions when they are claimed in a merely generic manner (e.g., at a high level of generality) or as an insignificant extra-solution activity. Thus, a person of ordinary skill in the art would readily comprehend that it is well-understood, routine, and conventional in the computing art to gathering log data and a set of regular expressions, filtering the log data, transferring the portion of the log data to analyze the log data. Therefore, the limitation remains insignificant extra-solution activity even upon reconsideration and does not amount to significantly more.
Thus, taken alone, the additional elements do not amount to significantly more than the above-identified judicial exception (the abstract idea). Looking at the additional elements as a combination adds nothing that is not already present when looking at the additional elements taken individually. Even when considered in combination, the additional elements represent mere instructions to apply a judicial exception using generic computer components, and insignificant extra-solution activities and therefore do not provide an inventive concept. The claim is not patent eligible.
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 1-5, 21, 22 and 24-25 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20180046529 (hereinafter “TOGAWA”) in view of US 20210012891 (hereinafter “PATIL”), and further in view of US 20180165173 (hereinafter “Lin”).
As per Claim 1, TOGAWA discloses:
At least one non-transitory computer readable medium storing:
log data comprising log data strings […] (Paragraph [0140], “For example, in order to determine the similarity, the abnormal pattern generation unit 71 compares the character string included in the log message using a value such as an edit distance [log data comprising log data strings […]] (emphasis added).”;
a set of regular expressions for analyzing the log data (Paragraph [0105], “When the structural pattern of the log message group included in the input log file matches the normal pattern (Yes in step S3), the normal analysis unit 51 outputs to the result output unit 91 an analysis result indicating that the inputted log is normal (FIG. 6: step S9 is subsequently performed) (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0163], “A log message may be defined as it is, or it may be defined using regular expression or the like [a set of regular expressions for analyzing the log data] (emphasis added).”; and
apply regular subexpressions of the set of regular expressions to the log data strings to select a subset of the log data […] (Paragraph [0105], “When the structural pattern of the log message group included in the input log file matches the normal pattern (Yes in step S3), the normal analysis unit 51 outputs to the result output unit 91 an analysis result indicating that the inputted log is normal (FIG. 6: step S9 is subsequently performed) (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0140], “For example, in order to determine the similarity, the abnormal pattern generation unit 71 compares the character string included in the log message using a value such as an edit distance (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0108], “More specifically, the normal analysis unit 51 transmits to the abnormality analysis unit 52 the log not satisfying all the elements contained in the normal pattern within the prescribed time as an abnormality log (step S4 is subsequently performed) [apply regular subexpressions of the set of regular expressions to the log data strings to select a subset of the log data, wherein each regular subexpression is defined by a string that is contained in at least one regular expression of the set of regular expressions] (emphasis added).”; and
transfer a portion of the log data consisting of only the subset of the log data to […] (Paragraph [0108], “More specifically, the normal analysis unit 51 transmits to the abnormality analysis unit 52 the log not satisfying all the elements contained in the normal pattern within the prescribed time as an abnormality log (step S4 is subsequently performed) [transfer a portion of the log data consisting of only the subset of the log data to […]] (emphasis added).”;
TOGAWA does not explicitly disclose:
[…] generated by a medical imaging device;
[…] a second computer via a local area network (LAN) and/or the Internet.
[…] wherein each regular subexpression is defined by a string that is contained in at least one regular expression of the set of regular expressions.
However, PATIL discloses:
[…] generated by a medical imaging device ([Abstract], “The operating parameter ranges are formulated into decision rules (36) which are applied to log data ( 40) generated by a monitored medical imaging device [[…] generated by a medical imaging device] (emphasis added).”;
TOGAWA is within the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention regarding a log analysis system, a log analysis method, and a program recording medium analyzing a log that is output by an information processing system. PATIL is within the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention regarding the medical imaging device maintenance arts, device monitoring arts, predictive maintenance arts, and related arts. Thus, TOGAWA and PATIL are analogous art to the claimed invention.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of PATIL into the teaching of TOGAWA to include “[…] generated by a medical imaging device”. The modification would be obvious because one of the ordinary skills in the art would be motivated to perform prediction by using log data from medical imaging devices (PATIL, paragraph [0004]).
The combination of TOGAWA and PATIL does not explicitly disclose:
instructions readable and executable by a first computer to:
[…] wherein each regular subexpression is defined by a string that is contained in at least one regular expression of the set of regular expressions.
[…] a second computer via a local area network (LAN) and/or the Internet.
However, Lin discloses:
instructions readable and executable by a first computer to (Paragraph [0047], “Software is essentially a sequence of encoded symbols, such as a printout of a computer program or digitally encoded computer instructions sequentially stored in a file on an optical disk or within an electromechanical mass-storage device [instructions readable and executable by a first computer to] (emphasis added).”:
[…] wherein each regular subexpression is defined by a string that is contained in at least one regular expression of the set of regular expressions (Paragraph [0107], “This initial regular expression includes the literal strings for the two common substrings and regular-expression sub-expressions “(.*) for the variable portions of the event messages [[…] wherein each regular subexpression is defined by a string that is contained in at least one regular expression of the set of regular expressions] (emphasis added).”.
[…] a second computer via a local area network (LAN) and/or the Internet (Paragraph [0062], “The physical data center additionally includes generally large numbers of server computers, such as server computer 710, that are coupled together by local area networks, such as local area network 712 that directly interconnects server computer 710 and 714-720 and a mass-storage array 722 (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0070], “Event messages may be relatively directly transmitted from a component within a discrete computer system to the administration computer or may be collected at various hierarchical levels within a discrete computer and then forwarded from an event-message-collecting entity within the discrete computer to the administration computer. [[…] a second computer via a local area network (LAN) and/or the Internet] (emphasis added).”;
Lin is within the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention regarding methods and systems that process, classify, efficiently store, and display large volumes of event messages generated in modern computing systems. Thus, Lin is analogous art to the claimed invention.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Lin into the combined teachings of TOGAWA and PATIL to include “instructions readable and executable by a first computer to […] wherein each regular subexpression is defined by a string that is contained in at least one regular expression of the set of regular expressions. […] a second computer via a local area network (LAN) and/or the Internet.” The modification would be obvious because one of the ordinary skills in the art would be motivated to allow data to be transmitted within a distributed computing system by using a local area network (Lin, paragraph [0054]).
As per Claim 2, the rejection of Claim 1 is incorporated; and the combination of TOGAWA and PATIL does not explicitly disclose:
wherein each regular subexpression of the set of regular expressions is defined by a string that is contained in at least two regular expressions of the set of regular expressions.
However, Lin discloses:
wherein each regular subexpression of the set of regular expressions is defined by a string that is contained in at least two regular expressions of the set of regular expressions (Paragraph [0107], “This initial regular expression includes the literal strings for the two common substrings and regular-expression sub-expressions “(.*) for the variable portions of the event messages [wherein each regular subexpression of the set of regular expressions is defined by a string that is contained in at least two regular expressions of the set of regular expressions] (emphasis added).”;
Lin is within the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention regarding methods and systems that process, classify, efficiently store, and display large volumes of event messages generated in modern computing systems. Thus, Lin is analogous art to the claimed invention.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Lin into the combined teachings of TOGAWA and PATIL to include “wherein each regular subexpression of the set of regular expressions is defined by a string that is contained in at least two regular expressions of the set of regular expressions.” The modification would be obvious because one of the ordinary skills in the art would be motivated to reduce the search time by using complex regular expression.
As per Claim 3, the rejection of Claim 1 is incorporated; and TOGAWA discloses “the set of regular expression defined” but the combination of TOGAWA and Lin does not explicitly disclose:
wherein […] one or more failure prediction models for predicting time to failure for one or more components of the medical imaging device.
However, PATIL discloses:
wherein […] one or more failure prediction models for predicting time to failure for one or more components of the medical imaging device (Paragraph [0003], “Predictive maintenance is an important part of minimizing downtime of medical imaging devices. This approach entails predicting and proactively repairing or otherwise remediating possible failures of medical imaging device components in advance based on the machine logs and usage history [wherein […] define one or more failure prediction models for predicting time to failure for one or more components of the medical imaging device] (emphasis added).”.
PATIL is within the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention regarding the medical imaging device maintenance arts, device monitoring arts, predictive maintenance arts, and related arts. Thus, PATIL are analogous art to the claimed invention.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of PATIL into the combined teachings of TOGAWA and Lin to include “wherein […] one or more failure prediction models for predicting time to failure for one or more components of the medical imaging device”. The modification would be obvious because one of the ordinary skills in the art would be motivated to perform prediction by using log data from medical imaging devices (PATIL, paragraph [0004]).
As per Claim 4, the rejection of Claim 1 is incorporated; and the combination of Lin and PATIL discloses “the second computer” and TOGAWA further discloses:
further storing instructions readable and executable […] to analyze the transferred portion of the log data using the set of regular expressions
(Paragraph [0108], “More specifically, the normal analysis unit 51 transmits to the abnormality analysis unit 52 the log not satisfying all the elements contained in the normal pattern within the prescribed time as an abnormality log (step S4 is subsequently performed) (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0120], “Subsequently, the abnormality analysis unit 52 analyzes the abnormality log received from the normal analysis unit 51 (FIG. 6: step S4). [further storing instructions readable and executable […] to analyze the transferred portion of the log data using the set of regular expressions] (emphasis added).”;
As per Claim 5, the rejection of Claim 1 is incorporated; and the combination of Lin and PATIL discloses “the second computer”, and TOGAWA further discloses:
instructions readable and executable by […] to:
apply further regular subexpressions of a second set of regular subexpressions to the log data strings to select a subset of the subset of the log data, […] (Paragraph [0105], “When the structural pattern of the log message group included in the input log file matches the normal pattern (Yes in step S3), the normal analysis unit 51 outputs to the result output unit 91 an analysis result indicating that the inputted log is normal (FIG. 6: step S9 is subsequently performed) (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0140], “For example, in order to determine the similarity, the abnormal pattern generation unit 71 compares the character string included in the log message using a value such as an edit distance (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0108], “More specifically, the normal analysis unit 51 transmits to the abnormality analysis unit 52 the log not satisfying all the elements contained in the normal pattern within the prescribed time as an abnormality log (step S4 is subsequently performed) [instructions readable and executable by […] to: apply further regular subexpressions of a second set of regular subexpressions to the log data strings to select a subset of the subset of the log data, wherein each further regular subexpression is defined by a string that is contained in at least one regular expression of the set of regular expressions] (emphasis added).”; and
transfer a portion of the subset of the log data consisting of only of the subset of the subset of the log data to […] (Paragraph [0108], “More specifically, the normal analysis unit 51 transmits to the abnormality analysis unit 52 the log not satisfying all the elements contained in the normal pattern within the prescribed time as an abnormality log (step S4 is subsequently performed) [transfer a portion of the subset of the log data consisting of only of the subset of the subset of the log data to […]] (emphasis added).”;
instructions readable and executable by […] to analyze the transferred portion of the subset of the log data using the set of regular expressions ( Paragraph [0108], “More specifically, the normal analysis unit 51 transmits to the abnormality analysis unit 52 the log not satisfying all the elements contained in the normal pattern within the prescribed time as an abnormality log (step S4 is subsequently performed) (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0120], “Subsequently, the abnormality analysis unit 52 analyzes the abnormality log received from the normal analysis unit 51 (FIG. 6: step S4) [instructions readable and executable by […] to analyze the transferred portion of the subset of the log data using the set of regular expressions] (emphasis added).”;
The combination of TOGAWA and PATIL does not explicitly disclose:
[…] wherein each further regular subexpression is defined by a string that is contained in at least one regular expression of the set of regular expressions.
[…] a third computer via a local area network (LAN) and/or the Internet.
[…] the third computer […].
However, Lin discloses:
[…] wherein each further regular subexpression is defined by a string that is contained in at least one regular expression of the set of regular expressions (Paragraph [0107], “This initial regular expression includes the literal strings for the two common substrings and regular-expression sub-expressions “(.*) for the variable portions of the event messages [[…] wherein each further regular subexpression is defined by a string that is contained in at least one regular expression of the set of regular expressions] (emphasis added).”.
[…] a third computer via a local area network (LAN) and/or the Internet (Paragraph [0062], “The physical data center additionally includes generally large numbers of server computers, such as server computer 710, that are coupled together by local area networks, such as local area network 712 that directly interconnects server computer 710 and 714-720 and a mass-storage array 722 (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0070], “Event messages may be relatively directly transmitted from a component within a discrete computer system to the administration computer or may be collected at various hierarchical levels within a discrete computer and then forwarded from an event-message-collecting entity within the discrete computer to the administration computer. [[…] a third computer via a local area network (LAN) and/or the Internet] (emphasis added).”;
[…] the third computer […] ( Paragraph [0070], “The physical data center additionally includes generally large numbers of server computers, such as server computer 710, that are coupled together by local area networks, such as local area network 712 that directly interconnects server computer 710 and 714-720 and a mass-storage array 722 [[…] the third computer […]] (emphasis added).”;
Lin is within the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention regarding methods and systems that process, classify, efficiently store, and display large volumes of event messages generated in modern computing systems. Thus, Lin is analogous art to the claimed invention.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Lin into the combined teachings of TOGAWA and PATIL to include “[…] wherein each further regular subexpression is defined by a string that is contained in at least one regular expression of the set of regular expressions. […] a third computer via a local area network (LAN) and/or the Internet. […] the third computer […];” The modification would be obvious because one of the ordinary skills in the art would be motivated to allow data to be transmitted within a distributed computing system by using a local area network (Lin, paragraph [0054]).
As per Claim 21, TOGAWA discloses:
A distributed computing system, comprising:
[…] to select a subset of the log data of the […] and transfer the subset of the log data to […] (Paragraph [0108], “More specifically, the normal analysis unit 51 transmits to the abnormality analysis unit 52 the log not satisfying all the elements contained in the normal pattern within the prescribed time as an abnormality log (step S4 is subsequently performed) [[…] to select a subset of the log data of the […] and transfer the subset of the log data to […]] (emphasis added).”;
[…] to transfer at least a portion of the subset of log data […] (Paragraph [0108], “More specifically, the normal analysis unit 51 transmits to the abnormality analysis unit 52 the log not satisfying all the elements contained in the normal pattern within the prescribed time as an abnormality log (step S4 is subsequently performed) [[…] to transfer at least a portion of the subset of log data […]] (emphasis added).”, and
[…] to analyze the log data received […] (Paragraph [0120], “Subsequently, the abnormality analysis unit 52 analyzes the abnormality log received from the normal analysis unit 51 (FIG. 6: step S4) [[…] to analyze the log data received […]] (emphasis added).”;
TOGAWA does not explicitly disclose:
a fleet of medical imaging devices generating respective log files; and
a hierarchical computer network comprising a plurality of local computers each associated with at least one medical imaging device of the fleet, a plurality of node computers, and a top-level computer, wherein:
each local computer is programmed to […],
at least one medical imaging device associated with that local computer […] a node computer of the plurality of node computers,
the plurality of node computers is programmed […] received from each local computer to the top-level computer,
the top-level computer is programmed to […] received from the plurality of node computers.
However, PATIl discloses:
a fleet of medical imaging devices generating respective log files (Paragraph [0108], “Monitoring of the monitored medical imaging device 2 leverages machine logs 40 which are commonly generated by medical imaging devices [a fleet of medical imaging devices generating respective log files] (emphasis added).”; and
[…] at least one medical imaging device of the fleet […] (Paragraph [0108], “Monitoring of the monitored medical imaging device 2 leverages machine logs 40 which are commonly generated by medical imaging devices [[…] at least one medical imaging device of the fleet […]] (emphasis added).”;
at least one medical imaging device associated with that local computer […] (Paragraph [0029], “[…] and a monitor interface device 14 which, in the illustrative embodiment, is embodied by a computer 16 that serves as a medical imaging device controller 14 for controlling the monitored medical imaging device [at least one medical imaging device associated with that local computer […]] (emphasis added).”;
PATIL is within the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention regarding the medical imaging device maintenance arts, device monitoring arts, predictive maintenance arts, and related arts. Thus, PATIL is an analogous art to the claimed invention.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of PATIL into the teaching of TOGAWA to include “a fleet of medical imaging devices generating respective log files; and […] at least one medical imaging device associated with that local computer […]”. The modification would be obvious because one of the ordinary skills in the art would be motivated to perform prediction by using log data from medical imaging devices (PATIL, paragraph [0004]).
The combination of TOGAWA and PATIL does not explicitly disclose:
a hierarchical computer network comprising a plurality of local computers each associated with […] a plurality of node computers, and a top-level computer, wherein:
each local computer is programmed to […],
[…] a node computer of the plurality of node computers,
the plurality of node computers is programmed […] received from each local computer to the top-level computer,
the top-level computer is programmed to […] received from the plurality of node computers.
However, Lin discloses:
a hierarchical computer network comprising a plurality of local computers each associated with […] a plurality of node computers, and a top-level computer (Paragraph [0062], “The physical data center additionally includes generally large numbers of server computers, such as server computer 710, that are coupled together by local area networks, such as local area network 712 that directly interconnects server computer 710 and 714-720 and a mass-storage array 722 (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0070], “Event messages may be relatively directly transmitted from a component within a discrete computer system to the administration computer or may be collected at various hierarchical levels within a discrete computer and then forwarded from an event-message-collecting entity within the discrete computer to the administration computer [a hierarchical computer network comprising a plurality of local computers each associated with […] a plurality of node computers, and a top-level computer] (emphasis added).”, wherein:
each local computer is programmed to […] (Paragraph [0049], “However, computer systems generally execute stored programs by fetching instructions from memory and executing the instructions in one or more processors [each local computer is programmed to […]] (emphasis added).”,
[…] a node computer of the plurality of node computers (Paragraph [0062], “The physical data center additionally includes generally large numbers of server computers, such as server computer 710, that are coupled together by local area networks, such as local area network 712 that directly interconnects server computer 710 and 714-720 and a mass-storage array 722 [[…] a node computer of the plurality of node computers] (emphasis added).”,
the plurality of node computers is programmed […] received from each local computer to the top-level computer (Paragraph [0049], “However, computer systems generally execute stored programs by fetching instructions from memory and executing the instructions in one or more processors (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0070], “Event messages may be relatively directly transmitted from a component within a discrete computer system to the administration computer or may be collected at various hierarchical levels within a discrete computer and then forwarded from an event-message-collecting entity within the discrete computer to the administration computer [the plurality of node computers is programmed […] received from each local computer to the top-level computer] (emphasis added).”,
the top-level computer is programmed to […] received from the plurality of node computers (Paragraph [0049], “However, computer systems generally execute stored programs by fetching instructions from memory and executing the instructions in one or more processors (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0070], “Event messages may be relatively directly transmitted from a component within a discrete computer system to the administration computer or may be collected at various hierarchical levels within a discrete computer and then forwarded from an event-message-collecting entity within the discrete computer to the administration computer. The administration computer 1112 may filter and analyze the received event messages, as they are received [the top-level computer is programmed to […] received from the plurality of node computers] (emphasis added).”.
Lin is within the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention regarding methods and systems that process, classify, efficiently store, and display large volumes of event messages generated in modern computing systems. Thus, Lin is analogous art to the claimed invention.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Lin into the combined teachings of TOGAWA and PATIL to include “a hierarchical computer network comprising a plurality of local computers each associated with […] a plurality of node computers, and a top-level computer, wherein: each local computer is programmed to […], […] a node computer of the plurality of node computers, the plurality of node computers is programmed […] received from each local computer to the top-level computer; the top-level computer is programmed to […] received from the plurality of node computers.” The modification would be obvious because one of the ordinary skills in the art would be motivated to allow data to be transmitted within a distributed computing system by using a local area network (Lin, paragraph [0054]).
As per Claim 22, the rejection of Claim 21 is incorporated; and the combination of Lin and PATIL discloses “each local computer is programmed” and TOGAWA further discloses:
wherein […] to select the subset of the log data by operations including applying regular expressions to the log data (Paragraph [0108], “More specifically, the normal analysis unit 51 transmits to the abnormality analysis unit 52 the log not satisfying all the elements contained in the normal pattern within the prescribed time as an abnormality log (step S4 is subsequently performed) [wherein […] to select the subset of the log data by operations including applying regular expressions to the log data] (emphasis added).”;
As per Claim 24, the rejection of Claim 21 is incorporated; and Lin discloses “wherein each local computer is programmed” and TOGAWA further discloses:
[…] select the subset of the log data […] over a predefined time window (Paragraph [0108], “More specifically, the normal analysis unit 51 transmits to the abnormality analysis unit 52 the log not satisfying all the elements contained in the normal pattern within the prescribed time as an abnormality log (step S4 is subsequently performed) (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0137], “For example, it may be determined that, if a time (hereinafter referred to as a determination time) is specified as the determination condition, the unknown log existing within the range of the determination time ( also referred to as a third time) from the occurrence time of the incomplete log is included in the second unknown log. [[…] select the subset of the log data […] over a predefined time window] (emphasis added).”;
The combination of TOGAWA and Lin does not explicitly disclose:
[…] downtime of at least one medical imaging device […].
However, PATIL discloses:
[…] downtime of at least one medical imaging device […] (Paragraph [0002], “Any downtime of these devices results in a loss of revenue to the medical institution, loss of quality treatment for patients, and introduces delays into patient treatment. Emphasis is thus placed on minimizing the downtime of medical imaging devices and ensuring uninterrupted operational status while maintaining quality of performance (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0003], “Predictive maintenance is an important part of minimizing downtime of medical imaging devices. This approach entails predicting and proactively repairing or otherwise remediating possible failures of medical imaging device components in advance based on the machine logs and usage history [[…] downtime of at least one medical imaging device […]] (emphasis added).”.
PATIL is within the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention regarding the medical imaging device maintenance arts, device monitoring arts, predictive maintenance arts, and related arts. Thus, PATIL are analogous art to the claimed invention.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of PATIL into the combined teachings of TOGAWA and Lin to include “[…] downtime of at least one medical imaging device […]”. The modification would be obvious because one of the ordinary skills in the art would be motivated to perform prediction by using log data from medical imaging devices (PATIL, paragraph [0004]).
As per Claim 25, the rejection of Claim 21 is incorporated; and Lin discloses “wherein each local computer is programmed” and TOGAWA further discloses:
[…] select the subset of the log data […] (Paragraph [0108], “More specifically, the normal analysis unit 51 transmits to the abnormality analysis unit 52 the log not satisfying all the elements contained in the normal pattern within the prescribed time as an abnormality log (step S4 is subsequently performed) [ […] select the subset of the log data […]] (emphasis added).”.
The combination of TOGAWA and Lin does not explicitly disclose:
[…] an estimated time to failure of a component of at least one medical imaging device.
However, PATIL discloses:
[…] an estimated time to failure of a component of at least one medical imaging device (Paragraph [0003], “Predictive maintenance is an important part of minimizing downtime of medical imaging devices. This approach entails predicting and proactively repairing or otherwise remediating possible failures of medical imaging device components in advance based on the machine logs and usage history [[…] an estimated time to failure of a component of at least one medical imaging device] (emphasis added).”.
PATIL is within the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention regarding the medical imaging device maintenance arts, device monitoring arts, predictive maintenance arts, and related arts. Thus, PATIL are analogous art to the claimed invention.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of PATIL into the combined teachings of TOGAWA and Lin to include “[…] an estimated time to failure of a component of at least one medical imaging device”. The modification would be obvious because one of the ordinary skills in the art would be motivated to perform prediction by using log data from medical imaging devices (PATIL, paragraph [0004]).
Claims 14-17 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over TOGAWA in view of Lin.
As per Claim 14, TOGAWA discloses:
A distributed computing method, comprising:
[…] applying regular subexpressions of a set of regular subexpressions to strings of a dataset comprising data strings to select a subset of the dataset (Paragraph [0105], “When the structural pattern of the log message group included in the input log file matches the normal pattern (Yes in step S3), the normal analysis unit 51 outputs to the result output unit 91 an analysis result indicating that the inputted log is normal (FIG. 6: step S9 is subsequently performed) (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0108], “More specifically, the normal analysis unit 51 transmits to the abnormality analysis unit 52 the log not satisfying all the elements contained in the normal pattern within the prescribed time as an abnormality log (step S4 is subsequently performed) (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0140], “For example, in order to determine the similarity, the abnormal pattern generation unit 71 compares the character string included in the log message using a value such as an edit distance [ […] applying regular subexpressions of a set of regular subexpressions to strings of a dataset comprising data strings to select a subset of the dataset] (emphasis added).”; and
transferring only the subset of the dataset to […] (Paragraph [0108], “More specifically, the normal analysis unit 51 transmits to the abnormality analysis unit 52 the log not satisfying all the elements contained in the normal pattern within the prescribed time as an abnormality log (step S4 is subsequently performed) [transferring only the subset of the dataset to […]] (emphasis added).”;
TOGAWA does not explicitly disclose:
using a first computer, […];
[…] a second computer via a local area network (LAN) and/or the Internet;
wherein each regular subexpression of the set of regular subexpressions is defined by a string that is contained in at least one regular expression of a set of regular expressions.
However, Lin discloses:
using a first computer, […] (Paragraph [0070], “The administration computer 1112 may filter and analyze the received event messages, as they are received, in order to detect various operational anomalies and impending failure conditions. In addition, the administration computer collects and stores the received event messages in a data-storage device or appliance 1118 as large event-message log files 1120 [using a first computer, […]] (emphasis added).”;
[…] a second computer via a local area network (LAN) and/or the Internet (Paragraph [0062], “The physical data center additionally includes generally large numbers of server computers, such as server computer 710, that are coupled together by local area networks, such as local area network 712 that directly interconnects server computer 710 and 714-720 and a mass-storage array 722 (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0070], “Event messages may be relatively directly transmitted from a component within a discrete computer system to the administration computer or may be collected at various hierarchical levels within a discrete computer and then forwarded from an event-message-collecting entity within the discrete computer to the administration computer. [[…] a second computer via a local area network (LAN) and/or the Internet] (emphasis added).”;
wherein each regular subexpression of the set of regular subexpressions is defined by a string that is contained in at least one regular expression of a set of regular expressions (Paragraph [0107], “This initial regular expression includes the literal strings for the two common substrings and regular-expression sub-expressions “(.*) for the variable portions of the event messages [wherein each regular subexpression of the set of regular subexpressions is defined by a string that is contained in at least one regular expression of a set of regular expressions] (emphasis added).”.
Lin is within the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention regarding methods and systems that process, classify, efficiently store, and display large volumes of event messages generated in modern computing systems. Thus, Lin is analogous art to the claimed invention.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Lin into the teaching of TOGAWA to include “using a first computer, […]; […] a second computer via a local area network (LAN) and/or the Internet; wherein each regular subexpression of the set of regular subexpressions is defined by a string that is contained in at least one regular expression of a set of regular expressions.” The modification would be obvious because one of the ordinary skills in the art would be motivated to allow data to be transmitted within a distributed computing system by using a local area network (Lin, paragraph [0054]).
As per claim 15, the rejection of Claim 14 is incorporated; and TOGAWA does not explicitly disclose:
wherein each regular subexpression of the set of regular expressions is defined by a string that is contained in at least two regular expressions of the set of regular expressions.
However, Lin discloses:
wherein each regular subexpression of the set of regular expressions is defined by a string that is contained in at least two regular expressions of the set of regular expressions (Paragraph [0107], “This initial regular expression includes the literal strings for the two common substrings and regular-expression sub-expressions “(.*) for the variable portions of the event messages [wherein each regular subexpression of the set of regular expressions is defined by a string that is contained in at least two regular expressions of the set of regular expressions] (emphasis added).”;
Lin is within the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention regarding methods and systems that process, classify, efficiently store, and display large volumes of event messages generated in modern computing systems. Thus, Lin is analogous art to the claimed invention.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Lin into the teaching of TOGAWA to include “wherein each regular subexpression of the set of regular expressions is defined by a string that is contained in at least two regular expressions of the set of regular expressions.” The modification would be obvious because one of the ordinary skills in the art would be motivated to reduce the search time by using complex regular expression.
As per Claim 16, the rejection of Claim 14 is incorporated; and TOGAWA further discloses:
[…] analyzing the transferred subset of the dataset using the set of regular expressions (Paragraph [0108], “More specifically, the normal analysis unit 51 transmits to the abnormality analysis unit 52 the log not satisfying all the elements contained in the normal pattern within the prescribed time as an abnormality log (step S4 is subsequently performed) (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0120], “Subsequently, the abnormality analysis unit 52 analyzes the abnormality log received from the normal analysis unit 51 (FIG. 6: step S4) [[…] analyzing the transferred subset of the dataset using the set of regular expressions] (emphasis added).”.
TOGAWA does not explicitly disclose:
using the second computer, […].
However, Lin discloses:
using a second computer, […] (Paragraph [0070], “The administration computer 1112 may filter and analyze the received event messages, as they are received, in order to detect various operational anomalies and impending failure conditions. In addition, the administration computer collects and stores the received event messages in a data-storage device or appliance 1118 as large event-message log files 1120 [using a second computer, […]] (emphasis added).”.
Lin is within the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention regarding methods and systems that process, classify, efficiently store, and display large volumes of event messages generated in modern computing systems. Thus, Lin is analogous art to the claimed invention.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Lin into the teaching of TOGAWA to include “using the second computer, […]” The modification would be obvious because one of the ordinary skills in the art would be motivated to allow data to be transmitted within a distributed computing system by using a local area network (Lin, paragraph [0054]).
As per Claim 17, the rejection of Claim 14 is incorporated; and TOGAWA further discloses:
[…], applying further regular subexpressions of a second set of regular subexpressions to the strings of the subset of the dataset to select a subset of the subset of the dataset […] (Paragraph [0105], “When the structural pattern of the log message group included in the input log file matches the normal pattern (Yes in step S3), the normal analysis unit 51 outputs to the result output unit 91 an analysis result indicating that the inputted log is normal (FIG. 6: step S9 is subsequently performed) (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0140], “For example, in order to determine the similarity, the abnormal pattern generation unit 71 compares the character string included in the log message using a value such as an edit distance (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0108], “More specifically, the normal analysis unit 51 transmits to the abnormality analysis unit 52 the log not satisfying all the elements contained in the normal pattern within the prescribed time as an abnormality log (step S4 is subsequently performed) [[…] applying further regular subexpressions of a second set of regular subexpressions to the strings of the subset of the dataset to select a subset of the subset of the dataset […]] (emphasis added).”;
transfer the subset of the subset of the dataset […] (Paragraph [0108], “More specifically, the normal analysis unit 51 transmits to the abnormality analysis unit 52 the log not satisfying all the elements contained in the normal pattern within the prescribed time as an abnormality log (step S4 is subsequently performed) [transfer the subset of the subset of the dataset […]] (emphasis added).”;
[…] analyzing the transferred subset of the subset of the dataset using the set of regular expressions (Paragraph [0108], “More specifically, the normal analysis unit 51 transmits to the abnormality analysis unit 52 the log not satisfying all the elements contained in the normal pattern within the prescribed time as an abnormality log (step S4 is subsequently performed) (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0120], “Subsequently, the abnormality analysis unit 52 analyzes the abnormality log received from the normal analysis unit 51 (FIG. 6: step S4) [[…] analyzing the transferred subset of the subset of the dataset using the set of regular expressions] (emphasis added).”.
TOGAWA does not explicitly disclose:
using the second computer, […];
[…] wherein each further regular subexpression is defined by a string that is contained in at least one regular expression of the set of regular expressions;
[…] from the second computer to a third computer via a local area network (LAN) and/or the Internet.
using the third computer, […];
However, Lin discloses:
using the second computer […] (Paragraph [0070], “The administration computer 1112 may filter and analyze the received event messages, as they are received, in order to detect various operational anomalies and impending failure conditions. In addition, the administration computer collects and stores the received event messages in a data-storage device or appliance 1118 as large event-message log files 1120 [using the second computer, […]] (emphasis added).”;
[…] wherein each further regular subexpression is defined by a string that is contained in at least one regular expression of the set of regular expressions (Paragraph [0107], “This initial regular expression includes the literal strings for the two common substrings and regular-expression sub-expressions “(.*) for the variable portions of the event messages [[…] wherein each further regular subexpression is defined by a string that is contained in at least one regular expression of the set of regular expressions] (emphasis added).”.
[…] from the second computer to a third computer via a local area network (LAN) and/or the Internet (Paragraph [0062], “The physical data center additionally includes generally large numbers of server computers, such as server computer 710, that are coupled together by local area networks, such as local area network 712 that directly interconnects server computer 710 and 714-720 and a mass-storage array 722 (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0070], “Event messages may be relatively directly transmitted from a component within a discrete computer system to the administration computer or may be collected at various hierarchical levels within a discrete computer and then forwarded from an event-message-collecting entity within the discrete computer to the administration computer. [[…] from the second computer to a third computer via a local area network (LAN) and/or the Internet] (emphasis added).”;
using the third computer, […] (Paragraph [0070], “The administration computer 1112 may filter and analyze the received event messages, as they are received, in order to detect various operational anomalies and impending failure conditions. In addition, the administration computer collects and stores the received event messages in a data-storage device or appliance 1118 as large event-message log files 1120 [using the third computer, […]] (emphasis added).”;
Lin is within the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention regarding methods and systems that process, classify, efficiently store, and display large volumes of event messages generated in modern computing systems. Thus, Lin is analogous art to the claimed invention.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Lin into the teaching of TOGAWA to include “using the second computer, […]; […] wherein each further regular subexpression is defined by a string that is contained in at least one regular expression of the set of regular expressions; […] from the second computer to a third computer via a local area network (LAN) and/or the Internet. using the third computer, […]” The modification would be obvious because one of the ordinary skills in the art would be motivated to allow data to be transmitted within a distributed computing system by using a local area network (Lin, paragraph [0054]).
As per Claim 19, the rejection of Claim 14 is incorporated; and TOGAWA further discloses:
wherein the dataset comprises a log file of a computerized machine comprising log data strings generated by the computerized machine (Paragraph [0065], “The log analysis system 11 acquires a log file 101 (hereinafter simply referred to as a log file) output from an information processing system (not shown), and analyzes a log message (also referred to as a log record) included in the log file (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0140], “For example, in order to determine the similarity, the abnormal pattern generation unit 71 compares the character string included in the log message using a value such as an edit distance [wherein the dataset comprises a log file of a computerized machine comprising log data strings generated by the computerized machine] (emphasis added).”.
Claim 20 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over TOGAWA in view of Lin as applied to claim 19 above, and further in view of PATIL.
As per Claim 20, the rejection of Claim 19 is incorporated; and TOGAWA discloses “the set of regular expressions” , and TOGAWA further discloses:
[…] the computerized machine ( (Paragraph [0065], “The log analysis system 11 acquires a log file 101 (hereinafter simply referred to as a log file) output from an information processing system (not shown), and analyzes a log message (also referred to as a log record) included in the log file [[…] the computerized machine] (emphasis added).”;
The combination of TOGAWA and Lin does not explicitly disclose:
wherein the set of regular expressions define one or more failure prediction models for predicting time to failure for one or more components of the computerized machine.
However, PATIL discloses:
[…] define one or more failure prediction models for predicting time to failure for one or more components […] (Paragraph [0003], “Predictive maintenance is an important part of minimizing downtime of medical imaging devices. This approach entails predicting and proactively repairing or otherwise remediating possible failures of medical imaging device components in advance based on the machine logs and usage history [[…] define one or more failure prediction models for predicting time to failure for one or more components […]] (emphasis added).”.
PATIL is within the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention regarding the medical imaging device maintenance arts, device monitoring arts, predictive maintenance arts, and related arts. Thus, PATIL are analogous art to the claimed invention.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of PATIL into the combined teachings of TOGAWA and Lin to include “[…] define one or more failure prediction models for predicting time to failure for one or more components […]”. The modification would be obvious because one of the ordinary skills in the art would be motivated to perform prediction by using log data from medical imaging devices (PATIL, paragraph [0004]).
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over TOGAWA in view of PATIL and Lin as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of US 10698756 (hereinafter “Abdelsalam”).
As per Claim 6, the rejection of Claim 1 is incorporated; and Lin discloses “the second computer” and “second computer via the LAN and/or the Internet”, and TOWAGA further discloses:
after the transfer of the portion of the log data consisting of only the subset of the log data to […] is complete, […] (Paragraph [0108], “More specifically, the normal analysis unit 51 transmits to the abnormality analysis unit 52 the log not satisfying all the elements contained in the normal pattern within the prescribed time as an abnormality log (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0120], “Subsequently, the abnormality analysis unit 52 analyzes the abnormality log received from the normal analysis unit 51 (FIG. 6: step S4) (step S4 is subsequently performed) [after the transfer of the portion of the log data consisting of only the subset of the log data to […] is complete, […]] (emphasis added).”.
The combination of TOGAWA, PATIL and Lin does not explicitly disclose:
transfer a remainder of the log data not including the subset of the log data […].
However, Abdelsalam discloses:
transfer a remainder of the log data not including the subset of the log data […] (col.9, lines 9 – 11, “In block 110, after filtering out any secure or confidential information, the Host 102 records the remaining event data 10 in one or more log files to be transmitted to the log pipeline [transfer a remainder of the log data not including the subset of the log data […]] (emphasis added).”.
Abdelsalam is within the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention regarding a system with an interactive user interface for users to view and interact with sanitized log data received from a plurality of hosts. Thus, Abdelsalam is an analogous art to the claimed invention.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Abdelsalam into the combined teachings of TOGAWA, PATIL and Lin to include “transfer a remainder of the log data not including the subset of the log data […]”. The modification would be obvious because one of the ordinary skills in the art would be motivated to improve the analysis process by transferring log data.
Claim 18 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over TOGAWA in view of Lin as applied to claim 14 above, and further in view of Abdelsalam.
As per Claim 18, the rejection of Claim 14 is incorporated; and Lin discloses “the second computer” and “second computer via the LAN and/or the Internet”, and TOWAGA further discloses:
after the transfer of only the subset of the dataset to […] is complete, […] (Paragraph [0108], “More specifically, the normal analysis unit 51 transmits to the abnormality analysis unit 52 the log not satisfying all the elements contained in the normal pattern within the prescribed time as an abnormality log (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0120], “Subsequently, the abnormality analysis unit 52 analyzes the abnormality log received from the normal analysis unit 51 (FIG. 6: step S4). (step S4 is subsequently performed) [after the transfer of only the subset of the dataset to […] is complete, […]] (emphasis added).”;
The combination of TOGAWA and Lin does not explicitly disclose:
transferring a remainder of the dataset not including the subset of the dataset to […].
However, Abdelsalam discloses:
transferring a remainder of the dataset not including the subset of the dataset to […] (col.9, lines 9 – 11, “In block 110, after filtering out any secure or confidential information, the Host 102 records the remaining event data 10 in one or more log files to be transmitted to the log pipeline [transferring a remainder of the dataset not including the subset of the dataset to […]] (emphasis added).”.
Abdelsalam is within the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention regarding a system with an interactive user interface for users to view and interact with sanitized log data received from a plurality of hosts. Thus, Abdelsalam is an analogous art to the claimed invention.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Abdelsalam into the combined teachings of TOGAWA and Lin to include “transferring a remainder of the dataset not including the subset of the dataset to […]”. The modification would be obvious because one of the ordinary skills in the art would be motivated to improve the analysis process by transferring log data.
Claims 7-9, 13 and 26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over TOGAWA in view of PATIL and Lin as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of US 20050240582 (hereinafter “Hatonen”).
As per Claim 7, the rejection of Claim 1 is incorporated; and TOWAGA discloses “the log data strings to select the subset of the log data”, but the combination of TOGAWA, PATIL and Lin does not explicitly disclose:
determine the regular subexpressions to be applied to the log data strings to select the subset of the log data.
However, Hatonen discloses:
determine the regular subexpressions to be applied […] (Paragraph [0039], “In accordance with an embodiment shown in the flowchart of FIG. 3, a search is first performed at step 30 to identify frequent patterns, for example frequent data items on data rows. A frequent pattern may then be selected as a candidate set at step 32 from the detected frequent patterns [determine the regular subexpressions to be applied to […]] (emphasis added).”.
Hatonen is within the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention regarding computerised systems, and in particular to processing of data provided in a computerised system. Thus, Hatonen is an analogous art to the claimed invention.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Hatonen into the combined teachings of TOGAWA, PATIL and Lin to include “determine the regular subexpressions to be applied […]”. The modification would be obvious because one of the ordinary skills in the art would be motivated to reduce the search space by using frequent patterns (Hatonen, paragraph [0054]).
As per Claim 8, the rejection of Claim 7 is incorporated; and the combination of TOGAWA, PATIL and Lin does not explicitly disclose:
determining numbers of occurrences of candidate regular subexpressions in the set of regular expressions, the determination of the regular subexpressions being based at least in part on the numbers of occurrences.
However, Hatonen discloses:
determining numbers of occurrences of candidate regular subexpressions in the set of regular expressions, the determination of the regular subexpressions being based at least in part on the numbers of occurrences (Paragraph [0039], “In accordance with an embodiment shown in the flowchart of FIG. 3, a search is first performed at step 30 to identify frequent patterns, for example frequent data items on data rows. A frequent pattern may then be selected as a candidate set at step 32 from the detected frequent patterns [determining numbers of occurrences of candidate regular subexpressions in the set of regular expressions, the determination of the regular subexpressions being based at least in part on the numbers of occurrences] (emphasis added).”;
Hatonen is within the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention regarding computerised systems, and in particular to processing of data provided in a computerised system. Thus, Hatonen is an analogous art to the claimed invention.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Hatonen into the combined teachings of TOGAWA, PATIL and Lin to include “determining numbers of occurrences of candidate regular subexpressions in the set of regular expressions, the determination of the regular subexpressions being based at least in part on the numbers of occurrences.”. The modification would be obvious because one of the ordinary skills in the art would be motivated to reduce the search space by using frequent patterns (Hatonen, paragraph [0054]).
As per Claim 9, the rejection of Claim 7 is incorporated; and the combination of TOGAWA and PATIL does not explicitly disclose:
determining complexities of candidate regular subexpressions in the set of regular expressions relative to the log data strings, the determination of the regular subexpressions being based at least in part on the complexities.
However, Hatonen discloses:
determining […] of candidate regular subexpressions in the set of regular expressions relative to the log data strings, the determination of the regular subexpressions […] (Paragraph [0008], “The amount of collected log data or other data for analysis may even become too high for it to be handled efficiently with the existing analysing tools (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0039], “In accordance with an embodiment shown in the flowchart of FIG. 3, a search is first performed at step 30 to identify frequent patterns, for example frequent data items on data rows. A frequent pattern may then be selected as a candidate set at step 32 from the detected frequent patterns [determining […] of candidate regular subexpressions in the set of regular expressions relative to the log data strings, the determination of the regular subexpressions […]] (emphasis added).”;
Hatonen is within the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention regarding computerised systems, and in particular to processing of data provided in a computerised system. Thus, Hatonen is an analogous art to the claimed invention.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Hatonen into the combined teachings of TOGAWA and PATIL to include “determining […] of candidate regular subexpressions in the set of regular expressions relative to the log data strings, the determination of the regular subexpressions […]”. The modification would be obvious because one of the ordinary skills in the art would be motivated to reduce the search space by using frequent patterns (Hatonen, paragraph [0054]).
The combination of TOGAWA, PATIL and Hatonen does not explicitly disclose:
[…] complexities of candidate regular subexpressions […].
However, Lin discloses:
[…] complexities of candidate regular subexpressions […] (Paragraph [0101], “Many different regular expressions can be developed to represent a search pattern for any particular data encoding symbol format. Furthermore, more complex regular expressions can be devised to more exactly specify the substrings that can represent a particular date format [[…] complexities of candidate regular subexpressions […]] (emphasis added).”.
Lin is within the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention regarding methods and systems that process, classify, efficiently store, and display large volumes of event messages generated in modern computing systems. Thus, Lin is analogous art to the claimed invention.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Lin into the combined teachings of TOGAWA, PATIL and Hatonen to include “[…] complexities of candidate regular subexpressions […]” The modification would be obvious because one of the ordinary skills in the art would be motivated to allow data to be transmitted within a distributed computing system by using a local area network (Lin, paragraph [0054]).
As per Claim 13, the rejection of Claim 7 is incorporated; and PATIL discloses “the medical device” and TOGAWA further discloses:
determining a time window for transmitting the log data […], […] (Paragraph [0108], “More specifically, the normal analysis unit 51 transmits to the abnormality analysis unit 52 the log not satisfying all the elements contained in the normal pattern within the prescribed time as an abnormality log (step S4 is subsequently performed) (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0137], “For example, it may be determined that, if a time (hereinafter referred to as a determination time) is specified as the determination condition, the unknown log existing within the range of the determination time ( also referred to as a third time) from the occurrence time of the incomplete log is included in the second unknown log [determining a time window for transmitting the log data […],[…]] (emphasis added).”.
The combination of TOGAWA, PATIL and Lin does not explicitly disclose:
[…] the determination of the regular subexpressions […].
However, Hatonen discloses:
[…] the determination of the regular subexpressions […] (Paragraph [0039], “In accordance with an embodiment shown in the flowchart of FIG. 3, a search is first performed at step 30 to identify frequent patterns, for example frequent data items on data rows. A frequent pattern may then be selected as a candidate set at step 32 from the detected frequent patterns […] A further checksum is computed at step 38 based on the previous checksum of step 34 and information about an identity associated with the present occurrence of the frequent pattern [[…] the determination of the regular subexpressions […]] (emphasis added).”;
Hatonen is within the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention regarding computerised systems, and in particular to processing of data provided in a computerised system. Thus, Hatonen is an analogous art to the claimed invention.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Hatonen into the combined teachings of TOGAWA, PATIL and Lin to include “[…] the determination of the regular subexpressions […]”. The modification would be obvious because one of the ordinary skills in the art would be motivated to reduce the search space by using frequent patterns (Hatonen, paragraph [0054]).
As per Claim 26, TOGAWA discloses:
At least one non-transitory computer readable medium storing:
log data comprising log data strings […] (Paragraph [0140], “For example, in order to determine the similarity, the abnormal pattern generation unit 71 compares the character string included in the log message using a value such as an edit distance [log data comprising log data strings […]] (emphasis added).”;
a set of regular expressions for analyzing the log data (Paragraph [0105], “When the structural pattern of the log message group included in the input log file matches the normal pattern (Yes in step S3), the normal analysis unit 51 outputs to the result output unit 91 an analysis result indicating that the inputted log is normal (FIG. 6: step S9 is subsequently performed) (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0165], “A log message may be defined as it is, or it may be defined using regular expression or the like [a set of regular expressions for analyzing the log data] (emphasis added).”; and
[…] filtering the log data […] (Paragraph [0105], “When the structural pattern of the log message group included in the input log file matches the normal pattern (Yes in step S3), the normal analysis unit 51 outputs to the result output unit 91 an analysis result indicating that the inputted log is normal (FIG. 6: step S9 is subsequently performed) (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0108], “More specifically, the normal analysis unit 51 transmits to the abnormality analysis unit 52 the log not satisfying all the elements contained in the normal pattern within the prescribed time as an abnormality log (step S4 is subsequently performed) [[…] filtering the log data […]] (emphasis added).”; and
filtering the log data by applying the determined regular subexpressions to the log data strings to select a subset of the log data (Paragraph [0105], “When the structural pattern of the log message group included in the input log file matches the normal pattern (Yes in step S3), the normal analysis unit 51 outputs to the result output unit 91 an analysis result indicating that the inputted log is normal (FIG. 6: step S9 is subsequently performed) (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0140], “For example, in order to determine the similarity, the abnormal pattern generation unit 71 compares the character string included in the log message using a value such as an edit distance (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0108], “More specifically, the normal analysis unit 51 transmits to the abnormality analysis unit 52 the log not satisfying all the elements contained in the normal pattern within the prescribed time as an abnormality log (step S4 is subsequently performed) [filtering the log data by applying the determined regular subexpressions to the log data strings to select a subset of the log data] (emphasis added).”; and
transfer a portion of the log data consisting of only the subset of the log data to […] (Paragraph [0108], “More specifically, the normal analysis unit 51 transmits to the abnormality analysis unit 52 the log not satisfying all the elements contained in the normal pattern within the prescribed time as an abnormality log (step S4 is subsequently performed) [transfer a portion of the log data consisting of only the subset of the log data to […]] (emphasis added).”;
TOGAWA does not explicitly disclose:
[…] generated by a medical imaging device;
instructions readable and executable by a first computer to:
determine one or more regular subexpressions for […] wherein each regular subexpression is contained in at least one regular expression of the set of regular expressions;
[…] to a second computer via a local area network (LAN) and/or the Internet.
However, PATIL discloses:
[…] generated by a medical imaging device ([Abstract], “The operating parameter ranges are formulated into decision rules (36) which are applied to log data ( 40) generated by a monitored medical imaging device [[…] generated by a medical imaging device] (emphasis added).”;
PATIL is within the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention regarding the medical imaging device maintenance arts, device monitoring arts, predictive maintenance arts, and related arts. Thus, PATIL is an analogous art to the claimed invention.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of PATIL into the teaching of TOGAWA to include “[…] generated by a medical imaging device”. The modification would be obvious because one of the ordinary skills in the art would be motivated to perform prediction by using log data from medical imaging devices (PATIL, paragraph [0004]).
The combination of TOGAWA and PATIL does not explicitly disclose:
instructions readable and executable by a first computer to:
determine one or more regular subexpressions for filtering the log data wherein each regular subexpression is contained in at least one regular expression of the set of regular expressions;
[…] to a second computer via a local area network (LAN) and/or the Internet.
However, Lin discloses:
instructions readable and executable by a first computer to (Paragraph [0047], “Software is essentially a sequence of encoded symbols, such as a printout of a computer program or digitally encoded computer instructions sequentially stored in a file on an optical disk or within an electromechanical mass-storage device [instructions readable and executable by a first computer to] (emphasis added).”:
[…] wherein each regular subexpression is contained in at least one regular expression of the set of regular expressions (Paragraph [0107], “This initial regular expression includes the literal strings for the two common substrings and regular-expression sub-expressions “(.*) for the variable portions of the event messages [[…] wherein each regular subexpression is defined by a string that is contained in at least one regular expression of the set of regular expressions] (emphasis added).”.
[…] to a second computer via a local area network (LAN) and/or the Internet (Paragraph [0062], “The physical data center additionally includes generally large numbers of server computers, such as server computer 710, that are coupled together by local area networks, such as local area network 712 that directly interconnects server computer 710 and 714-720 and a mass-storage array 722 (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0070], “Event messages may be relatively directly transmitted from a component within a discrete computer system to the administration computer or may be collected at various hierarchical levels within a discrete computer and then forwarded from an event-message-collecting entity within the discrete computer to the administration computer. [[…] to a second computer via a local area network (LAN) and/or the Internet] (emphasis added).”;
Lin is within the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention regarding methods and systems that process, classify, efficiently store, and display large volumes of event messages generated in modern computing systems. Thus, Lin is analogous art to the claimed invention.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Lin into the combined teachings of TOGAWA and PATIL to include “instructions readable and executable by a first computer to: determine one or more regular subexpressions for filtering the log data wherein each regular subexpression is contained in at least one regular expression of the set of regular expressions; […] to a second computer via a local area network (LAN) and/or the Internet.” The modification would be obvious because one of the ordinary skills in the art would be motivated to allow data to be transmitted within a distributed computing system by using a local area network (Lin, paragraph [0054]).
The combination of TOGAWA, PATIL and Lin does not explicitly disclose:
determine one or more regular subexpressions for […];
However, Hatonen discloses:
determine one or more regular subexpressions for […] (Paragraph [0008], “The amount of collected log data or other data for analysis may even become too high for it to be handled efficiently with the existing analysing tools (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0039], “In accordance with an embodiment shown in the flowchart of FIG. 3, a search is first performed at step 30 to identify frequent patterns, for example frequent data items on data rows. A frequent pattern may then be selected as a candidate set at step 32 from the detected frequent patterns [determine one or more regular subexpressions for […]] (emphasis added).”;
Hatonen is within the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention regarding computerised systems, and in particular to processing of data provided in a computerised system. Thus, Hatonen is an analogous art to the claimed invention.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Hatonen into the combined teachings of TOGAWA, PATIL and Lin to include “determine one or more regular subexpressions for […]”. The modification would be obvious because one of the ordinary skills in the art would be motivated to reduce the search space by using frequent patterns (Hatonen, paragraph [0054]).
Claims 10 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over TOGAWA in view of PATIL, Lin and Hatonen as applied to claim 7 above, and further in view of US 20110246816 (hereinafter “Hsieh”).
As per Claim 10, the rejection of Claim 7 is incorporated; and the combination of TOGAWA, PATIL, Lin and Hatonen discloses “determining the regular subexpressions” but the combination of TOGAWA, PATIL, Lin and Hatonen does not explicitly disclose:
[…] in accordance with a default prioritization level.
However, Hsieh discloses:
[…] in accordance with a default prioritization level (Paragraph [0141], “The attributes can include a priority, which can be specified by a logging system. If a machine is heavily loaded, some events can be prioritize over others, using the ' priority field'. For example, FATAL (highest priority) messages may skip ahead of line and be sent before lesser prioritized messages ( e.g., ERROR or WARN priority messages) [[…] in accordance with a default prioritization level] (emphasis added).”;
Hsieh is within the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention regarding methods for configuring a system to collect and aggregate datasets are disclosed Thus, Hsieh is an analogous art to the claimed invention.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Hsieh into the combined teachings of TOGAWA, PATIL, Lin and Hatonen to include “[…] in accordance with a default prioritization level.” The modification would be obvious because one of the ordinary skills in the art would be motivated to enable analytic features to be performed on the dataset by adding priority field ( Hsieh, paragraph [0144]).
As per Claim 11, the rejection of Claim 10 is incorporated; and the combination of TOGAWA, PATIL, Lin and Hatonen does not explicitly disclose:
adjusting the default prioritization level based on one or more (i) an error code; (ii) an input or comments regarding the error or nature of the error; or (iii) the SE diagnosing the problem.
However, Hsieh discloses:
adjusting the default prioritization level based on one or more (i) an error code; (ii) an input or comments regarding the error or nature of the error; or (iii) the SE diagnosing the problem (Paragraph [0141], “The attributes can include a priority, which can be specified by a logging system. If a machine is heavily loaded, some events can be prioritize over others, using the ' priority field'. For example, FATAL (highest priority) messages may skip ahead of line and be sent before lesser prioritized messages ( e.g., ERROR or WARN priority messages) […] Also, if the system is, for example, running out of disk space, the DEBUG priority data can be erased before any of the INFO data gets erased, and INFO before WARN, etc. Paragraph [0142], “The priority field of the message can take on example values: TRACE, DEGBUG, INFO, WARN, ERROR, OR FATAL.” [adjusting the default prioritization level based on one or more (i) an error code; (ii) an input or comments regarding the error or nature of the error; or (iii) the SE diagnosing the problem] (emphasis added).”;
Hsieh is within the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention regarding methods for configuring a system to collect and aggregate datasets are disclosed Thus, Hsieh is an analogous art to the claimed invention.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Hsieh into the combined teachings of TOGAWA, PATIL, Lin and Hatonen to include “adjusting the default prioritization level based on one or more (i) an error code; (ii) an input or comments regarding the error or nature of the error; or (iii) the SE diagnosing the problem” The modification would be obvious because one of the ordinary skills in the art would be motivated to enable analytic features to be performed on the dataset by adding priority field ( Hsieh, paragraph [0144]).
Claim 12 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over TOGAWA in view of PATIL, Lin and Hatonen as applied to claim 7 above, and further in view of US 20140266713 (hereinafter “Sehgal”).
As per Claim 12, the rejection of Claim 7 is incorporated; and the combination of TOGAWA, PATIL and Lin does not explicitly disclose:
determining a usage of the medical device, the determination of the regular subexpressions being based at least in part on the usage of the medical device.
However, Hatonen discloses:
[…] the determination of the regular subexpressions […] (Paragraph [0039], “In accordance with an embodiment shown in the flowchart of FIG. 3, a search is first performed at step 30 to identify frequent patterns, for example frequent data items on data rows. A frequent pattern may then be selected as a candidate set at step 32 from the detected frequent patterns [determining […] the determination of the regular subexpressions […]] (emphasis added).”.
Hatonen is within the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention regarding computerised systems, and in particular to processing of data provided in a computerised system. Thus, Hatonen is an analogous art to the claimed invention.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Hatonen into the combined teachings of TOGAWA, PATIL and Lin to include “[…] the determination of the regular subexpressions […]”. The modification would be obvious because one of the ordinary skills in the art would be motivated to reduce the search space by using frequent patterns (Hatonen, paragraph [0054]).
The combination of TOGAWA, PATIL, Lin and Hatonen does not explicitly disclose:
[…] a usage of the medical device […].
However, Sehgal discloses:
[…] a usage of the medical device […] (Paragraph [0015], “The alert log can further identify, for each of the one or more alerts, a department that uses the medical device (emphasis added).”; Paragraph [0028], “In a predictive maintenance program, an operator of a medical device can receive an alert to perform maintenance on a medical device based on actual usage of the device [[…] a usage of the medical device […]] (emphasis added).”.
Sehgal is within the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention regarding methods for generating an alert to perform maintenance on a medical device based on actual usage of the medical device. Thus, Sehgal is an analogous art to the claimed invention.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Sehgal into the combined teachings of TOGAWA, PATIL, Lin and Hatonen to include “[…] a usage of the medical device […]” The modification would be obvious because one of the ordinary skills in the art would be motivated to add usage of medical device into the consideration of analysis (Sehgal, paragraph [0019]).
Claim 23 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over TOGAWA in view of PATIL and Lin as applied to claim 21 above, and further in view of US 20200348995 (hereinafter “Venkataraman”).
As per Claim 23, the rejection of Claim 21 is incorporated; and Lin discloses “wherein each local computer is programmed to”, and TOGAWA discloses “select the subset of the log data based at least on”, but the combination of TOGAWA and Lin does not explicitly disclose:
[…] a service level agreement associated with at least one medical imaging device.
However, PATIL discloses:
[…] at least one medical imaging device (Paragraph [0108], “Monitoring of the monitored medical imaging device 2 leverages machine logs 40 which are commonly generated by medical imaging devices [where […] at least one medical imaging device] (emphasis added).”.
PATIL is within the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention regarding the medical imaging device maintenance arts, device monitoring arts, predictive maintenance arts, and related arts. Thus, PATIL is an analogous art to the claimed invention.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of PATIL into the teaching of TOGAWA and Lin to include “[…] at least one medical imaging device”. The modification would be obvious because one of the ordinary skills in the art would be motivated to perform prediction by using log data from medical imaging devices (PATIL, paragraph [0004]).
The combination of TOGAWA, PATIL and Lin does not explicitly disclose:
[…] a service level agreement […] .
However, Venkataraman discloses:
[…] a service level agreement […] (Paragraph [0108], “In other embodiments, additional data associated with enterprise environment 100 may be obtained from other sources, including, but not limited to static data 340,such as user and location details 342 and/or service level agreement (SLA) data 344,and archival data 350 associated with previous time periods, such as previous hour data 352 [[…] a service level agreement associated with […]] (emphasis added).”.
Venkataraman is within the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention regarding A method and system for fault analysis and prediction in an enterprise environment. Thus, Venkataraman is an analogous art to the claimed invention.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teaching of Venkataraman into the teaching of TOGAWA, PATIL and Lin to include “[…] a service level agreement […]”. The modification would be obvious because one of the ordinary skills in the art would be motivated to improve the analysis process by adding service level agreement.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to the Applicant’s disclosure. They are as follows:
US 20210034497 (hereinafter “Peterson”) discloses log record analysis based on log record templates.
US 20200125473 (hereinafter “Kamran”) discloses a method is provided for collecting log data in a distributed computing system.
US 20180174065 (hereinafter “Debnath”) discloses a computer-implemented method for automatically analyzing log contents received via a network and detecting content-level anomalies.
US 20160292263 (hereinafter “FERRAR”) discloses a system, method, and computer program product for implementing a log analytics method and system.
US 20210350911 (hereinafter “Amthor”) discloses a method for medical imaging procedure optimization and imaging data security.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the Examiner should be directed to Yanbin Li whose telephone number is 571-272-0906. The Examiner can normally be reached on Monday through Friday from 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM ET.
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If attempts to reach the Examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the Examiner’s supervisor, Wei Mui, can be reached at 571-272-3708. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Y.L./Examiner, Art Unit 2191
/WEI Y MUI/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2191
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