DETAILED ACTION
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 .
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
Examiner’s Note
This Office Action is in response to application and preliminary amendment filed on 7/6/2024, where claims 1-15 are amended, claims 16-19 are added, and claims 1-19 are currently pending.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-5, 7-9, and 11-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Naidoo et al., (US 2018/0113430 A1) (hereinafter Naidoo).
Referring to claim 1, Naidoo teaches a method for configuring a control network, wherein the control network comprises at least one, superordinate central unit for controlling and monitoring a system arrangement with a plurality of decentralized systems (¶ [0014], “a distributed process control system including a centralized configuration database storing configuration parameters of the distributed control system,…a second controller that implements control logic of a modular control system”) and at least one subordinate remote unit for directly controlling a decentralized system (¶ [0014], “the modular control system corresponds to one or several nodes of the distributed control system in a second mode of operation.”), wherein, in order to control the decentralized system, planning data comprising system-related objects and/or modules are stored in the remote unit (¶ [0012], “The modular control system includes equipment configured to perform a physical function in a process plant, a modular controller, and a configuration database storing configuration parameters of the modular control system.”), the method comprising:
configuring at least one remote unit at the central unit by specifying information relating to the respective remote unit;
exporting the planning data from the remote unit(s) and importing the planning data into the central unit(s) (¶ [0011], “The configuration data of the modular controller is imported from the configuration database of the modular control system into the configuration database of the distributed process control system, which is a central repository of configuration data.”), wherein a unique identification code is assigned to all objects and modules of the remote unit(s) in the central unit(s) by specifying the information relating to the respective remote unit (¶ [0034], “the merge assistant in some cases implements an algorithm that automatically prevents conflicts. For example, the algorithm can rely on unique device identifier(s) of device(s) from a modular control system. Alternatively, the algorithm can use the current time value to generate a unique identifier, or the algorithm can keep track of how many modular control systems have been integrated so far and assign consecutive numbers to each new modular control system being merged.”)
Referring to claim 2, Naidoo further teaches the method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the configuration of the remote unit at the central unit comprises specifying a unique identifier of the remote unit and/or specifying a unique network address of the remote unit (¶ [0034], “the merge assistant in some cases implements an algorithm that automatically prevents conflicts. For example, the algorithm can rely on unique device identifier(s) of device(s) from a modular control system. Alternatively, the algorithm can use the current time value to generate a unique identifier, or the algorithm can keep track of how many modular control systems have been integrated so far and assign consecutive numbers to each new modular control system being merged.”)
Referring to claim 3, Naidoo further teaches the method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the identification code of the objects or modules contains an identifier of the respective remote unit (¶ [0034], “the merge assistant in some cases implements an algorithm that automatically prevents conflicts. For example, the algorithm can rely on unique device identifier(s) of device(s) from a modular control system. Alternatively, the algorithm can use the current time value to generate a unique identifier, or the algorithm can keep track of how many modular control systems have been integrated so far and assign consecutive numbers to each new modular control system being merged.”)
Referring to claim 4, Naidoo further teaches the method as claimed in claim 3, wherein the decentralized system comprises one or more automation component, wherein the system-related objects and/or modules are each assigned to an automation component and the identification code of the objects and modules in the central unit contains an identifier of the respective automation component of the system (¶ [0012], “The modular control system includes equipment configured to perform a physical function in a process plant”. ¶ [0047], “The modular control system 100 can be configured to operate in a standalone mode and perform a relatively complex function in a plant, such as pump liquid in a controlled manner, heat water and maintain a certain temperature in a tank, perform a filtration function, etc.” ¶ [0016], “in response to detecting the modular controller, automatically checking at least one of licenses, nodes, version and locale of the modular controller; executing, on a computing device communicatively coupled to the local area network, a merge assistant that facilitates merging of configuration data of the modular control system to a centralized configuration data of the distributed control system; generating alphanumeric strings to modify names of the conflicting configuration items; identifying second configuration items that are conflicting configuration items at other nodes of the distributed communication network”.)
Referring to claim 5, Naidoo further teaches the method as claimed in claim 4, wherein the identification code comprises a plurality of alphanumeric character strings (¶ [0016], “generating alphanumeric strings to modify names of the conflicting configuration items”)
Referring to claim 7, Naidoo further teaches the method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the planning data comprise function plans and/or contact plans and/or signal plans and/or system images, and/or in that the planning data are filtered and/or manually selected when being imported into the central unit, with a result that it is possible to access only specific objects and/or modules of the remote unit in the central unit, and/or in that the exporting of the planning data from the remote unit and the subsequent importing into the central unit are carried out in an automated manner, and/or in a change-controlled manner (¶ [0012], “The modular control system includes equipment configured to perform a physical function in a process plant, a modular controller, and a configuration database storing configuration parameters of the modular control system.” ¶ [0051], fig. 1, “the merge assistant 150 assists operators with efficiently and accurately merging configuration data from the configuration database 104 into the centralized configuration database 60.”)
Referring to claim 8, Naidoo further teaches the method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the control network also has at least one remote unit controller which is assigned to one or more objects or modules with associated function plans (Abstract, “A modular control system includes a modular controller that implements control logic of the modular control system, where the controller is built natively on a platform of a distributed control system, equipment configured to perform a physical function in a process plant according to the control logic”).
Referring to claim 9, Naidoo further teaches the method as claimed in claim 8, wherein the remote unit controller is arranged on a central unit or on the remote unit or between the remote unit and the central unit (Abstract, “A modular control system includes a modular controller that implements control logic of the modular control system, where the controller is built natively on a platform of a distributed control system, equipment configured to perform a physical function in a process plant according to the control logic”).
Referring to claim 11, Naidoo further teaches the method as claimed in claim 8, wherein a remote unit controller buffers data transmission between the remote unit and the central unit if a connection between the remote unit and the central unit has been temporarily interrupted (¶ [0032], “The controller, referred to below as “modular controller,” can be built natively on a platform such as DeltaV”. Examiner notes, the DeltaV platform inherently includes communication buffer in the event of network disruptions.)
Referring to claim 12, Naidoo further teaches the method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the central unit and the remote units are connected using a network connection (¶ [0051], fig. 1, “the modular control system 100 can be coupled to the plant 10 and the distributed control system 22 via the data highway 54.”)
Referring to claim 13, Naidoo further teaches a control network, which is designed and configured to carry out the method as claimed in claim 1 (Fig. 1).
Referring to claim 14, Naidoo further teaches a computer program stored on a non-transitory computer-readable medium ,comprising:
program code for carrying out the method as claimed in claim 1 (¶ [0085], “When implemented in software, any of the applications, services, engines, routines, and modules described herein may be stored in any tangible, non-transitory computer readable memory”).
Referring to claim 15, Naidoo further teaches a non-transitory computer-readable medium, comprising:
instructions stored thereon which, when executed on at least one computer, cause the at least one computer to carry out the steps of the method as claimed in claim 1 (¶ [0018], “Still another embodiment of these techniques is a computing devices including one or more processors and a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that implement a merge assistant as described above.”)
Referring to claim 16, Naidoo further teaches the method as claimed in claim 1, wherein the control network comprises precisely one superordinate central unit (¶ [0014], fig. 1, “a distributed process control system including a centralized configuration database storing configuration parameters of the distributed control system).
Referring to claim 17, Naidoo further teaches the method as claimed in claim 5, wherein the identification code comprises numeric character strings (¶ [0034], “the algorithm can use the current time value to generate a unique identifier, or the algorithm can keep track of how many modular control systems have been integrated so far and assign consecutive numbers to each new modular control system being merged.”)
Referring to claim 18, Naidoo further teaches the method as claimed in claim 10, wherein one remote unit controller is arranged on the central unit and one remote unit controller is arranged on the remote unit (¶ [0014], “a distributed process control system including…a first controller”. ¶ [0047], fig. 1, “modular control system 100 includes a modular controller 102”.)
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 of this title, 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 6, 10, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Naidoo as applied to claims 5, 8, and 12 above, and in view of Maturana et al., (US 2019/0050414 A1) (hereinafter Maturana).
Referring to claim 6, Naidoo teaches the method as claimed in claim 5. However, Naidoo does not explicitly teach a first character string is the identifier of the respective remote unit, a second character string is the identifier of the respective automation component and a third character string is the identifier of the respective object or module.
Maturana teaches a first character string is the identifier of the respective remote unit, a second character string is the identifier of the respective automation component and a third character string is the identifier of the respective object or module (¶ [0091], fig. 7, “an example hierarchical architecture 700 for the manifest assembly according to one or more embodiments. An example system manifest 716 maintained on the cloud platform in a manifest repository can be organized into multiple hierarchical levels. Each individual customer entity that will access the manifest repository for processing of on-premise data can be defined under a customer identifier level 704. Since each customer entity may operate multiple plant facilities or sites, one or more site identifier nodes are defined for each customer identifier node on a site identifier level 706. For each defined site, one or more virtual support engineer (VSE) nodes are defined on a VSE identifier level 708. The VSE node represents a specific cloud agent device or common gateway platform from which data is collected. A message type level 712 and a process identifier level 714 are defined under the VSE identifier level 708.” ¶ [0092], “The hierarchical levels of the example manifest depicted in FIG. 7 correspond to data fields included in header 504 of compressed data packet 324 (see FIG. 5). Thus, when an on-premise cloud agent device sends a compressed data packet to the cloud platform, data process service 308 on the cloud platform leverages the information contained in the header to navigate the manifest's hierarchical architecture 700 to identify the manifest assembly (system manifest, metrics manifest, and data manifest) to be executed on the data contained in compressed data file 412.”)
Naidoo and Maturana are analogous art to the claimed invention because they are concerning with interface with distributed system (i.e., same field of endeavor).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention having Naidoo and Maturana before them to modify the system for merging modular control system of Naidoo to incorporate the function of identifier strings for different hierarchy levels of Maturana. One of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the elements as claimed by known methods as disclosed by Maturana (¶ [0091]-[0093]), because the function of identifier strings for different hierarchy levels does not depend on the system for merging modular control system. That is the function of identifier strings for different hierarchy levels performs the same function independent on which interface it is incorporated onto, and therefore, the result of the combination would have been predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art. The motivation to combine would have been to help organizing data as suggested by Maturana (¶ [0091]).
Referring to claim 10, Naidoo teaches the method as claimed in claim 8. However, Naidoo does not explicitly teach two remote unit controllers are assigned to each remote unit.
Maturana teaches two remote unit controllers are assigned to each remote unit (¶ [0069], fig. 3, “remote monitoring and reporting of on-premise assets”. ¶ [0070], fig. 3, “a data concentrator 328 collects plant data from one or more industrial assets (e.g., data generated by one or more industrial controllers, such as industrial devices 108 or 110) at a plant facility. These industrial assets can include industrial controllers that monitor and control industrial I/O devices, data servers and historians, motor drives, remote I/O interfaces that remotely interface groups of I/O devices to one or more of the industrial controllers, boilers or other industrial machines, or other such assets.”)
Naidoo and Maturana are analogous art to the claimed invention because they are concerning with interface with distributed system (i.e., same field of endeavor).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention having Naidoo and Maturana before them to modify the system for merging modular control system of Naidoo to incorporate the function of plurality of controllers of Maturana. One of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the elements as claimed by known methods as disclosed by Maturana (¶ [0068]-[0073]), because the function of plurality of controllers does not depend on the system for merging modular control system. That is the function of plurality of controllers performs the same function independent on which interface it is incorporated onto, and therefore, the result of the combination would have been predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art. The motivation to combine would have been to help monitor and control plurality of industrial I/O devices as suggested by Maturana (¶ [0070]).
Referring to claim 19, Naidoo teaches the method as claimed in claim 12. However, Naidoo does not explicitly teach the network connection is a Virtual Private Network (VPN).
Maturana teaches the network connection is a Virtual Private Network (VPN) (¶ [0149], VPN).
Naidoo and Maturana are analogous art to the claimed invention because they are concerning with interface with distributed system (i.e., same field of endeavor).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention having Naidoo and Maturana before them to modify the system for merging modular control system of Naidoo to incorporate the function of VPN of Maturana. One of ordinary skill in the art would have combined the elements as claimed by known methods as disclosed by Maturana (¶ [0148]-[0149]), because the function of VPN does not depend on the system for merging modular control system. That is the function of VPN performs the same function independent on which interface it is incorporated onto, and therefore, the result of the combination would have been predictable to one of ordinary skill in the art. The motivation to combine would have been to allow the system to support a plurality types of networks as suggested by Maturana (¶ [0149]).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure.
US 2010/0217894 (Papenfort) – discloses configuration of decentralized control system.
US 2010/0211201 (Papenfort) – discloses industrial automation control system and control node.
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/MONG-SHUNE CHUNG/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2118
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