DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-20 are presented for examination.
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 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (abstract idea) without significantly more.
As per claim 1, in step 1 of the 101 analysis, the examiner has determined that the claim is directed to a method. Therefore, the claim is directed to one of the four statutory categories of invention.
In step 2A prong 1 of the 101 analysis, the examiner has determined that the claim recites a judicial exception. Specifically, the limitations “discretizing the historic time-series data by assigning each data point in the historic time-series data one of a plurality of discretized values, wherein each discretized value corresponding to one of a plurality of service tiers defines a commissionable quantity of the resource by the VM, and wherein the user account includes a resource setting set to one of the plurality of service tiers; analyzing the discretized historic time-series data; and adjusting the resource setting based on the analysis” recite mental processes. The limitations encompass a human mind carrying out the functions through observation, evaluation, judgment and /or opinion, or even with the aid of pen and paper. Thus, these limitations recite and fall within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas under Prong 1 Step 2A.
In step 2A prong 2 of the 101 analysis, the examiner has determined that the additional elements, alone or in combination do not integrate the judicial exceptions into a practical application for the following rationale:
The limitations “receiving historic time-series data associated with consumption of a resource on a virtual machine (VM), wherein each data point in the time-series data contains an actual usage value that represents historic actual usage of the resource by a user account” represent insignificant, extra-solution activities. The term "extra-solution activity" can be understood as "activities incidental to the primary process or product that are merely a nominal or tangential addition to the claim" (MPEP 2106.05(g)). The examiner has determined that the limitations “identifying, a plurality of time intervals having a use of a resource on a machine above a threshold” and “receiving historic time-series data associated with consumption of a resource on a virtual machine (VM), wherein each data point in the time-series data contains an actual usage value that represents historic actual usage of the resource by a user account” are directed to mere data gathering activities which is a category of insignificant extra-solution activities (MPEP 2106.05(g)).
In step 2B of the 101 analysis, the examiner has determined that the additional elements, alone or in combination do not recite significantly more than the abstract ideas identified above for the following rationale:
The limitations “receiving historic time-series data associated with consumption of a resource on a virtual machine (VM), wherein each data point in the time-series data contains an actual usage value that represents historic actual usage of the resource by a user account” represent insignificant, extra-solution activities and are well-understood, routine, or conventional because they are directed to "receiving or transmitting data" (MPEP 2106.05(d)). These are additional elements that the courts have recognized as well understood, routine, or conventional (MPEP 2106.05(d)). The citation of court cases in the MPEP meets the Berkheimer evidentiary burden since citation of a court case in the MPEP is one of the 4 types of evidentiary support that can be used to prove that the additional elements are well-understood, routine, or conventional (see 125 USPQ2d 1649 Berkheimer v. HP, Inc.). Thus, the limitations do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea.
Considering the additional elements individually and in combination and the claim as a whole, the additional elements do not provide significantly more than the abstract idea. The claim is not patent eligible.
As per claim 8, it is a system claim of claim 1, so it is rejected for the same reasons as claim 1. Additionally, claim 8 recites “one or more processors; a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing a program executable by the one or more processors” which recite generic computing components that do not integrate the judicial exceptions into a practical application and do not provide significantly more and recite intended use limitations that do not have patentable weight.
As per claim 15, it is a media/product type claim of claim 1, so it is rejected for the same reasons as claim 1. Additionally, claim 15 recites “A non-transitory computer-readable medium storing a program executable by one or more processors” which are generic computing components that do not integrate the judicial exceptions into a practical application and do not provide significantly more.
As per claim 2 (and similarly for claims 9 and 16), it recites “wherein discretizing the historic time-series data includes: retrieving the actual usage value corresponding to a data point; identifying a service tier from the plurality of service tiers having the smallest discretized value that is larger than the actual usage value; and assigning the discretized value corresponding to the identified service tier to the data point” which further describes the abstract idea.
As per claim 3 (and similarly for claims 10 and 17), it recites “wherein analyzing the discretized historic time-series data includes: identifying at least one data point from the discretized historic time-series data as having the discretized value corresponding to the data point being equal to or less than the discretized value corresponding to a downsized service tier, wherein the downsized service tier is the service tier associated with the resource setting downsized; calculating a percentage based on the identified data points; and making a determination to downsize the service tier set in the resource setting when the percentage is larger than a first predefined threshold” which further describes the abstract idea.
As per claim 4 (and similarly for claim 11), it recites “wherein adjusting the resource setting includes downsizing the service tier in response to the determination” which further describes the abstract idea.
As per claim 5 (and similarly for claims 12 and 18), it recites “wherein analyzing the discretized historic time-series data further includes: identifying at least one data point from the discretized historic time-series data as having the discretized value corresponding to the data point being equal to or less than the discretized value corresponding to a downsized service tier, wherein the downsized service tier is the service tier associated with the resource setting downsized; calculating a percentage based on the identified data points; first determining that the percentage is less than a first predefined threshold and more than a second predefined threshold; second determining that there are more identified data points in a second half of the historic time-series data than in a first half of the historic time-series data; and making a determination to downsize the service tier based on the first determination and the second determination” which further describes the abstract idea.
As per claim 6 (and similarly for claims 13 and 19), it recites “wherein analyzing the discretized historic time-series data further includes: calculating a density value of non-identified data points in the second half of the historic time-series data; and updating a max density value based on the density value” which further describes the abstract idea.
As per claim 7 (and similarly for claims 14 and 20), it recites “wherein analyzing the discretized historic time-series data further includes: identifying at least one data point from the discretized historic time-series data as having the discretized value corresponding to the data point being equal to or less than the discretized value corresponding to a downsized service tier, wherein the downsized service tier is the service tier associated with the resource setting downsized; first determining that there are more identified data points in a first half of the historic time-series data than in a second half of the historic time-series data; calculating a density value of the identified data points in the second half of the historic time-series data in response to the first determination; second determining that the density value is less than a max density; and making a determination to downsize the service tier based on the second determination” which further describes the abstract idea.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 5-7, 12-14, and 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
The following terms in the claims are not clearly understood:
Claim 5 recites, “identifying at least one data point from the discretized historic time-series data as having the discretized value corresponding to the data point being equal to or less than the discretized value corresponding to a downsized service tier”, “calculating a percentage based on the identified data points” and “second determining that there are more identified data points in a second half of the historic time-series data than in a first half of the historic time-series data”. The scope of “the identified data points” is unclear because the identifying step requires only that one qualifying point be identified and does not required all qualifying points in the historic time-series data be identified. The claim does not make clear whether the percentage is computed over every data point meeting the stated condition or over an arbitrary subset of one or more such data points selected in the identifying step. Under the latter interpretation, the recited percentage and the recited comparison of counts between halves would vary arbitrarily depending on how many qualifying points happened to be identified. Claims 7, 12, 14, 18 and 20 are rejected for the same reasons.
Claim 5 recites, “a downsized service tier, wherein the downsized service tier is the service tier associated with the resource setting downsized”. The phrase “the service tier associated with the resource setting downsized” is grammatically unclear and it cannot be determined whether “downsized” modifies “the resource setting” or the “service tier” or whether the limitation requires that a downsizing operation has already been performed on the resource setting. Assuming the limitation the intended to define a hypothetical lower tier, the claim does not specify how much the tier is downsized, i.e. whether the downsized service tier is the next-lower tier or any tier lower than the tier presently set in the resource setting. Claims 7, 12, 14, 18 and 20 are rejected for the same reasons.
Claim 6 recites, “calculating a density value of non-identified data points in the second half of the historic time-series data”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation. Claim 5 only recites an act of identifying at least one data point. No step of the claims established a set of “non-identified data points” and the claims do not define what makes a data point “non-identified”. Claim 6 recites, “updated a max density value based on the density value”. This limitation is indefinite because “a max density value” is introduced in this step yet the step requires the prior existence of such a value to be updated. Furthermore, the claim does not define what quantify the “max density value” is a maximum of. Claims 13 and 19 are rejected for the same reasons.
Claim 7 recites, “second determining that the density value is less than a max density”. Claim 7 depends from claim 2, and no preceding claim recites a max density, a step of calculating a max density or any basis from which a max density could be derived. The claim provides no information whatsoever as to what population of values the maximum is taken over. Because the entire determination to downsize in claim 7 requires this comparison, the claim fails to inform those skilled in the art of the scope of the claimed invention with reasonable certainty. Claims 14 and 20 are rejected for the same reasons.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 1-11 and 15-17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Srinivasan et al. (US PG Pub No. 2022/0374283 A1) in view of Pallath et al. (US PG Pub No. 2019/0179835 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Srinivasan teaches a method, comprising:
receiving historic time-series data associated with consumption of a resource on a virtual machine (VM), wherein each data point in the time-series data contains an actual usage value that represents historic actual usage of the resource by a user account ([0025], wherein a historical utilization is collected for resources; [0107], implemented by one or more virtual machines);
discretizing the historic time-series data
analyzing the discretized historic time-series data ([0045], wherein upsize/downsize flags generated by comparing a percentage-based utilization metric against fixed thresholds; [0055], wherein a weighted combination of percentile values is compared over non-overlapping operations time windows); and
adjusting the resource setting based on the analysis ([0027], wherein re-provisioning the instance is performed).
Srinivasan does not teach assigning each data point a discretized value.
Pallath teaches the commonly used SAX algorithm in which a time series is discretized and symbols encode the values so that the distribution space is divided into a predefined number of segments with cutoff lines extracted and different symbols are assigned to the segments between cutoff lines, and that to obtain the SAX representation, each coefficient is replaced by the corresponding symbol for the segment that the coefficient falls in ([0027]). In other words, Pallath teaches taking the value of each value of a historic time series and determining which of a predefined set of value bands it falls within and replacing it with the discrete value assigned to that band. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to assign each data point a discretized value. One would be motivated by the desire to reduce processing and storage costs by reducing the number of possible values for the data points as taught by Pallath (Abstract).
Regarding claim 2, Srinivasan teaches wherein discretizing the historic time-series data includes: retrieving the actual usage value corresponding to a data point; identifying a service tier from the plurality of service tiers having the smallest discretized value that is larger than the actual usage value; and assigning the discretized value corresponding to the identified service tier to the data point ([0070]; Table 2, wherein the provisioning includes 10% headroom buffers and rounds up recommended values to the next multiple, i.e. selecting the smallest tier exceeding the actual value).
Regarding claim 3, Srinivasan teaches wherein analyzing the discretized historic time-series data includes: identifying at least one data point from the discretized historic time-series data as having the discretized value corresponding to the data point being equal to or less than the discretized value corresponding to a downsized service tier, wherein the downsized service tier is the service tier associated with the resource setting downsized; calculating a percentage based on the identified data points; and making a determination to downsize the service tier set in the resource setting when the percentage is larger than a first predefined threshold ([0045-46]; [0057-58]).
Regarding claim 4, Srinivasan teaches wherein adjusting the resource setting includes downsizing the service tier in response to the determination ([0045-46]; [0057-58]).
Regarding claims 8-11 and 15-17, they are the system and medium claims of claims 1-4 above. Therefore, they are rejected for the same reasons as claims 1-4 above.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ERIC C WAI whose telephone number is (571)270-1012. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 9-5.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Aimee Li can be reached at (571) 272-4169. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Eric C Wai/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2195
