FINAL OFFICE ACTION
Response to Arguments
Applicant's Remarks filed 12/10/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Regarding the rejections of the claims under 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103, Remarks argues that Oezmen does not disclose “identifying…an impacted service reporting an error” and “identifying…one or more upstream services related to the impacted service based on a service dependency between the one or more upstream services and the impacted service” as recited in claim 1. However, Oezmen discloses determining a source microservice of a system error (col. 10, lns. 49-57), including construction of a relative frequency matrix in order to pinpoint the source (col. 9, lns. 55-65 and Fig. 2E). This is equivalent to “identifying…an impacted service reporting an error.” The invocation matrices 202, 206, and 210 in Figs. 2A, 2B, and 2C provide indications of relationships between microservices including microservice dependencies (col. 8, lns. 12-24). In other words, Oezmen discloses “identifying…one or more upstream services related to the impacted service based on a service dependency between the one or more upstream services and the impacted service.”
Remarks further states that Oezmen does not disclose “identifying…at least one modification in one or more of the impacted service or the one or more upstream services based on respective versions of the impacted service and the one or more upstream services” as recited in claim 1. However, Oezmen discloses generating a series of invocation matrices based on updates to microservices (col. 10, lns. 5-19). The invocation matrices may be summed and subtracted to identify results of changes to the microservices (col. 10, lns. 34-61 and col. 13, lns. 2-21), which is equivalent to “identifying…at least one modification in one or more of the impacted service or the one or more upstream services based on respective versions of the impacted service and the one or more upstream services.”
Remarks also argues that Oezmen does not disclose “reporting…a set of candidate modifications selected from the at least one modification as probable causes of the error” as recited in claim 1. However, Oezmen discloses identifying and marking the microservice that is the cause of the error (col. 13, lns. 22-32). Identification is a result of analyzing the changes to microservices over time (col. 13, lns. 2-7). In other words, Oezmen fully discloses “reporting…a set of candidate modifications selected from the at least one modification as probable causes of the error,” as recited in the claims.
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 1-3, 6-10, and 12-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by U.S. Patent No. 11,175,947 to Oezmen et al. (hereinafter Oezmen).
Oezmen discloses:
1. A computer-implemented method comprising:
identifying, by a network analyzer, an impacted service reporting an error, the network analyzer being a device that includes a processing resource (col. 4, lns. 29-31 and col. 10, lns. 49-52);
identifying, by the network analyzer, one or more upstream services related to the impacted service based on a service dependency between the one or more upstream services and the impacted service (col. 8, lns. 12-24 and col. 12, ln. 55-col. 13, ln. 2);
identifying, by the network analyzer, at least one modification in one or more of the impacted service or the one or more upstream services based on respective versions of the impacted service and the one or more upstream services (col. 9, lns. 55-65, col. 10, lns. 5-19 and col. 13, lns. 2-21); and
reporting, by the network analyzer, a set of candidate modifications selected from the at least one modification as probable causes of the error (col. 13, lns. 22-32).
2. The method of claim 1, wherein the at least one modification comprises a code change, a configuration change, a hardware change, an operating environment change, or combinations thereof (col. 5, lns. 17-20).
3. The method of claim 1, further comprising identifying, by the network analyzer, the error based on service performance data corresponding to a plurality of services (col. 10, lns. 49-52).
6. The method of claim 1, further comprising selecting, by the network analyzer, one or more candidate modifications from the at least one modification based on a timestamp associated with the at least one modification (col. 12, lns. 28-54).
7. The method of claim 6, further comprising:
assigning, by the network analyzer, a weight to each relationship link between the impacted service and the one or more upstream services related to the impacted service (col. 9, lns. 24-31);
determining, by the network analyzer, a relevancy score for each candidate modification of the set of candidate modifications based on the weights assigned to the one or more relationship links (col. 9, lns. 31-37); and
rank-ordering, by the network analyzer, the set of candidate modifications based on the relevancy score for each candidate modification (col. 9, lns. 37-67).
8. The method of claim 7, wherein the relevancy score for a given candidate modification is determined as a product of the weights of each relationship link between the impacted service and a service in which the given candidate modification is made (Fig. 2E).
Claims 9, 10, 13, 14 are a network analyzer for performing the identical steps as performed by the method of claims 1, 3, 6, 7, and are rejected under the same rationale.
12. The network analyzer of claim 9, wherein non-transitory machine-readable storage medium is configured to store a service dependency database comprising information representing relationships between a plurality of services, and wherein the processing resource is configured to execute one or more of the instructions to determine the one or more upstream services based on the relationships between a plurality of services stored in the service dependency database (col. 9, lns. 24-54).
15. The network analyzer of claim 14, wherein a value of the weight is in a range from 0 (zero) to 1 (one) (Fig. 2E).
Claims 16, 17, 18, and 19 are a non-transitory machine-readable medium for performing the identical steps as performed by the method of claims 1, 6, 7, and 8, and are rejected under the same rationale.
20. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 18, wherein the instructions further comprise instructions to rank-order the set of candidate modifications in descending order of the respective relevancy score (col. 9, lns. 55-67).
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 4, 5, and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Oezmen in view of U.S. Patent Pub. No. 2021/0026676 to Sharma et al. (hereinafter Sharma).
Oezmen does not disclose expressly:
4. The method of claim 3, wherein the service performance data comprises information from one or more of incident logs, error logs, or service health logs.
Sharma teaches wherein the service performance data comprises information from one or more of incident logs, error logs, or service health logs (para. [0033]).
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify Oezmen by using error logs, as taught by Sharma. A person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do so in order to efficiently provide notifications without frequent polling necessary, as discussed by Sharma (para. [0013]).
Modified Oezmen discloses:
5. The method of claim 4, wherein each entry in one or more of the incident logs, error logs, or device health logs comprises a unique identifier associated with a service relating to the entry, and wherein identifying the impacted service comprises identifying the unique identifier corresponding to impacted service reporting the error based on one more of the incident logs, error logs, or device health logs (Sharma – para. [0034]).
Claim 11 is a network analyzer for performing the identical steps as performed by the method of claims 4 and 5, and is rejected under the same rationale.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Philip Guyton whose telephone number is (571)272-3807. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:00-4:30.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Bryce Bonzo can be reached at (571)272-3655. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/PHILIP GUYTON/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2113
Prosecution Insights