DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
The instant application having application No. 18/790,630 filed on July 31, 2024, presents claims 1-20 for examination, claims priority to provisional application No. 63/555261, filed on 2/19/2024.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 8/1/2024, was filed before the mailing date of the Non-Final Office Action. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
Examiner Notes
Examiner cites particular columns, paragraphs, figures and line numbers in the references as applied to the claims below for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings in the art and are applied to the specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested that, in preparing responses, the applicant fully consider the references in their entirety as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention, as well as the context of the passage as taught by the prior art or disclosed by the examiner.
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.
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 1-20 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 pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
The term "the file" in line 6 of claim 1 is not clear whether it refers a first source file in line 2, a second source file in line 3, or each file in line 5 of claim 1.
The term "the file" in line 8 of claim 1 is not clear whether it refers a first source file in line 2, a second source file in line 3, each file in line 5, the file in line 6, or each file in line 7 of claim 1.
Claim 12 has the same issues as claim 1, is rejected for the same reason.
Dependent claims 2-10, and 13-20 are rejected for the same reason because they depend from claim 1 or claim 12 respectively.
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 1-2, 4, 6, 12-13, 14, and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
With respect to claim 1, This claim is within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter as it is directed to a method claim under Step 1.
Under Prong 1, Step 2A:
However, the limitations of claim 1,
“building a deliverable based on a first source file defined in a first programing language and a second source file defined in a second programing language, wherein:
the building comprises accessing each file of a plurality of component files, and the accessing each file of the plurality of component files comprises retaining a distinct identifier of the file;
generating a provenance graph that contains a vertex for each file of the plurality of component files, wherein the vertex contains the distinct identifier of the file; and
generating, based on the provenance graph, a dependency report for the deliverable.”
as drafted, are functions that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, recite the abstract idea of a mental process. 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. E.g. the user can manually build a deliverable based on the source files as defined in the claim, can manually access files of a plurality of components as defined in the claim, can manually retain a distinct identifier of the file, can manually generate a provenance graph as defined in the claim, and can manually generate a dependency report as defined in the claim. Thus, these limitations recite and fall within the “Mental Processes” grouping of abstract ideas under Prong 1 Step 2A.
Under Prong 2, Step 2A:
The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The claim does not recite any additional elements.
Under Step 2B:
The claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the claim does not recite any additional elements. Accordingly, the claim does not appear to be patent eligible under 35 USC 101.
With respect to claim 12, This claim is within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter as it is directed to one or more non-transitory computer-readable media claim under Step 1.
This claim recites one or more non-transitory computer-readable media to implement a method that is disclosed in claim 1 and therefore recites the same abstract idea as claim 1, please see the office action analysis regarding claim 1.
Claim 12 recites additional elements, i.e. one or more non-transitory computer-readable media and one or more processors. But the media and the processors are generic computer elements in the computer system, do not integrate the judicial exception into a practical application and do not amount to significantly more than the judicial exception itself.
With respect to claims 2 and 13, “wherein said retaining the distinct identifier of each file of the plurality of component files comprises retaining at least one selected from a group consisting of:
a version identifier of the file,
a kernel memory address,
a name of a unix system call,
a name of a kernel function, and
a uniform resource locator (URL) of the file.” as drafted, is merely indicating a field of use or technological environment in which to apply a judicial exception, and does not amount to significantly more than the exception itself, and cannot integrate a judicial exception into a practical application. See MPEP § 2106.05(h).
With respect to claims 4 and 14, “wherein:
said building comprises accessing a file that is not in the plurality of component files;
said generating the provenance graph comprises inspecting at least one selected from a group consisting of: an identifier of a process, an identifier of a probe, and a call stack;
the method further comprises deciding, based on said inspecting, not to generate a vertex for said file.” as drafted, are functions that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, recite the abstract idea of a mental process. 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. E.g. the user can manually access a file as defined in the claim, can manually generate the provenance graph as defined in the claim, can manually decide not to generate a vertex for said file as defined in the claim.
With respect to claims 6 and 16, “wherein said generating the provenance graph comprises inspecting a call stack that does not contain a memory address.” as drafted, are functions that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, recite the abstract idea of a mental process. E.g. the user can manually inspect a call stack as defined in the claim.
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 1-3, 8, and 12-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ZHAO (US 20090178031 A1, hereinafter “ZHAO”) in view of Gehani et al. (US 20230289460 A1, hereinafter “Gehani”).
With respect to claim 1, ZHAO discloses A computer-implemented method comprising:
building a deliverable based on a first source file defined in a first programing language and a second source file defined in a second programing language (e.g. para [0039], “… Finally, if there are no errors, stage 409 for the current invention is to save and close SIR repository data files.” Wherein the SIR repository reads on a deliverable. Table 1 shows two programming languages, C, and C++), wherein:
the building comprises accessing each file of a plurality of component files, and the accessing each file of the plurality of component files comprises retaining a distinct identifier of the file (e.g. para [0036], “… a source code file identifier mapping table (302), … Identifiers for processors and files are keys with fewer bytes for uniquely identifying processors and files respectively. …”);
ZHAO does not appear to explicitly disclose
generating a provenance graph that contains a vertex for each file of the plurality of component files, wherein the vertex contains the distinct identifier of the file; and
generating, based on the provenance graph, a dependency report for the deliverable.
However, in analogous art, Gehani discloses
generating a provenance graph that contains a vertex for each file of the plurality of component files, wherein the vertex contains the distinct identifier of the file (e.g. para [0063], “ At 506, a provenance graph 224 (also referred to as Open Provenance Model Records) is created by the audit reporter 222 in an open provenance model record format based on the one or more synthesized audit records 219. The provenance graph is a directed property graph that includes annotations on the vertices and edges that have key-value pairs associated with them. …” para [0056], “For example, for a given network flow from Container A on host 102A to Container B on hose 102B, if there is a vertex in container A's provenance which matches the description for label A, …” wherein container A is analogous to identifier of the file); and
generating, based on the provenance graph, a dependency report for the deliverable (e.g. para [0037], “… The Open Provenance Model record 224 aims to capture the causal dependencies between the artifacts, processes, and agents. …. That is, an edge represents a causal dependency, between its source, denoting the effect, and its destination, denoting the cause. …” wherein the Open Provenance Model record is analogous to a dependency report).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the invention of ZHAO with the invention of Gehani because it provides a more efficient solution for capturing the causal dependencies between the artifacts, processes, and agents. A person having ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this combination, with a reasonable expectation of success, for the purpose of providing a more efficient solution for capturing the causal dependencies between the artifacts, processes, and agents as suggested by Gehani (see para [0036-0037]).
With respect to claim 2, ZHAO discloses wherein said retaining the distinct identifier of each file of the plurality of component files comprises retaining at least one selected from a group consisting of:
a version identifier of the file,
a kernel memory address,
a name of a unix system call,
a name of a kernel function, and
a uniform resource locator (URL) of the file (e.g. para [0077], “… If there are more packages, at step 1604, the procedure collects information about a package such as name, developer, version, license, and home URL, and then inserts it into datastore 1610. …” wherein a package reads on a file).
With respect to claim 3, Gehani discloses wherein said retaining comprises executing a probe based on at least one selected from a group consisting of bytecode and kernel mode (e.g. para [0032], “…The eBPF toolkit/mechanism 208 is part of the kernel and is a mechanism that extends the kernel 142 to capture information associated with those system calls 206. …” For motivation to combine, please refer to office action regarding claim 1 above).
With respect to claim 8, Gehani discloses wherein said building comprises generating at least one selected from a group consisting of a containerization image and an overlay filesystem (e.g. para [0028], “The container engine 130 includes the containerization technology to communicate with the operating system 140/kernel 142 to build and containerize the applications 112 and create containers 110.. …” For motivation to combine, please refer to office action regarding claim 1 above).
With respect to claim 12, it is directed to a non-transitory computer readable media to implement the method disclosed in claim 1, please see the rejections directed to claim 1 above which also cover the limitations recited in claim 12. Note that, ZHAO teaches One or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing instructions that, when executed by one or more processors, cause (e.g. Fig. 1, and corresponding text in para [0031]).
With respect to claim 13, it recites same features as claim 2, and is rejected for the same reason.
Claims 4 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ZHAO (US 20090178031 A1, hereinafter “ZHAO”) in view of Gehani et al. (US 20230289460 A1, hereinafter “Gehani”) as applied to claims 1 and 12 respectively, in further view of Wang et al. (US 20230418623 A1, hereinafter “Wang”) and KANSO et al. (US 20240086160 A1, hereinafter “KANSO”).
With respect to claim 4, ZHAO as modified by Gehani discloses The method of Claim 1, but does not appear to explicitly disclose wherein:
said building comprises accessing a file that is not in the plurality of component files;
said generating the provenance graph comprises inspecting at least one selected from a group consisting of: an identifier of a process, an identifier of a probe, and a call stack;
the method further comprises deciding, based on said inspecting, not to generate a vertex for said file.
However, in analogous art, Wang discloses
said building comprises accessing a file that is not in the plurality of component files (e.g. para [0136], “… The application management system 100 may obtain the external component based on the IP address or the storage address of the external component. …” wherein the external component reads on a file that is not in the plurality of component files);
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the invention of Wang because it provides application remodeling techniques for improving service quality and reliability. A person having ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this combination, with a reasonable expectation of success, for the purpose of providing application remodeling techniques for improving service quality and reliability as suggested by Wang (see para [0005-0006]).
ZHAO as modified by Gehani and Wang does not appear to explicitly disclose
said generating the provenance graph comprises inspecting at least one selected from a group consisting of: an identifier of a process, an identifier of a probe, and a call stack;
the method further comprises deciding, based on said inspecting, not to generate a vertex for said file.
However, in analogous art, KANSO discloses
said generating the provenance graph comprises inspecting at least one selected from a group consisting of: an identifier of a process, an identifier of a probe, and a call stack (e.g. para [0031], “… the termination manager 102 can analyze the request call stack
registry 114 to determine if a microservice 206 is eligible for termination. Stated another way, if a microservice 206 does not appear in any of the call graphs 112 for the outstanding requests 210, the termination manager 102 can determine that the microservice 206 is not needed to process the outstanding requests 210 and can be safely terminated. …”);
the method further comprises deciding, based on said inspecting, not to generate a vertex for said file (e.g. para [0034], “… As discussed above, the termination manager 102 then generates a call graphs for each of the outstanding requests 210 to capture the operational flow of each request 210. …” para [0031] as cited above discloses that the microservice 206 does not appear in any call graphs, a call graph is analogous to a provenance graph, thus, KANSO renders the claim feature obvious).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the invention of KANSO because it provides techniques for determining if a software component such as a microservice is needed or not by inspecting call stacks. A person having ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this combination, with a reasonable expectation of success, for the purpose of providing techniques for determining if a software component such as a microservice is needed or not by inspecting call stacks as suggested by KANSO (see para [0031]).
With respect to claim 14, it recites same features as claim 4, and is rejected for the same reason.
Claims 5 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ZHAO (US 20090178031 A1, hereinafter “ZHAO”) in view of Gehani et al. (US 20230289460 A1, hereinafter “Gehani”) as applied to claims 1 and 12 respectively, in further view of Wang et al. (US 20230418623 A1, hereinafter “Wang”) and HU (CN 113760733 A, hereinafter “HU”, please refer to attached NPL copy).
With respect to claim 5, ZHAO as modified by Gehani discloses The method of Claim 1, but does not appear to explicitly disclose wherein:
said building comprises accessing a file that is not in the plurality of component files;
said generating the provenance graph comprises detecting execution of at least one selected from a group consisting of a class loader and a unit test;
the method further comprises deciding, based on said detecting, not to generate a vertex for said file.
However, in analogous art, Wang discloses
said building comprises accessing a file that is not in the plurality of component files (e.g. para [0136], “… The application management system 100 may obtain the external component based on the IP address or the storage address of the external component. …” wherein the external component reads on a file that is not in the plurality of component files);
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the invention of Wang because it provides application remodeling techniques for improving service quality and reliability. A person having ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this combination, with a reasonable expectation of success, for the purpose of providing application remodeling techniques for improving service quality and reliability as suggested by Wang (see para [0005-0006]).
ZHAO as modified by Gehani and Wang does not appear to explicitly disclose
said generating the provenance graph comprises detecting execution of at least one selected from a group consisting of a class loader and a unit test;
the method further comprises deciding, based on said detecting, not to generate a vertex for said file.
However, in analogous art, HU discloses
said generating the provenance graph comprises detecting execution of at least one selected from a group consisting of a class loader and a unit test (e.g. p5 fifth paragraph from the last, “In the above embodiment, for step S101 and S102, the scheme by abstracts out unit testing the common component, for isolating the external dependence service and data. Referring to FIG. 2, the user only needs to reference unit test common component, through the way of inheriting the common parent, namely can obtain all external dependence ability, by adding configuration file and compiling the Mock object mode, finishing the compiling unit test.”);
the method further comprises deciding, based on said detecting, not to generate a vertex for said file (e.g. p5 fifth paragraph from the last, “In the above embodiment, for step S101 and S102, the scheme by abstracts out unit testing the common component, for isolating the external dependence service and data. Referring to FIG. 2, the user only needs to reference unit test common component, through the way of inheriting the common parent, namely can obtain all external dependence ability, by adding configuration file and compiling the Mock object mode, finishing the compiling unit test.” wherein the Mock object was added for isolating the external dependence, the Mock object should not be part of the provenance graph, i.e. one of ordinary skill in the art understands the decision of not generating a vertex for the said file/class corresponding to the Mock object).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the invention of HU because it provides advanced techniques for unit testing in local environment by isolating external dependence. A person having ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this combination, with a reasonable expectation of success, for the purpose of providing advanced techniques for unit testing in local environment by isolating external dependence as suggested by HU (see Abstract).
With respect to claim 15, it recites same features as claim 5, and is rejected for the same reason.
Claims 6 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ZHAO (US 20090178031 A1, hereinafter “ZHAO”) in view of Gehani et al. (US 20230289460 A1, hereinafter “Gehani”) as applied to claims 1 and 12 respectively, in further view of Raj (US 11080125 B1, hereinafter “Raj”).
With respect to claim 6, ZHAO as modified by Gehani discloses The method of Claim 1, but does not appear to explicitly disclose wherein said generating the provenance graph comprises inspecting a call stack that does not contain a memory address.
However, this is taught in analogous art, Raj (col 4, lines 1-21, “… When analyzing the current OOM error, the current call stacks of interest may be provided along with any similar call stacks from previous OOM errors clustered with the current call stacks of interest. …” wherein OOM error suggests no memory address for the related call stacks);
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the invention of Raj because it provides techniques for determining root cause of out-of-memory errors by analyzing call stacks. A person having ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this combination, with a reasonable expectation of success, for the purpose of providing techniques for determining root cause of out-of-memory errors by analyzing call stacks as suggested by Raj (see col 4, lines 1-21).
With respect to claim 16, it recites same features as claim 6, and is rejected for the same reason.
Claims 7 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ZHAO (US 20090178031 A1, hereinafter “ZHAO”) in view of Gehani et al. (US 20230289460 A1, hereinafter “Gehani”) as applied to claims 1 and 12 respectively, in further view of ZHANG (CN 117033197 A, hereinafter “ZHANG”, please refer to attached NPL copy).
With respect to claim 7, ZHAO as modified by Gehani discloses The method of Claim 1, but does not appear to explicitly disclose wherein:
the method further comprises generating, for each file of the plurality of component files, a mapping from a memory address to an absolute path of the file;
the memory address is at least one selected from a group consisting of: a kernel memory address and a memory address of a directory entry.
However, in analogous art, ZHANG discloses
the method further comprises generating, for each file of the plurality of component files, a mapping from a memory address to an absolute path of the file (e.g. p2 last paragraph, “Further, the symbol file includes source code information, debugging information, and a source code file lookup table; the source code information comprises a function name, a variable name and a corresponding memory address of the source code; the debugging information comprises row number information and stack tracking information; The source code file lookup table includes an absolute path and a hash value of the source code file.”);
the memory address is at least one selected from a group consisting of: a kernel memory address and a memory address of a directory entry (e.g. p2 last paragraph, “Further, the symbol file includes source code information, debugging information, and a source code file lookup table; the source code information comprises a function name, a variable name and a corresponding memory address of the source code; the debugging information comprises row number information and stack tracking information; The source code file lookup table includes an absolute path and a hash value of the source code file.” Wherein the memory address reads on a memory address of a directory entry).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the invention of ZHANG because it provides techniques for quickly analyzing and solving the software problem by providing source code file lookup table that includes an absolute path. A person having ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this combination, with a reasonable expectation of success, for the purpose of providing techniques for quickly analyzing and solving the software problem by providing source code file lookup table that includes an absolute path as suggested by ZHANG (see p2, first two paragraphs).
With respect to claim 17, it recites same features as claim 7, and is rejected for the same reason.
Claims 9 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ZHAO (US 20090178031 A1, hereinafter “ZHAO”) in view of Gehani et al. (US 20230289460 A1, hereinafter “Gehani”) as applied to claims 1 and 12 respectively, in further view of Cox et al. (US 20110296387 A1, hereinafter “Cox”).
With respect to claim 9, ZHAO as modified by Gehani discloses The method of Claim 1, but does not appear to explicitly disclose wherein said retaining comprises invoking a probe in user mode.
However, this is taught in analogous art, Cox (e.g. para [0021], “Many user application developers include probe points in the application code to identify events in the application code. When an application is running and `hits` a probe point that has been activated, the introspection tool gains control of (attaches to) the application at the probe point to, for example, perform measurements for analyzing the application. ...”);
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the invention of Cox because it provides techniques for efficiently probing and examining user applications. A person having ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this combination, with a reasonable expectation of success, for the purpose of providing techniques for efficiently probing and examining user applications as suggested by Cox (see para [0012-0013]).
With respect to claim 18, it recites same features as claim 9, and is rejected for the same reason.
Claims 10 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ZHAO (US 20090178031 A1, hereinafter “ZHAO”) in view of Gehani et al. (US 20230289460 A1, hereinafter “Gehani”) as applied to claims 1 and 12 respectively, in further view of Arora et al. (US 20140229921 A1, hereinafter “Arora”).
With respect to claim 10, ZHAO as modified by Gehani discloses The method of Claim 1, but does not appear to explicitly disclose further comprising:
invoking a kernel probe by applying a compiler of the first programing language to the first source file;
invoking said kernel probe by applying a compiler of the second programing language to the second source file.
However, this is taught in analogous art, Arora (e.g. para [0088], “I-Probe and kernel logging can also be used together to provide a unified logging view. We have utilized I-Probe in addition to our Kernel logging tool NEC Mevalet, to capture a complete view of the desired function and the lower level resulting system calls. ...” wherein kernel logging reads on kernel probe. Para [0037], “The present invention is directed to a mechanism to leverage commonly used/available compiler flags in GNU C/C++ compilers(-instrument-functions) and use them for a completely novel workflow to provide an easy to use dynamic instrumentation mechanism. …” wherein compilers indicate that at least two compilers applied to two different programming languages. Para [0085], “From the foregoing, it can be appreciated that the present invention provides a novel monitoring tool called I-Probe (intelligent probe), which leverages existing compiler flags (tested on GNU compiler) as placeholders to enable dynamic instrumentation. ….”);
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the invention of Arora because it provides techniques for monitoring systems for misconfigurations difficult to detect. A person having ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this combination, with a reasonable expectation of success, for the purpose of providing techniques for monitoring systems for misconfigurations difficult to detect as suggested by Arora (see para [0026]).
With respect to claim 19, it recites same features as claim 10, and is rejected for the same reason.
Claims 11 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ZHAO (US 20090178031 A1, hereinafter “ZHAO”) in view of Gehani et al. (US 20230289460 A1, hereinafter “Gehani”) as applied to claims 1 and 12 respectively, in further view of Invernizzi et al. (US 8959643 B1, hereinafter “Invernizzi”) and Allen et al. (US 20220198590 A1, hereinafter “Allen”).
With respect to claim 11, ZHAO as modified by Gehani discloses The method of Claim 1, ZHAO discloses a second probe retaining, in a second record, the distinct identifier of the file (e.g. para [0036], “… However, SIR records for each source code file is preferably stored in a separate file so that a compiler may load and save an individually changed file on demand. The file name of SIR record file may be named using file identifier with an extension, for example, "2.sir" for a source code file having 2 as the identifier. …”); but does not appear to explicitly disclose wherein:
the method further comprises: a first probe retaining, in a first record, an URL of a file of the plurality of component files that is being downloaded over a communication network and the distinct identifier of the file, and
said generating the provenance graph comprises generating a single vertex that represents both of the first record and the second record.
However, in analogous art, Invernizzi discloses
the method further comprises: a first probe retaining, in a first record, an URL of a file of the plurality of component files that is being downloaded over a communication network and the distinct identifier of the file (e.g. col 2, lines 33-67, “... The method includes obtaining a plurality of file download flows from the network, wherein each of the plurality of file download flows comprises a payload that is downloaded from a server to a client and is identified by a uniform resource locator (URL), .., and wherein the URL path comprises a URL file name, ….” Wherein a URL file name reads on the distinct identifier of the file),
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the invention of Invernizzi because it provides techniques for retaining file download attributes for analysis of the downloaded file. A person having ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this combination, with a reasonable expectation of success, for the purpose of providing techniques for retaining file download attributes for analysis of the downloaded file as suggested by Invernizzi (see col 2, lines 33-67).
ZHAO as modified by Gehani and Invernizzi does not appear to explicitly disclose
said generating the provenance graph comprises generating a single vertex that represents both of the first record and the second record.
However, this is taught in analogous art, Allen (e.g. para [0071], “… The mechanism generates a directed acyclic graph (DAG) (block 605) and assigns each analytic entry to a vertex in the directed acyclic graph (block 606).” Para [0005] discloses “… wherein each analytic entry is associated with an executable analytic function…” thus, each entry is a file, and each entry/file is assigned to one vertex, when two records retain the same identifier of the file, one of ordinary skill in the art understands that a single vertex would be generated for both records.)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the invention of Allen because it provides improved data processing techniques for leveraging cognitive computing and artificial intelligence mechanisms for contract analytic binding and provenance. A person having ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this combination, with a reasonable expectation of success, for the purpose of providing improved data processing techniques for leveraging cognitive computing and artificial intelligence mechanisms for contract analytic binding and provenance as suggested by Allen (see para [0001, 0038]).
With respect to claim 20, it recites same features as claim 11, and is rejected for the same reason.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. For example, Friedman et al., US 20220165007 A1 teaches machine architecture for computerized plan analysis with provenance.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Zengpu Wei whose telephone number is 571-270-1302. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday to Friday from 8:00AM to 5:00 PM.
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/ZENGPU WEI/
Examiner, Art Unit 2197
Prosecution Insights