Detailed Action
The instant application having Application No. 18/826,896 has a total of 11 claims pending in the application; there are 2 independent claims and 9 dependent claims, all of which are ready for examination by the examiner. This Office action is in response to the claims filed 9/6/24. Claims 1-11 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 .
INFORMATION CONCERNING DRAWINGS
Drawings
The applicant's drawings submitted 9/6/24 are acceptable for examination purposes.
REJECTIONS BASED ON PRIOR ART
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
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 and 11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over D et al. (U.S Patent No. 10,558,514), herein referred to as D et al. in view of DeHaan et al. (U.S. Patent Application No. 2010/0217944), herein referred to as DeHaan et al.
Referring to claim 1, D et al disclose as claimed, a management system of a storage device that provides an application programming interface (API) for operating a plurality of storage devices (see fig. 1, 13 and 14, showing servers containing storage devices. Also see col. 14, lines 36-56. See col. 4, lines 52-67 and col. 5, regarding an API to interface with servers), the manag7ement system comprising: a processor; and a storage unit (see col. 4, lines 50-65, where enterprise server contains an API and may be a computer, which would have a processor and storage unit), and the processor is configured to: call and execute the API with respect to the storage device in response to a call request from a terminal (see col. 3, lines 37-50, where software wanting to access features of an API is said to call it. See col. 5, lines 1-17, where an API is used for error schema code); when the specific error information is responded from the API in response to the call request (see col. 5, lines 1-17, where an API is used for error schema code. See col. 7-9, where error codes are returned for errors, such as invalid request. An error mapping module then normalizes the error codes and maps it to a corresponding object in database 139),
D et al. disclose the claimed invention except for wherein the storage unit holds correspondence information indicating a correspondence relationship between specific error information indicating error information in a specific format for each model of the storage device and common error information indicating error information in a common format among models of the storage device, and convert the specific error information into the common error information on a basis of the correspondence information; and respond the converted common error information to the terminal.
However, DeHaan et al. disclose wherein the storage unit holds correspondence information indicating a correspondence relationship between specific error information indicating error information in a specific format for each model of the storage device and common error information indicating error information in a common format among models of the storage device (see para. 57-58, where a storage device tool on a cobbler server manages storage devices and holds a translation library. The translation library includes lists of specific commands/instructions to communicate with different storage devices and a conversion table to convert common commands/instructions to specific commands/instructions and maps them), and convert the specific error information into the common error information on a basis of the correspondence information; and respond the converted common error information to the terminal (see para. 58-59, where the translation library enables conversion from a common command/instruction to a specific command instruction or to convert a specific command/instruction into a common command/instruction. Also see para.74. When combined with D et al., this would allow for conversion of error information).
D et al. and DeHaan et al. are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor of storage (see D et al., col. 5-6 and DeHaan et al., abstract, regarding storage systems).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Det al. to comprise wherein the storage unit holds correspondence information indicating a correspondence relationship between specific error information indicating error information in a specific format for each model of the storage device and common error information indicating error information in a common format among models of the storage device, and convert the specific error information into the common error information on a basis of the correspondence information; and respond the converted common error information to the terminal, as taught by DeHaan et al., in order to communicate independently of the type of storage devices (see DeHaan, abstract, regarding advantages of using the translation tool).
Claim 11 recites similar limitations to claim 1 and would be rejection using the same rationale.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-10 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance: Claim 2 recites the limitation of “a log related to the specific error information responded from the API in response to the call request; extract, from the log, the specific error information for each of a plurality of the storage devices, the specific error information having been responded to the same call request from the API of the storage device; and generate the correspondence information by associating the same common error information with the extracted specific error information of each storage device.” This limitation is taught by applicant’s specification, para. 24-25 and 34-36. Claim 3 recites the limitation of “extract a meaning of the common error information from a character string related to the specific error information for each storage device in a specific document; and generate the correspondence information by associating the extracted meaning with the specific error information.” This limitation is taught by applicant’s specification, para. 67-74. Claim 4 recites the limitation of “perform natural language processing on a character string related to the specific error information in a specific document to determine similarity in a meaning of the specific error information; and generate the correspondence information by associating the same common error information with a plurality of pieces of the specific error information having similar meanings.” This limitation is taught by applicant’s specification, para. 92-96. Claim 5 recites the limitation of “wherein the storage unit holds hierarchical structure information indicating a hierarchical structure of the common error information, and the processor adds the common error information of an upper hierarchy of the common error information to the common error information converted from the specific error information on a basis of the hierarchical structure information, and responds to the terminal.” This limitation is taught by applicant’s specification, para. 96-100. Claim 8 recites the limitation of “extract meanings of a plurality of pieces of the specific error information responded from the APIs of the plurality of storage devices with respect to a plurality of the call requests; create tag information from a part of speech having a high appearance frequency in the meaning; and add the tag information to the common error information converted from the specific error information and respond to the terminal.” This limitation is taught by applicant’s specification, para. 104-114. Claim 9 recites the limitation of “store, in the storage unit, a log related to the specific error information responded from the API in response to the call request; extract, from the log, the specific error information of each of a plurality of the storage devices, the specific error information having been responded to the same call request from the API, associate the same common error information with the extracted specific error information of each of the storage devices, and generate first correspondence information as the correspondence information; perform natural language processing on a character string related to the specific error information in a specific document to extract a meaning of the specific error information, determine similarity of the meaning, associate the same common error information with a plurality of pieces of the specific error information having similar meanings, and generate second correspondence information as the correspondence information; and convert the specific error information into the common error information on a basis of the first correspondence information and the second correspondence information.” This limitation is taught by applicant’s specification, para. 24-25 and 34-36, 67-74, 92-114.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.
CLOSING COMMENTS
Conclusion
a. STATUS OF CLAIMS IN THE APPLICATION
The following is a summary of the treatment and status of all claims in the application as recommended by M.P.E.P. 707.07(i):
a(1) CLAIMS REJECTED IN THE APPLICATION
Per the instant office action, claims 1 and 11 are rejected.
b. DIRECTION OF FUTURE CORRESPONDENCES
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ALAN OTTO whose telephone number is (571)270-1626. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:30AM-5:00PM.
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/A.O/Examiner, Art Unit 2132
/HOSAIN T ALAM/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2132