DETAILED ACTION
The application of Imtiaz et al., for a “Fault management in a communication system” filed on December 19, 2024 has been examined. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on May 14, 2025 and April 8, 2026 have been considered.
Claims 1-18 and 20-21 are presented for examination.
Claims 19 and 22-23 have been cancelled by a preliminary amendment.
Claims 1, 7-8, and 21 are rejected under 35 USC § 102.
Claims 2-6, 9-18, and 20 are rejected under 35 USC § 103.
Specification
The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities: The title of the invention is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 7-8, and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1)/(a)(2) as being anticipated by Haserodt et al. (U.S. PGPUB 20230336621).
As per claims 1 and 21, Haserodt discloses a method/a non-transitory computer readable storage medium ([0010]) performed by a first arbiter running on a first node (Fig. 3, Arbiter 340A) of a communication system comprising a second node and a second arbiter running on the second node (Fig. 3, Arbiter 340B), the method comprising:
transmitting to the second arbiter an are you active message ([0050], “an arbiter 340A and 340B can comprise software executed by each server 315A and 315B which exchanges state information 350 between the servers 315A and 315B. The status information can include state information for these applications as well as health status information for the servers 315A and 315B.”);
receiving a response message transmitted by the second arbiter, the response message being responsive to the are you active message; and after receiving the response, determining the first node to be a standby node ([0051]).
As per claim 7, Haserodt discloses determining that the second arbiter is not reachable; and as a result of determining that the second arbiter is not reachable, determining whether to become an active arbiter ([0051]).
As per claim 8, Haserodt discloses as a result of determining not to become an active arbiter, establishing a connection with a third arbiter (Fig. 4, Arbiters 340A-340D) and ([0056]).
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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 2-4, 6, 9, and 11-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Haserodt et al. (U.S. PGPUB 20230336621) in view of Wollbrand et al. (U.S. PGPUB 20150331762).
As per claim 2, Haserodt fails to explicitly disclose a priority list.
Wollbrand of analogous art teaches after determining the first node to be a standby node, receiving a first priority list from the second arbiter ([0047]-[0048]).
All of the claimed elements were known in Haserodt and Wollbrand and could have been combined by known methods with no change in their respective functions. It therefore would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the time of effective filing language to combine their failover methods. One would be motivated to make this combination for the purpose of improving failover reliability (Wollbrand, [0028]).
As per claim 3, Wollbrand discloses determining a first predecessor node based on information in the first priority list ([0047]-[0048]); and listening for information update messages from the first predecessor node ([0031]-[0033]).
As per claim 4, Wollbrand discloses determining a first successor node based on the first priority list ([0047]-[0048]); receiving a first update message transmitted by the first predecessor node; and in response to receiving the first update message, transmitting to the first successor node a second update message ([0031]-[0033]).
As per claim 6, Wollbrand discloses after receiving the first priority list, receiving a second priority list; determining a second predecessor node based on information in the second priority list ([0047]-[0048]); listening for information update messages from the second predecessor node; determining a second successor node based on the second priority list ([0047]-[0048]); receiving an update message transmitted by the second predecessor node; and in response to receiving the update message transmitting by the second predecessor node, transmitting an update message to the second successor node ([0031]-[0033]).
As per claim 9, Wollbrand discloses a priority is assigned to the first arbiter, and determining whether to become an active arbiter comprises comparing a priority assigned to the third arbiter to the priority assigned to the first arbiter ([0047], “selecting the backup host with the highest priority”).
As per claim 11, Haserodt discloses a method performed by a first arbiter running on a first node (Fig. 3, Arbiter 340A) of a communication system comprising a second node and a second arbiter running on the second node (Fig. 3, Arbiter 340B), the method comprising:
transmitting to the second arbiter a first are you active message ([0050], “an arbiter 340A and 340B can comprise software executed by each server 315A and 315B which exchanges state information 350 between the servers 315A and 315B. The status information can include state information for these applications as well as health status information for the servers 315A and 315B.”);
Haserodt fails to explicitly disclose a timer.
Wollbrand of analogous art teaches detecting an expiration of a timer prior to receiving any response to the are you active message ([0038]);
after detecting the expiration of the timer, determining whether or not to treat the first node as an active node ([0038], “However, if no status message is received before the timer having the shortest length out of the different times expires, or lapses, an absence of status information messages is detected. In this example, the absence of status information messages is detected by the backup host having, or being assigned with, the timer having the shortest length out of the different times. Then the same backup host that detected the absence of status information messages, i.e. has the shortest timer, is determined to take over from the active host.”).
All of the claimed elements were known in Haserodt and Wollbrand and could have been combined by known methods with no change in their respective functions. It therefore would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the time of effective filing language to combine their failover methods. One would be motivated to make this combination for the purpose of improving failover reliability (Wollbrand, [0028]).
As per claim 12, Wollbrand discloses determining whether or not to treat the firs node as an active node comprises comparing a priority assigned to the first arbiter to a priority assigned to the second arbiter ([0047], “selecting the backup host with the highest priority”).
As per claim 13, Wollbrand discloses determining whether or not to treat the first node as an active node comprises comparing a counter to a threshold ([0047]-[0048]).
As per claim 14, Wollbrand discloses the value of the threshold is set based on a priority assigned to the first arbiter ([0047], “selecting the backup host with the highest priority”).
As per claim 15, Wollbrand discloses after determining whether not to treat the first node as an active node after detecting the expiration of the timer, transmitting to the second arbiter a second are you active message ([0037]-[0038]).
As per claim 16, Wollbrand discloses determining to treat the first node as the active node; generating a priority list ([0047]-[0048]); and transmitting the priority list to the second arbiter, wherein generating the priority list comprises determining a priority of the second node, the priority list indicates the priority of the second node ([0047]-[0048]).
Claims 5, 10, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Haserodt et al. (U.S. PGPUB 20230336621) in view of Wollbrand et al. (U.S. PGPUB 20150331762) and in further view of Watts et al. (U.S. PGPUB 20210345219).
As per claim 5, Haserodt fails to explicitly disclose a payload.
Watts of analogous art teaches the first update message has a payload, the second update message has a payload, and the payload of the second update message is the same as the payload of the first update message ([0126] and [0135]).
All of the claimed elements were known in Haserodt and Watts and could have been combined by known methods with no change in their respective functions. It therefore would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the time of effective filing language to combine their failover methods. One would be motivated to make this combination for the purpose since Watts’ message payload is a mere example of Haserodt packet exchange network ([0037]).
As per claim 10, Watts discloses establishing a connection with the third arbiter comprising initiating the establishment of a TCP connection with the third arbiter (i.e., transmit TCP SYN message to third arbiter) ([0135], “transaction monitor can detect TCP (transmission control protocol) SYN/ACK handshakes”).
As per claim 18, Watts discloses the set of measurement values comprises a latency value, and obtaining the latency value comprises transmitting N ping messages to the second node, N>0 ([0133], “session monitor can ping the DNS server on the primary interface”).
Claims 17 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Haserodt et al. (U.S. PGPUB 20230336621) in view of Wollbrand et al. (U.S. PGPUB 20150331762) and in further view of Zhang et al. (U.S. PGPUB 20200210272).
As per claim 17, Haserodt in view of Wollbrand fail to explicitly disclose determining the priority using the set of measurement values.
Zhang of analogous art teaches determining the priority of the second node comprising obtaining a set of one or more measurement values for the first node and determining the priority using the set of measurement values ([0188], “a device's relative health should be analyzed and compared continuously and the utilization priority ranking should be re-calculated and adjusted constantly, periodically, or when triggered by a condition being met.”).
All of the claimed elements were known in Haserodt and Zhang and could have been combined by known methods with no change in their respective functions. It therefore would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the time of effective filing language to combine their methods. One would be motivated to make this combination for the purpose of improving reliability (Zhang, [0186]).
As per claim 20, Zhang discloses the set of measurement values comprises one or both of a processor utilization value or a memory utilization value for the second node ([0184], “memory utilization”).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See included PTO-892.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Elmira Mehrmanesh whose telephone number is (571)272-5531. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F from 10-6.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Bryce Bonzo, can be reached at telephone number (571) 272-3655. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Elmira Mehrmanesh/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2113
Prosecution Insights