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 . 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.
Status of the application
This Office Action is in response to Applicant's Application filed on 09/20/2024. Claims 1-25 are pending for this examination.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 09/20/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements have been considered by the examiner.
Foreign Priority Claimed
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for foreign priority based on an application filed in India on September 28, 2023. A certified copy of the application 202311065322 has been received as required by 37 CFR 1.55.
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.
Claims 1, 2, 4-14, 16, 18-23, and 25 are rejected under AIA 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fallon et al. (hereinafter Fallon, Publication No.: US 2012/0124568) in view of Ishikawa et al. (hereinafter Ishikawa, Patent No.: US 12,619,419).
As per claim 1, Fallon teaches,
A non-transitory computer readable media having instructions encoded therein which, when executed by an uninterruptible power supply (UPS),
(Fallon Fig. 10 shows firmware update of a UPS)
cause the UPS to perform a method comprising:
receiving firmware to be installed on the UPS; (Fallon Fig. 10 steps 1002 and 1003 show transmitting and receiving firmware update.)
transitioning a communication subsystem of the UPS from operation in a normal operation mode to operation in a bootloader mode; (Fallon recites in [0088] bottom 7 lines, “In one example, the user may be prevented from returning to the previous screen when specific steps have already been performed in the firmware update process. For example, when installing boot load firmware, allowing the user to return to a previous screen might render the UPS inoperable. This disabling feature may prevent the user from improperly installing the firmware update or from causing the
UPS to become non-operational.” This shows that the UPS is not in normal operation mode to a different mode, which may be considered bootloader mode.)
determining, by the communication subsystem of the UPS, a size of the firmware to be installed; (Fallon recites in [0113] last sentence “In one example, the status screen may correspond to a calculation of the size of the firmware update file that needs to be transferred and the transfer speed of the connection link such as the baud rate.”)
initiating, by the communication subsystem of the UPS, installation of the firmware in an application memory region of a processing subsystem of the UPS; (Fallon recites in [0093] last 4 lines, “The process 800 begins at block 801. At block 801, the user 314 initiates the firmware update utility 500 on the computer system 312. The firmware update utility 500 displays the firmware utility screens described in FIG. 6 and FIG. 7.” Please note that user initiates using the subsystem. Fig. 3 shows firmware is installed in box 32, which is a memory region. Fallon recites in [0051] starting at line 13, “The UPS 10 then stores this configuration management information in the data storage 32 for later use.” This shows that box 32 represents memory.)
Fallon teaches firmware/software updating of a UPS device. Fallon does not explicitly teach, “determining, by the communication subsystem of the UPS, an amount of the firmware installed in the application memory region of the processing subsystem; calculating, by the communication subsystem of the UPS, a percent of the firmware installed in the application memory region of the processing subsystem based on the size of the firmware and the amount of the firmware installed in the application memory region of the processing subsystem; and outputting, by the communication subsystem of the UPS, an indication of the percent of the firmware installed.” However, in analogous art of firmware/software updating Ishikawa teaches,
determining, by the communication subsystem of the UPS, an amount of the firmware installed in the application memory region of the processing subsystem; (Ishikawa recites in claim 1, “and simultaneously display progress of the reception of the data by the one or more processors, and progress of the transmission of the data by the one or more processor, as progress of a first update process when the first update process is performed, the first update process being a process of updating the software on the in-vehicle electronic control unit using the received data; wherein the progress of transmission of the data comprises an amount of software data transferred to the vehicle by the user equipment relative to the size of the software update.”)
calculating, by the communication subsystem of the UPS, a percent of the firmware installed in the application memory region of the processing subsystem based on the size of the firmware and the amount of the firmware installed in the application memory region of the processing subsystem; and outputting, by the communication subsystem of the UPS, an indication of the percent of the firmware installed. (Ishikawa recites in column 11 starting at line 35, “When the down- load of the software is started, the control unit 35 displays the software reception status (download status) on the touch panel display 340 of the user equipment 300, 300a. FIG. 4 shows an example of the software reception status displayed on the touch panel display 340.” Here downloading is equivalent to installing because software downloaded is written in memory, which is same as installing.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the invention to modify the above teaching of software/firmware updating of Fallon by incorporating the teaching “determining, by the communication subsystem of the UPS, an amount of the firmware installed in the application memory region of the processing subsystem; calculating, by the communication subsystem of the UPS, a percent of the firmware installed in the application memory region of the processing subsystem based on the size of the firmware and the amount of the firmware installed in the application memory region of the processing subsystem; and outputting, by the communication subsystem of the UPS, an indication of the percent of the firmware installed.” of Ishikawa. The modification would have been obvious because one of the ordinary skills of the art would have implemented the function of software/firmware updating of Fallon by incorporating the teaching of Ishikawa of displaying the percentage of firmware that has been installed at any point in time for the user to have an idea of progress made.
As per claim 2, Fallon teaches,
The non-transitory computer readable media of claim 1, wherein the instructions cause UPS to obtain the firmware from an external device. (Fallon Fig. 3 shows user initiates firmware installation from a external computer system 312.)
As per claim 4, Fallon teaches,
wherein the firmware includes a header having an indication of the size of the firmware, and the instructions further cause the communication subsystem of the UPS to determine the size of the firmware to be installed by reading the header of the firmware. (Fallon recites in [0075] “In one example, the firmware update file group 318 may contain headers 504. Headers 504 may be stored at the beginning of each of the embedded firmware files. A header may also be stored at the beginning of the entire firmware update file group 318. The headers 504 may contain information about the firmware files that follow. For example, information may include, the model of the UPS the firmware file is compatible with, the component or peripheral associated with
the firmware file, the version of the firmware file, the file or file group checksum, the length of the file within the firmware file group.”)
As per claim 5, Ishikawa teaches,
wherein determining, by the communication subsystem of the UPS, the amount of the firmware installed in the application memory region of the processing subsystem, includes the processing subsystem providing a signal regarding the amount of firmware installed to the communication subsystem. (Ishikawa recites in column 11 starting at line 35, “When the down- load of the software is started, the control unit 35 displays the software reception status (download status) on the touch panel display 340 of the user equipment 300, 300a. FIG. 4 shows an example of the software reception status displayed on the touch panel display 340.” Here downloading is equivalent to installing because software downloaded is written in memory, which is same as installing.)
As per claim 6, Fallon teaches,
wherein the instructions further cause the UPS to output data associated with a visual indication of the percent of the firmware installed based on the indication of the percent of the firmware installed. (Fallon Fig. 4 shows percent of firmware/software downloaded or installed.)
As per claim 7, Fallon teaches,
wherein outputting the data associated with the visual indication of the percent of the firmware installed causes the visual indication to be displayed on a display of an external device in communication with the UPS. (Fallon Fig. 3 shows Box 340, which is a touch panel. Figs. 4, 5 and 6 shows percent software downloaded in box 340, which is an external device is communication with the device.)
As per claim 8, Fallon teaches,
wherein the instructions further cause the UPS to output data associated with a status bar indicating the percent of the firmware installed based on the indication of the percent of the firmware installed. (Fallon Figs. 5 and 6)
As per claim 9, Fallon teaches,
wherein the instructions further cause the UPS to output data associated with a numerical indication of the percent of the firmware installed based on the indication of the percent of the firmware installed. (Fallon Figs. 5 and 6)
As per claim 10, Fallon teaches,
wherein the instructions further cause the UPS to continue installation of the firmware and output updates to the indication of the percent of the firmware installed until an entire amount of the firmware is installed. (Fallon Figs. 5 and 6 show percent installed and Fig. 7 shows installation completion.)
As per claim 11, Fallon teaches,
wherein the instructions further cause the UPS to continue installation of the firmware and to update a visual indication of the percent of the firmware installed until an entire amount of the firmware is installed. (Fallon Fig. 7 shows installation completion.)
As per claim 12, Fallon teaches,
wherein the instructions further cause the communication subsystem of the UPS to output a completion signal indicating that the firmware upgrade has completed responsive to an entire amount of the firmware having been installed. (Fallon Fig. 7 shows installation completion.)
As per claim 13, Fallon teaches,
wherein the instructions further cause the UPS to cause an external device in communication with the UPS to display an indication of completion of the firmware upgrade responsive to receipt of a completion signal indicating that the firmware upgrade has completed. (Fallon Fig. 7 shows installation completion.)
As per claim 14, Fallon teaches,
wherein the instructions further cause the UPS to transition the communication subsystem back from operation in the bootloader mode to operation in the normal operation mode responsive to an entire amount of the firmware having been installed. (Fallon Fig. 7 shows software installation is completed, then system turned off. System turns on normal operation mode.)
As per claims 14-23, these are system claims that substantially parallel the limitations of the medium claims 8-14, respectively. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the time of the effective filing date of the invention to implement the prescribed medium steps as a system.
As per claim 25, this is a method claim that substantially parallels the limitations of the medium claim 1. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the time of the effective filing date of the invention to implement the prescribed medium steps as a method.
Claims 3, 15, 17 and 24 are rejected under AIA 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Fallon and Ishikawa as applied to claims 1 and 16 and further in view of Zhong (Publication No.: CN110535954B).
As per claim 3, Fallon and Ishikawa teach software/firmware update of a device. They do not explicitly teach, “wherein outputting the indication of the percent of the firmware installed by the communication subsystem of the UPS includes outputting, by the communication subsystem of the UPS to an external device, a heartbeat signal providing an indication that the UPS is connected to the external device, the heartbeat signal including the indication of the percent of the firmware installed.” However, in analogous art of software/firmware updating, Zhong teaches,
wherein outputting the indication of the percent of the firmware installed by the communication subsystem of the UPS includes outputting, by the communication subsystem of the UPS to an external device, a heartbeat signal providing an indication that the UPS is connected to the external device, the heartbeat signal including the indication of the percent of the firmware installed. (Zhong recites on page 3 starting at line 6, “receiving heartbeat information sent by a door lock, wherein the heartbeat information comprises corresponding firmware version information; …. acquiring a task data block corresponding to the issuing progress position from a preset upgrading firmware according to the issuing progress position information and issuing the task data block; and updating the issued progress position information according to the feedback information of the door lock.”)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filling date of the invention to modify the above teaching of Fallon and Ishikawa of software/firmware update by incorporating the teaching “wherein outputting the indication of the percent of the firmware installed by the communication subsystem of the UPS includes outputting, by the communication subsystem of the UPS to an external device, a heartbeat signal providing an indication that the UPS is connected to the external device, the heartbeat signal including the indication of the percent of the firmware installed.” of Zhong. The modification would have been obvious because one of the ordinary skills of the art would have implemented the function of software/firmware update by displaying percentage of the task completed by using a regular refreshing of the data like a heartbeat data.
As per claim 15, Zhong teaches,
wherein the instructions further cause the UPS to encode the indication of the percent of the firmware installed within a heartbeat signal that is sent by the communication subsystem to an external device and that provides an indication that the UPS is connected to the external device. (Zhong recites on page 3 starting at line 6, “receiving heartbeat information sent by a door lock, wherein the heartbeat information comprises corresponding firmware version information; …. acquiring a task data block corresponding to the issuing progress position from a preset upgrading firmware according to the issuing progress position information and issuing the task data block; and updating the issued progress position information according to the feedback information of the door lock.”)
As per claims 17 and 24, these are system claims that substantially parallel the limitations of the medium claims 3 and 15, respectively. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the time of the effective filing date of the invention to implement the prescribed medium steps as a system.
References of Note
Examiner has cited particular columns, line numbers, references, or figures in the references applied to the claims above for the convenience of the applicant. Although the specified citations are representative of the teachings of the art and are applied to specific limitations within the individual claim, other passages and figures may apply as well. It is respectfully requested from the applicant in preparing responses to fully consider the reference in entirety, as potentially teaching all or part of the claimed invention. See MPEP §§ 2141.02 and 2123.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HOSSAIN MORSHED whose telephone number is (571)272-3335. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday – Friday12:00 PM – 9 PM Eastern Time. The email address for the examiner is hossain.morshed@uspto.gov.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone or 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, Wei Mui can be reached on (571)272-3708.
/HOSSAIN M MORSHED/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2191
October 9, 2026
