DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Status of Claims
This Office Action is responsive to communication filed on 9/24/2024.
Claims 1-20 are pending and presented for examination.
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, 4-7, 9-10, 15-16 and 18-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CUI (US20190110379A1) in view of ARAKI (US20190316578A1) (hereinafter – “CUI-ARAKI”).
Regarding claims 1, 15 & 181
CUI teaches an apparatus configured to minimize energy consumption in an electronic cooling system by optimizing the speed of a liquid cooling pump ([0017]), the apparatus comprising:
at least one processing device comprising a processor coupled to a memory ([0035]: “RMU 202 includes optimization module 221 and rack management controller (RMC) 222. RMC 222 may include a monitor to monitor operating status of various components within electronic rack 200 […] Specifically, the monitor receives operating data from various sensors representing the operating environments of electronic rack 200” [0036]: “Based on the operating data, optimization module 221 performs an optimization using a predetermined optimization function or optimization model”, the RMU includes an optimization module and RMC, wherein the RMC includes a monitor to receive operating data from sensors included in system, and based on the received operating data the optimization module performs a predetermined optimization function or model, implying that the RMU is a computing component loaded with the predetermined optimization function or model, thus implying a processor coupled to a memory in which the processor executes the instructions saved in memory);
the at least one processing device being configured to:
monitor status information for electronic equipment of an information technology asset, at least a portion of the electronic equipment being at least partially cooled by at least one pump of a liquid-assisted air cooling system ([0003]: power intensive processors are used for intensive computing operations, and electrical servers, i.e., IT assets, have these processors/electronic equipment and the processors “have a very high power density per volumetric space, and hence, traditional simple air cooling is very challenging. Direct-to chip liquid cooling provides a better cooling performance for those power-intensive processors, and saves energy consumption compared to an air-cooling only approach. Practically, not all the heat generated by the processors is removed through liquid cooling, and there is still some percentage of heat is removed by air cooling. Thus the entire environment is a hybrid liquid-air cooling system” [0035]: “monitor to monitor operating status of various components within electronic rack 200, such as, for example, computing nodes 203 […] monitor receives operating data from various sensors representing the operating environments of electronic rack 200. For example, the monitor may receive operating data representing temperatures of the processors, cooling liquid, and airflows, which may be captured and collected via various temperature sensors. The monitor may also receive data representing the fan power and pump power generated by the fan modules 231 and liquid pump 212”, i.e., the monitor is configured to monitor at least one processors (electronic equipment) of a server (IT asset), the monitoring receiving information about the cooling liquid and liquid pump imply that the processor is being at least partially cooled by at least one pump of the liquid-assisted air cooling system);
determine configuration information for [0036]: “Based on the operating data, optimization module 221 performs an optimization using a predetermined optimization function or optimization model to derive a set of optimal fan speeds for fan modules 231 and an optimal pump speed for liquid pump 212, such that the total power consumption of liquid pump 212 and fan modules 231 reaches minimum, while the operating data associated with liquid pump 212 and cooling fans of fan modules 231 are within their respective designed specifications”); and
to control operation of [0036]: “Once the optimal pump speed and optimal fan speeds have been determined, RMC 222 configures liquid pump 212 and cooling fans of fan modules 231 based on the optimal pump speed and fan speeds”).
In summary, CUI teaches a computing system configured to monitor and receive status information for electronic equipment that is at least partially cooled by liquid supplied by a pump of a liquid-assisted air cooling system, to determine configuration information for the pump of the liquid-assisted air cooling system based on the monitored and received status information, and to control the pump of the liquid-assisted air cooling system based on the determined configuration information, but does not emphasize a particular type of pump, and thus is not relied for expressly disclosing a motor-driven pump. However, ARAKI in an analogous art teaches an electric pump device comprising a fluid pump that discharges fluid, and an electric motor that drives the fluid pump ([0006]), and that the electric pump increases and decreases the flow rate of the fluid from the pump according to the rising and lowering of the rotational speed of the motor ([0017]).
CUI is analogous art to the claimed invention because they are from the same field of environmental control of IT assets. ARAKI is analogous art to the claimed invention because ARAKI’s disclosure of electronic pump control is reasonably pertinent to the problem faced by the inventor(s). Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art that the pump of CUI is implemented as an electric motor driven liquid pump as taught by ARAKI, and that the configuration information determined by the computing system corresponds to control of the motor driving the pump in order to regulate pump output (e.g., to regulate the flow rate). In view of CUI’s disclosure that a computing system determines configuration information for a pump and controls that pump based on monitored status of electronic equipment, a person of ordinary skill in the art would have sought a pump architecture allowing electronic modulation of the cooling liquid flow, and ARAKI teaches such an electric pump device in which a motor drives a fluid/liquid pump and the flow rate is regulated by controlling the motor’s rotational speed.
Regarding claim 4
CUI-ARAKI teaches the elements of claim 1 as outlined above. CUI also teaches monitored status information includes temperature data from one or more temperature sensors associated with the electronic equipment ([0035]: monitor receives operating data representing temperature of processors/IT devices collected via temperature sensor).
Regarding claim 5
CUI-ARAKI teaches the elements of claim 1 as outlined above. CUI also teaches monitored status information includes a power consumption by the electronic equipment ([0041]: BMC may be used to monitor status information of processor/IT device of which the BMC comprises, and the BMC may measure the voltage and current consumed by processor/IT device to derive the power consumed).
Regarding claims 6-7
CUI-ARAKI teaches the elements of claim 1 as outlined above.
Claim 6 further defines the electronic equipment and cooling environment, which limits the scope of the material or article being worked upon by the processor of claim 1 and does not limit the scope of the processor of claim 1 by introducing new structural or functional limitations pertaining to the processor. "[t]he inclusion of the material or article worked upon by a structure being claimed does not impart patentability to the claims." MPEP §2115. Accordingly, claim 6 is rejected as per claim 1.
Claim 7 depends on claim 6 further defines the electronic equipment, and is rejected as per claim 6.
Regarding claim 9
CUI-ARAKI teaches the elements of claim 1 as outlined above.
CUI teaches to determine a target operating speed of the pump ([0035]-[0037]: optimization module derives optimal pump speed).
Regarding claim 10
CUI-ARAKI teaches the elements of claim 9 as outlined above.
ARAKI also teaches wherein setting the speed of the pump comprises setting a duty cycle of the pump’s motor ([0022]: motor control signal is PWM signal “microcomputer 32 controls the duty ratio of the motor control signal […] so as to increase/decrease the rotational speed of the motor 20”).
Regarding claims 16 & 19
CUI-ARKAI teaches the elements of claim 15 and 18 as outlined above.
The remaining limitations of claims 16 and 19 are substantially the same as claim 10 and are rejected as per such.
Claims 2-3 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CUI-ARAKI in view of TRIM (US20220232730A1) (hereinafter – “CUI-ARAKI-TRIM”).
Regarding claim 2
CUI-ARAKI teaches the elements of claim 1 as outlined above.
CUI teaches that the IT asset may comprise a BMC and that the BMC is configured to monitor status information of the IT asset of which it comprises ([0041]: “BMC of each computing node refers to a local controller implemented on the motherboard of the computing node […] a BMC may measure the voltage and electrical current consumed by a processor, which may be utilized to derive the power (e.g., power=volts*current) generated by the processor. The power generated by the processor is proportional to the heat generated by the processor. A BMC may also communicate with a temperature sensor to measure a temperature of a processor, a temperature of the cooling liquid (e.g., liquid temperature 411 of FIG. 4), and/or a temperature of an airflow (e.g., airflow temperature 412 of FIG. 4)”). CUI is not relied on for the BMC being configured to determine and implement the control operations of the cooling system.
However, TRIM in an analogous art teaches an IT asset that comprises a management device ([0030]: information handling system 600 can include management device 690), and implies that the management device can be a BMC and the BMC can determine and implement control operations of a cooling device ([0036]: “management device 690 is connected to various components […] to retrieve information related to the operation of the host environment […] to manage non-processing components of information handling system 600, such as system cooling fans”, managing a non-processing component of the IT asset such as a cooling device implies a determination based on monitored/received data and control of the cooling device based on the determination).
TRIM is analogous art to the claimed invention because they are from the same field of environmental control of IT assets. CUI-ARAKI teaches a BMC of an IT asset configured to monitor status information of the IT asset which it comprises. As outlined above under claim 1, CUI-ARAKI teach an optimization module to determine configuration information for the motor of the pump and an RMC to implement the determined configuration information ([0036]). CUI-ARAKI also teach that the optimization module may be integrated with the RMC as an integrated controller, and that the optimization module may be implemented as software, thus suggesting that the functions of the optimization module and the RMC may be implemented as software in a controller. TRIM teaches or at least suggests a BMC of an IT asset configured to determine and implement control operations of a cooling device. Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious to apply the teachings of TRIM to the teachings of CUI-ARAKI such that the BMC of CUI-ARAKI, configured to monitor status information of the IT asset, would also include software configured to determine and implement the control operations of the cooling liquid device, as taught by TRIM, and CUI-ARAKI teach that the cooling device is a motor driven liquid pump. One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to apply TRIM’s teachings of using a BMC to determined and implement cooling device operations so as to consolidate CUI-ARAKI’s optimization and pump-control control functions into the BMC of the IT asset, thus simplifying and reducing the hardware architecture such that the IT asset is more modular and readily adaptable for existing cooling systems.
Regarding claim 3
CUI-ARAKI-TRIM teaches the elements of claim 2 as outlined above. TRIM also teaches or at least suggests wherein the BMC is configured to communicate with the cooling system utilizing a serial communication bus ([0036]: “management device 690 is connected to various components of the host environment via various internal communication interfaces, such as a Low Pin Count (LPC) interface, an Inter-Integrated-Circuit (I2C) interface […] to manage non-processing components of information handling system 600, such as system cooling fans”).
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CUI-ARAKI in view of MODEKURTI (US20240114650A1).
Regarding claim 8
CUI-ARAKI teaches the elements of claim 6 as outlined above.
CUI also teaches to monitor the status information for a plurality of hardware components, and to determine configuration information for a cooling device associated with a specific hardware component based on the monitored status information corresponding to each hardware component, and that the configuration information for each cooling device associated with a specific hardware component may be different (Fig. 3 203A-203E hardware/computing nodes, 231A-231E cooling devices/fans [0035]-[0037]: “communicates with each of the fan modules 231 to control the speed of each cooling fan of the fan modules 231, which in turn control the airflow rates of the fan modules 231. Note that each of fan modules 231 may be individually controlled with its specific optimal fan speed, and different fan modules and/or different cooling fans within the same fan module may have different optimal fan speeds”).
CUI-ARAKI teaches a liquid-assisted air cooling system comprising a main/CDU pump configured to supply cooling fluid to multiple computing nodes/hardware components in a fluidically parallel configuration, and that each node has a corresponding cooling device (cooling fan) (see CUI, Fig. 3, [0038]). CUI-ARAKI also teach to monitor each node’s heat generation, to determine cooling device configuration information for each node-specific cooling device based on the heat generated by each node, and to implement the configuration information such that the node can be cooled. CUI-ARAKI are not relied on for having node-specific liquid cooling pumps. However, MODEKURTI in an analogous art teaches node specific liquid pumps “positioned in a loop of the liquid cooling system between the primary pump and the node; and responsive to detection of the condition, increasing cooling to the node by increasing liquid flow rate at the node-specific pump positioned in the loop of the liquid cooling
system between the primary pump and the node” (Abstract, Fig. 2 below).
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MODEKURTI, FIG.2
MODEKURTI is analogous art to the claimed invention because they are from the same field of environmental control of IT assets. Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine MODEKURTI with CUI-ARAKI such that MODEKURTI’s node specific pumps would have been used with CUI-ARAKI’s targeted cooling system configured to determine optimal configuration information for each node specific cooling devices, as shown below. One of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that including the node specific pumps of MODEKURTI would improve the targeted and node-specific cooling system of CUI-ARAKI, without changing its principle of operation because CUI-ARAKI’s system already includes node-specific cooling devices that are configured at optimal settings. Thus, in view of examiner annotated CUI, Fig. 3 below, the determined configuration information for the multiple cooling devices specific to each node would also include configuration information for the motors of the node specific pumps.
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CUI, FIG. 3, examiner annotated to show node specific pumps
Claims 11-14, 17 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over CUI-ARAKI in view of FIELD (US20230171921A1) (hereinafter – “CUI-ARAKI-FIELD”).
Regarding claim 11
CUI-ARAKI teaches the elements of claim 1 as outlined above.
CUI-ARAKI are not relied on to monitor for one or more failure conditions of the liquid-assisted air cooling system. However, FIELD in analogous art teaches to determine a failure in a liquid-assisted cooling system (Fig. 7, #7004).
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FIELD, Fig. 7
FIELD is analogous art to the claimed invention because they are from the same field of environmental control of IT assets. CUI-ARAKI teaches that a BMC of each computing node is in communication with the cooling system controller, and that the BMC of each computing node can control operations of the computer node components ([0041]-[0043]). FIELD teaches to adjust operation of electronic equipment coupled to the cooling system when a failure of the cooling system is determined (Fig. 7, #7006). Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to apply the teachings of FIELD to the teachings of CUI-ARAKI such that FIELD’s computer-implemented liquid-assisted cooling system failure determination subroutine would have been implemented CUI-ARAKI’s processor configured to monitor electronic equipment and adjust cooling operations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that a failure of the cooling system would result in an electronic component/computing node overheating due to the failure of the cooling system, and that a way to mitigate the damage due to overheating would be to adjust operation of the electronic equipment, such “decreasing or throttling the voltage delivered to the electronic component(s) (e.g., undervolting, dynamic voltage scaling), disabling non-essential features of the electronic component(s), and/or initiating a safe shut down” (FIELD, [0056]).
Regarding claim 12
CUI-ARAKI-FIELD teaches the elements of claim 11 as outlined above.
FIELD also teaches to adjust operation of the electronic equipment in response to determining a failure condition of the cooling system (Fig. 7, [0056]: “if a failure is determined to have occurred, adjustments are made to the operation of one or more electronic”).
Regarding claim 13
CUI-ARAKI-FIELD teaches the elements of claim 12 as outlined above.
FIELD also teaches to adjust operation of the electronic equipment by limiting power consumption ([0056]: “Operational adjustments can include […] initiate a safe shut down”).
Regarding claim 14
CUI-ARAKI-FIELD teaches the elements of claim 11 as outlined above.
FIELD also teaches to detect a failure of at least one pump of the cooling system ([0018], [0052]: “apparatus can be configured to perform steps comprising determining a failure of a fluid pump”).
Regarding claims 17 & 20
CUI-ARKAI teaches the elements of claim 15 and 18 as outlined above.
The remaining limitations of claims 17 and 20 are substantially the same as claim 12 and are rejected as per such.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
MIZUNO (US5174364A) teaches methods of detecting an abnormality in an electronic equipment cooling system.
PANDURANGAN (US20170090457A1) teaches methods of monitoring and detecting a failure condition of a fluid pump.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Michael V Farina whose telephone number is (571)272-4982. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Thu 8:00-6:00 EST.
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, Kamini Shah can be reached at (571) 272-2279. 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.
/M.V.F./Examiner, Art Unit 2115
/PAUL B YANCHUS III/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2115 June 25, 2026
1 CUI also teaches a CRM product and a computer implemented method, [0062]: “processes or methods depicted in the preceding figures may be performed by processing logic that comprises hardware (e.g. circuitry, dedicated logic, etc.), software (e.g., embodied on a non-transitory computer readable medium), or a combination of both”
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