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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-15 are presented for examination.
IDS filed on 11/19/24 is considered.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 10 and 12 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if overcoming current 101 and 112 rejection and rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
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 11 and 12 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 applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Referring to claim 11, the claim recites the term “it” which renders the claim vague and indefinite. It is unclear what the term “it” is referring to.
All dependent claims are rejected to as having the same deficiencies as the claims they depend from.
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 1-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claims are directed to software per se, which does not fall into the categories of “process”, “machine”, “manufacture” and “composition of matter”. Claim 1 recites a plurality of intraplant orchestrator without defining the orchestrator to include any hardware component, which directs the claim to software per se. All dependent claims are rejected to as having the same deficiencies as the claims they depend from.
Claims 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claims are directed to signal per se, which does not fall into the categories of “process”, “machine”, “manufacture” and “composition of matter”. Referring to claim 15, claim 15 recites the limitation, “a computer-readable medium”, and according to [0073] in the specification, the computer-readable medium may be transitory or non-transitory, volatile or non-volatile, which directs the claim to signal per se.
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 1-8, 14 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Corsini et al., US Patent Publication Number 2022/0358605, hereinafter Corsini, in view of Wouhaybi et al., US Patent Publication Number 2020/0310394, hereinafter Wouhaybi.
Referring to claim 1, Corsini discloses a federated orchestration system (figure 2, a distributed production management system having central system 210 connected modules 220s at production site S1-S3; [0041-0043],[0053]), comprising:
a plurality of intraplant orchestrators (220s) assigned to respective ones of a plurality of production plants (S1-S3), wherein each intraplant orchestrator (each 220) is operative to execute one or more intraplant orchestration tasks regarding the respective production plant (respective S1-S3)(figure 2, [0008][0043][0053], a respective module 220 at each site manage production there S1-S3, including local planning and resource allocation); and
an interplant orchestrator (system 210) operative to execute one or more interplant orchestration tasks (figures 1-2, [0041-0042][0053][0063], system 210 determines suitable production lines and dispatches order among sites);
wherein the interplant orchestrator and the intraplant orchestrators are operative to cooperate to orchestrate resources of the plurality of production plants (figures 1-2, [0041-0042][0053][0063], system 210 communicates with the respective modules 220 and selects production line using plant resource information).
Corsini does not explicitly teach orchestrating services.
Wouhaybi teaches the missing software-service orchestration (figure 20, [0221][0222], orchestrator 2010 assigns portions of an application workloads using resource information received from sub-orchestrators 2040A-2040C; the sub-orchestrators schedule that workloads onto devices in their respective pools; figure 13, deployment of applications on available system resources), where applying those software orchestration functions to Corsini’s system supplies software services of the plurality of production plants.
It would have been obvious to a person with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to implement Wouhaybi’s top-level and local software workload scheduling in Corsini’s distributed production system to assign software functions/services according to the resources reported by each plant because both Wouhaybi and Corsini disclose a top-level orchestrator manages a plurality of sub-level orchestrators.
A person with ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the modification to allow a global view of production capacity while retaining local planning as achieved by incorporating Wouhaybi’s hierarchy to coordinate application deployment using that local resource information.
Referring to claim 2, Corsini in view of Wouhaybi teaches the federated orchestration system of claim 1, wherein the intraplant orchestrators (modules 220) form part of a first level of a hierarchy, and wherein the interplant orchestrator (system 210) forms part of a second level of the hierarchy which is higher than the first level (Corsini, figure 2, system 210 and modules 220s shows two difference levels of a hierarchy where system 210 is higher than the first level for modules 220s).
Referring to claim 3, Corsini in view of Wouhaybi teaches the federated orchestration system of claim 1, wherein the interplant orchestration tasks comprise one or more of: distributing workloads across plants; applying central updates across plants; applying higher-level directives; carrying out failover or disaster handling; initial deployment (Corsini, figures 1 and 2, [0053][0063], central dispatch/distribute of production work among sites S1-S3).
Referring to claim 4, Corsini in view of Wouhaybi teaches the federated orchestration system of claim 1, wherein each intraplant orchestrator is operative to perform intraplant scheduling for assigning one or more resources of the respective plant to execute one or more services needed by that plant (Corsini, figure 2, [0008], local scheduling under plant-specific constraints and allocation of equipment, material or personnel; [0053], with respective 220s at the sites) and wherein the interplant orchestrator is operative to perform interplant scheduling for assigning one or more resources of one of the plurality of plants to execute one or more services needed by another of the plurality of plants (figures 1 and 2, [0053][0063], central system selects and dispatch work among sites), the limitations of the claims are rejected in the analysis of claim 1 above, and the claim is rejected on that basis.
Referring to claim 5, Corsini in view of Wouhaybi teaches the federated orchestration system of claim 4, wherein the interplant orchestrator is operative to perform the interplant scheduling in accordance with one or more policies governing scheduling decisions (Corsini, figures 1 and 2, [0046][0047][0054]-[0060], the selection criteria govern which plant resources can be used for the cross-plant scheduling devision).
Referring to claim 6, Corsini in view of Wouhaybi teaches the federated orchestration system of claim 4, wherein the interplant orchestrator is operative to perform the interplant scheduling based at least partially on plant data collected by the interplant orchestrator from one or more of the production plants (Corsini, figures 1 and 2, [0046][0053][0063], system 210 receives relevant production information through the respective sites modules 220s and selects available production lines based on resource availability).
Referring to claim 7, Corsini in view of Wouhaybi teaches the federated orchestration system of claim 6, wherein the plant data comprises state data representing the state of resources, services, and/or equipment of the respective plant (Corsini, [0046][0063], Corsini maintains current production parameter values and determines resource availability for production lines).
Referring to claim 8, Corsini in view of Wouhaybi teaches the federated orchestration system of claim 6, wherein the plant data comprises data obtained from one or more manufacturing execution systems or services (Corsini, figure 2, [0002]-[0004], [0053], Corsini identifies its system as an MES/MOM arrangement and describes production information supplies through the respective site modules 220s to system 210).
Referring to claim 9, Corsini in view of Wouhaybi teaches the federated orchestration system of claim 1, Wouhaybi further teaches wherein the interplant orchestrator is operative to generate a federation configuration which represents an interplant scheduling decision ([0502], orchestration server generates a configuration assigning software modules to respective nodes, [0221][0222], the top-level orchestrator assigns portions of an overall workload to respective resource pools based on available-resource telemetry, figure 20; applies to Corsini’s production plants, the overall module-placement configuration represents the interplant scheduling devision), and to derive from the federation configuration a local configuration for each of the plurality of production plants, wherein each local configuration instructs the intraplant orchestrator of the respective plant to implement at least part of the interplant scheduling decision (figure 20 [0222], each sub-orchestrator 2040A-C receives its assigned portion of the overall workload and schedules that portion of the overall workload and schedules that portion on devices within its respective pool which is viewed as the claimed derive from the federation configuration a local configuration for each of the plurality of production plants, wherein each local configuration instructs the intraplant orchestrator of the respective plant to implement at least part of the interplant scheduling decision). The limitations of the claims are rejected in the analysis of claim 1 above, and the claim is rejected on that basis.
Referring to claim 11, Corsini in view of Wouhaybi teaches the federated orchestration system of claim 1, wherein at least one said intraplant orchestrator is operative to determine whether it has resources available to address an issue by performing a local action and to assign those resources to address the issue in response to determining that the resources are available (Wouhaybi, figure 20 [0222], each sub-orchestrator receives telemetry indicating the resources available in its own pool and schedules work onto devices in that pool, and Wouhaybi also identifies surplus load in an overloaded cluster as an issue for which resources are sought from another pool when needed). The limitations of the claims are rejected in the analysis of claim 1 above, and the claim is rejected on that basis.
Referring to claim 13, Corsini in view of Wouhaybi teaches the federated orchestration system of claim 1, wherein the interplant orchestrator is operative to roll out central updates affecting multiple plants and/or to perform one or more maintenance tasks affecting multiple plants (Wouhaybi, figures 23 and 24, [0230]-[0236][0240], Wouhaybi teaches adding monitoring and feedback (central updates) to its hierarchical orchestration system where a controller collects software and hardware data from multiple node, identifies failures, schedules nodes for maintenance or inspection, and removes node undergoing service from the resources available to its orchestrator).
Referring to claims 14 and 15, the claims encompass the same scope of the invention as that of the claim 1. Therefore, claims 14 and 15 are rejected on the same ground as the claims 1.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Applicant is reminded that in amending in response to a rejection of claims, the patentable novelty must be clearly shown in view of the state of the art disclosed by the references cited and the objection made. Applicant must show how the amendments avoid such references and objections. See 37 CFR 1.111(c).
US 20210406088 A1, teaches a federated operator issuing resource-provisioning instruction to multiple clusters, with cluster delegates translating them into local operator-specific instructions (figures 2 and 4).
US 20150372938 A1, teaches shared resource-group templates, partition-specific overrides, and generation of partition-specific resource configurations (figures 2-4).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LIANGCHE A WANG whose telephone number is (571)272-3992. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 10:00am to 6:30pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Joon H Hwang can be reached on 571-272-4036. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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Liang-che Alex Wang
October 5, 2026
/LIANG CHE A WANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2447
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