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 .
Claims 1-10 are pending.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 11/26/2024 was in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the Examiner.
Claim Interpretation
Regarding claims 1-8 and 10, which recite “one or more processors”, Examiner notes that the term “processor” is defined in the Specification as “any type of computational circuit that may comprise hardware elements and software elements” (Specification, ¶[0085]). Therefore, claims 1-8 and 10 are interpreted as containing hardware, are not directed to software per se, and are eligible subject matter under 35 U.S.C. 101.
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 1-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. Exemplary claim 9 is directed to a method of storing logs of virtualization environment components, storing correspondence information, searching for a second error log based on a first error log and the correspondence information, and presenting the search result. The claim is directed to a mental process (concepts performed in the human mind, including an observation, evaluation, judgement, or opinion), as at its core, the inventive concept is searching for a particular log based on stored information, which is reasonably done by a human. This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the additional elements (i.e., virtualization environment components) do not impose a meaningful limit on the abstract idea. Additionally and with respect also to claims 1 and 10 which are parallel in scope to claim 9, the claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional elements (i.e., processors) are generically recited computing elements performing extra-solution activity. Therefore, claims 1, 9, and 10 are rejected. Dependent claims 2-8 merely provide additional limitations regarding the type of correspondence information stored, how to use keywords to search, and how to present a search result, which do not add significantly more to the abstract idea. Accordingly, claims 2-8 are rejected as depending from claim 1 and under the same rationale.
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, 5, 9, and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Srivastava (U.S. Pat. 11,226,858), and further in view of Menon et al. (U.S. Pat. 11,546,243), hereinafter Menon.
Regarding claim 1, Srivastava disclosed a network management apparatus comprising one or more processors (processor, col. 10, line 19), at least one of the one or more processors performing processing comprising: a first storage process of storing logs of a plurality of components of a network (storing logs generated in an online system, i.e., components/network, col. 2, line 59); a second storage process of storing correspondence information in which, for each failure that may occur in the network, error logs related to the failure are associated with each other (generating/associating, i.e., storing, feature vector centroids, i.e., correspondence information, for a cluster of error logs, i.e., error logs associated with each other, col. 5, lines 40-44); a search process of searching, when a failure occurs in the network, based on an error log of a first component (receiving/storing an error log, i.e., error log of a first component, for a failure that occurred, i.e., when a failure occurs, col. 3, lines 4-6 and 22-24), for an error log of a second component related to the failure from the stored logs using the correspondence information (comparing, i.e., searching, the centroid, i.e., correspondence information, of a cluster of error logs, i.e., an error log of a second component related to the failure, to keywords/terms/feature vector representation of the received error log, i.e., error log of a first component, col. 5, lines 28-31 and 42-47); and a presentation process of presenting a result of the search to a user (comparison outputting a category score for the error log, col. 5, lines 35-39; displaying analysis information, i.e., result of search, col. 3, lines 43-46).
While Srivastava disclosed the storage of logs and correspondence information to use for searching for logs related to a network failure, Srivastava did not specifically disclose such logs as related to a plurality of components constituting a virtualization environment. That is, Srivastava did not disclose:
a first storage process of storing logs of a plurality of components constituting a virtualization environment of a network (emphasis added).
Menon disclosed storing log data related to network components/applications in a virtualization environment (VNF tracing/testing, i.e., virtualization environment, col. 2, lines 22-25; log data, col. 12, lines 1-10).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the apparatus of Srivastava to store and use logs related to a plurality of components constituting a virtualization environment as claimed, because the use of such a network environment would have avoided custom hardware for network functions and potentially saved costs (Menon, col. 1, lines 20-29), and the logging of errors in such an environment would have aided to find the root cause of network issues (Menon, col. 2, lines 32-35).
Regarding claim 2, Srivastava and Menon disclosed the network management apparatus wherein
the second storage process includes storing the correspondence information in which keywords representing contents of the error logs of the plurality of components related to the failure are associated with each other (error logs clustered using keywords/terms extracted from error logs, Srivastava, col. 5, lines 22-47), and
the search process includes searching, based on a keyword representing contents of the error log of the first component, for a keyword representing contents of the error log of the second component with reference to the correspondence information, and searching for the error log of the second component from the stored logs based on the searched keyword (comparing terms, i.e., keyword, of received error log, i.e., error log of first component, with terms, i.e., keyword, of stored error logs, i.e., searching for error log of second component, Srivastava, col. 5, lines 28-32).
Regarding claim 5, Srivastava and Menon disclosed the network management apparatus wherein
the plurality of components includes a virtualized infrastructure and an application on the virtualized infrastructure (cloud computing infrastructure, i.e., virtualized infrastructure, Menon, col. 4, line 4; applications, Menon, col. 4, line 14).
The combination of references is made under the same rationale as claim 1 above.
Regarding claim 9, Srivastava disclosed a network management method comprising: storing logs of a plurality of components of a network (storing logs generated in an online system, i.e., components/network, col. 2, line 59); storing correspondence information in which, for each failure that may occur in the network, error logs of the plurality of components related to the failure are associated with each other (generating/associating, i.e., storing, feature vector centroids, i.e., correspondence information, for a cluster of error logs, i.e., error logs associated with each other, col. 5, lines 40-44); when a failure occurs in the network, searching, based on an error log of a first component among the plurality of components (receiving/storing an error log, i.e., error log of a first component, for a failure that occurred, i.e., when a failure occurs, col. 3, lines 4-6 and 22-24), for an error log of a second component related to the failure from the stored logs using the correspondence information (comparing, i.e., searching, the centroid, i.e., correspondence information, of a cluster of error logs, i.e., an error log of a second component related to the failure, to keywords/terms/feature vector representation of the received error log, i.e., error log of a first component, col. 5, lines 28-31 and 42-47); and presenting a result of the search to a user (comparison outputting a category score for the error log, col. 5, lines 35-39; displaying analysis information, i.e., result of search, col. 3, lines 43-46).
While Srivastava disclosed the storage of logs and correspondence information to use for searching for logs related to a network failure, Srivastava did not specifically disclose such logs as related to a plurality of components constituting a virtualization environment. That is, Srivastava did not disclose:
storing logs of a plurality of components constituting a virtualization environment of a network (emphasis added).
Menon disclosed storing log data related to network components/applications in a virtualization environment (VNF tracing/testing, i.e., virtualization environment, col. 2, lines 22-25; log data, col. 12, lines 1-10).
The combination of references is made under the same rationale as claim 1 above.
Regarding claim 10, Srivastava disclosed a network management system comprising one or more processors (processor, col. 10, line 19), at least one of the one or more processors performing processing comprising: a first storage process of storing logs of a plurality of components of a network (storing logs generated in an online system, i.e., components/network, col. 2, line 59); a second storage process of storing correspondence information in which, for each failure that may occur in the network, error logs of the plurality of components related to the failure are associated with each other (generating/associating, i.e., storing, feature vector centroids, i.e., correspondence information, for a cluster of error logs, i.e., error logs associated with each other, col. 5, lines 40-44); a search process of searching, when a failure occurs in the network, based on an error log of a first component among the plurality of components (receiving/storing an error log, i.e., error log of a first component, for a failure that occurred, i.e., when a failure occurs, col. 3, lines 4-6 and 22-24), for an error log of a second component related to the failure from the stored logs using the correspondence information (comparing, i.e., searching, the centroid, i.e., correspondence information, of a cluster of error logs, i.e., an error log of a second component related to the failure, to keywords/terms/feature vector representation of the received error log, i.e., error log of a first component, col. 5, lines 28-31 and 42-47); and a presentation process of presenting a result of the search to a user (comparison outputting a category score for the error log, col. 5, lines 35-39; displaying analysis information, i.e., result of search, col. 3, lines 43-46).
While Srivastava disclosed the storage of logs and correspondence information to use for searching for logs related to a network failure, Srivastava did not specifically disclose such logs as related to a plurality of components constituting a virtualization environment. That is, Srivastava did not disclose:
a first storage process of storing logs of a plurality of components constituting a virtualization environment of a network (emphasis added).
Menon disclosed storing log data related to network components/applications in a virtualization environment (VNF tracing/testing, i.e., virtualization environment, col. 2, lines 22-25; log data, col. 12, lines 1-10).
The combination of references is made under the same rationale as claim 1 above.
Claim 3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Srivastava (U.S. Pat. 11,226,858) and Menon (U.S. Pat. 11,546,243) as applied to claim 2 above, and further in view of Zhou et al. (U.S. Pat. App. Pub. 2022/0101115), hereinafter Zhou.
Regarding claim 3, Srivastava disclosed the network management apparatus as detailed above. Srivastava did not disclose the apparatus wherein the presentation process includes presenting, as a result of the search, information including the keyword representing the contents of the error log of the first component and the keyword representing the contents of the error log of the second component searched with reference to the correspondence information.
Zhou disclosed presenting error logs with highlighted/emphasized keywords searched within the error log (¶[0035]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the apparatus of Srivastava wherein the presentation process includes presenting, as a result of the search, information including the keyword representing the contents of the error log of the first component and the keyword representing the contents of the error log of the second component searched with reference to the correspondence information as claimed, because doing so would have made error logs more easily read and understood by humans (Zhou, ¶[0035]).
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Srivastava (U.S. Pat. 11,226,858) and Menon (U.S. Pat. 11,546,243) as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Haligowski et al. (U.S. Pat. App. Pub. 2017/0364843), hereinafter Haligowski.
Regarding claim 4, Srivastava disclosed the network management apparatus as detailed above. Srivastava did not disclose the apparatus wherein the presentation process includes presenting, when the error log of the second component is searched from the stored logs in the search process, information including a link to the searched error log of the second component as a result of the search.
Haligowski disclosed providing links to error logs related to failures of network components (¶[0058], Abstract).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the apparatus of Srivastava wherein the presentation process includes presenting, when the error log of the second component is searched from the stored logs in the search process, information including a link to the searched error log of the second component as a result of the search as claimed, because doing so would have provided users quick access to an error log for troubleshooting and determining a remedy to an error (Haligowski, ¶[0058]).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOSEPH R MANIWANG whose telephone number is (571)270-7257. The examiner can normally be reached 8:30AM - 4:30PM.
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/JOSEPH R MANIWANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2441