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.
The Information Disclosure Statements filed 06 December 2024, 20 May 2025 and 16 July 2026 have been fully considered by the examiner. Signed copies are attached.
Claims 1-9 are pending.
Claims 1-9 are rejected, grounds follow.
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
Claim(s) 1-4 and 6-8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Nixon et al., US Pg-Pub 2014/0277620.
Regarding Claim 1, Nixon discloses:
A plant operation support device ([0038] “Process control monitoring system”, particularly Workstation 14, see fig. 1) that is used in a plant having one or more devices (field devices 15-22, see [0038]) and a control device that controls the one or more devices, (Controller 11, see [0038]) the plant operation support device comprising: a plant configuration diagram storage unit ([0042] “the database 12 may be implemented simply as a dedicated process servicing part of the file system of the one of the workstations 14.”) that stores a plant configuration diagram constituted from the one or more devices; ([0042] “a database 12 may store configuration data including equipment data such as a list of equipment units in the plant and equipment hierarchy, administrative information related to various areas of the plant, association of equipment units with plant areas, hierarchical breakdown of equipment, field device data such as location data for each field device, association of field devices with pieces of equipment, and other configuration data.”)
An alarm collection unit configured to collect alarms of the devices output from the control device ([0042] “Importantly, the system 10 may store both current and historical process variable values collected from the field devices 15-22 or process variable data generated by the graphic display application 30 within the database 12 for use in generating and in displaying graphic trend symbols to the operator, for instance.”) when the control device determines that output values output from the devices are not within a predetermined range; ([0074] “the term "state" of a process variable corresponds to the operating state of the variable with respect to its set point and/or any alarm limits. For example, if a process variable is operating within allowable limits, the "state" of the process variable would be normal or as expected or as desired. However, if the process variable has exceeded a high alarm limit, then the state of the process variable would be a high alarm state. Similarly, the state of an alarm may be a low alarm state if the process variable drops below a corresponding low alarm limit”)
an alarm generation unit (e.g. in graphic display application 30) configured to generate an alarm occurrence diagram (“graphic trend symbol” see e.g. 7A) that displays an alarm symbol on the plant configuration diagram (see fig. 5 and [0062] “the graphic display application 30 displays each graphic trend symbol in a spatially realistic location within the graphical representation of the process plant so that the operator may quickly recognize the location of a field device associated with a particular process variable in relation to the entire process plant.”) to indicate that the alarms have occurred from abnormal devices that are the devices that have caused the alarms to occur; ([0075] “the current and projected states of a process variable are visually indicated in the icons 402, 404, 406 by a textual notation or other visual indicia within the corresponding current state and projected state sections 412, 414. For example, as shown in FIG. 7A, a single exclamation point is indicative of the process variable in an operating state (e.g., the current state section 412 in the icon 402) corresponding to a first alarm state associated with a range of values for the process variable outside normal operating conditions (e.g., the process variable drops below a low alarm limit or rises above a high alarm limit)”)
and a display unit configured to display the alarm occurrence diagram. ([0041] “one of the workstations 14 executes a graphic display application that allows an operator, via the user interface 13, to monitor the process via a spatially realistic graphical representation of the plant and to navigate to different areas of the representation of the process plant within the context of the hierarchical structure of the process plant.”)
Regarding Claim 2, Nixon discloses all of the limitations of parent claim 1,
Nixon further discloses:
wherein the alarm generation unit configured to generate the alarm symbol on the basis of at least one of an alarm occurrence time, an alarm disappearance time, a position of the abnormal device, ([0062] “the graphic display application 30 displays each graphic trend symbol in a spatially realistic location within the graphical representation of the process plant) an alarm occurrence frequency, and an alarm importance (see e.g. [0057] “the graphic display application 30 may display the alarm indicator 84 with a particular color, shading, symbol indicator, or any other suitable manner to indicate a lower priority alarm.”) in generating the alarm occurrence diagram.
Regarding Claim 3, Nixon discloses all of the limitations of parent claim 2,
Nixon further discloses:
wherein the alarm generation unit configured to display the alarm symbol (e.g. an exclamation point “!” see fig. 7A and [0075]) when the alarm occurs ([0075] “a single exclamation point is indicative of the process variable in an operating state (e.g., the current state section 412 in the icon 402) corresponding to a first alarm state”) and hide the alarm symbol when the alarm disappears in generating the alarm occurrence diagram. ([0075] “No exclamation point shown (e.g., the projected state section 414 of the icon 406) is indicative of the process variable operating within normal operating conditions.”)
Regarding Claim 4, Nixon discloses all of the limitations of parent claim 2
Nixon further discloses:
wherein the alarm generation unit configured to display the alarm symbol on or near the abnormal device in generating the alarm occurrence diagram. ([0062] “the graphic display application 30 displays each graphic trend symbol in a spatially realistic location within the graphical representation of the process plant)
Regarding Claim 6, Nixon discloses all of the limitations of parent claim 2,
Nixon further discloses:
wherein the alarm generation unit configured to vary at least one of a color of the alarm symbol or a size of the alarm symbol according to the alarm importance in generating the alarm occurrence diagram. ([0057] “lower priority alarm, the graphic display application 30 may display the alarm indicator 84 with a particular color, shading, symbol indicator … if an alarm indicator is associated with a higher priority alarm, such as an alarm indicator 90 associated with the "Heater" equipment selector icon 82, the graphic display application 30 may display the alarm indicator 90 in a color, shading, symbol indicator, etc. different from the lower priority alarm.”)
Regarding Claim 7, Nixon discloses all of the limitations of parent claim 1,
Nixon further discloses:
a plant status diagnosis unit configured to diagnose a status of the plant on the basis of the alarm occurrence diagram. (see e.g. figs. 2A-2D depicting high level plant operations (e.g. Crude Unit 1, Storage tanks, heater, etc. and [0053] “alarm summary icon 2626” – diagnosis current status for those subcomponents of the overall plant.)
Regarding Claim 8, Nixon discloses all of the limitations of parent claim 1,
Nixon further discloses:
a plant status prediction unit configured to predict a status of the plant on the basis of a change over time of the alarm occurrence diagram. ([0073] “ the characteristics and/or conditions emphasized by the icons 402, 404, 406 include a current state of a process variable, a projected state of the process variable, and a corresponding trend (e.g., direction) of the process variable, which are represented by the shape, orientation, and notations on the icons 402, 404, 406 in the illustrated example”)
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.
Claim(s) 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nixon in view of Sharma et al., US Pg-Pub 2022/0343193.
Regarding Claim 5, Nixon teaches all of the limitations of parent claim 2,
Nixon differs from the claimed invention in that:
Nixon does not appear to clearly articulate: vary at least one of a color of the alarm symbol or a size of the alarm symbol according to the alarm occurrence frequency in generating the alarm occurrence diagram.
However, Sharma teaches an alarm display for an industrial plant (see fig. 1) which varies the color of an alarm symbol according to the alarm occurrence frequency when generating the display ([0051] “event history and past process variable measurements for the selected subset of process variables/alarm conditions (this information can be ordered according to its time or frequency, e.g. the most recurring alarms of the process under investigation can be indicated using color-grade highlight”)
Sharma is analogous art because it is from the same field of endeavor of industrial process monitoring.
One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the application could have modified the teachings of Nixon to include modifying the alarm symbol based on occurrence frequency, as suggested by Sharma.
One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the application could have been motivated to make this modification in order to combine process topology, state, and history data into a same view, as suggested by Sharma ([0043] “the modeling tool 114 may combine process topology information and process control configuration with information about process state (including past and present measurements), history, and alarm and event data. In this way, dynamic information from the process control system 108 and static information about the process topology, e.g. the possible flow of information, material or energy in the process 102 may be combined”)
Claim(s) 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nixon in view of Billi et al., US Pg-Pub 2016/0292895.
Regarding Claim 9, Nixon teaches all of the limitations of parent claim 1,
Nixon further teaches:
an alarm occurrence diagram storage unit configured to store the alarm occurrence diagram in association with event information including a date and time when the alarm has occurred; (see fig. 18E “Event History” including date and time [0107] “the event history table 3300 includes the date and time (e.g., hours and minutes) of each event”)
Nixon differs from the claimed invention in that:
Nixon does not clearly articulate a search unit configured to search the alarm occurrence diagram on the basis of the event information.
However, Billi teaches an industrial automation system (see fig. 1) including historical alarm data (e.g. data historian 110 [0052] “a data historian 110 that aggregates and stores production information collected from the industrial controllers 118 or other data sources” including [0057] “historical alarms”) which includes a search unit which searches alarm diagrams based on event information ([0058] “[0058] Other search result layers can include, but are not limited to, a network layer that depicts network infrastructure devices and communication connections between the machines or devices, an alarm layer that displays a set of active or historical alarms relevant to the data tag being searched, a controller layer that graphically depicts industrial controllers relevant to the search query (e.g., controllers that contain instances of a requested data tag or related information)”)
Billi is analogous art because it is from the same field of endeavor of industrial process monitoring.
One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the application could have modified the teachings of Nixon to include a search interface for current and historical alarms based on event data, as suggested by Billi.
One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the application could have been motivated to make this modification in order to allow a user to search the industrial data platform for information of interest, as suggested by Billi. ([0053] “industrial search system that allows a user to search multiple disparate industrial data platforms for information of interest. The search system is built on a search platform that unifies plant-wide control system information from multiple diverse sources under a common namespace, or federated data model.”)
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Seki, US Pg-Pub 2018/0081350 – US equivalent to IDS submitted foreign application EP 3296830, included for citation cross-reference for future search.
Ikezoe, US Pg-Pub 2014/0142728 – see particularly figs. 3-6, depicting many of the features of the claimed invention such as alarm history including date/time and alarms displayed on a graphical layout of a manufacturing plant.
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/J.T.S./Examiner, Art Unit 2119
/MOHAMMAD ALI/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2119
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