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 .
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.
Claim 4 is 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.
Claim 4 recites the limitation “the advised state” in line 2. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. There is no prior original recitation of an advised state in the claim or its parent. Claim 1 provides an original recitation of an “advised reboot state”. Similar reasoning may be applied to “the mandatory state” in line 3, and “the critical state”, in line 5.
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.
Claims 1, 5, and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Puustinen et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2018/0157557.
Regarding claim 1, Puustinen discloses a method comprising:
identifying, at an agent located on the managed endpoint, a reboot policy, wherein the reboot policy indicates one or more reboot behaviors initiated after update operations are performed at the managed endpoint [para. 0033: “A balance between an activity level of a service and the availability of the service for rebooting can be guided by a policy. The policy can be enforced by the reboot agent 104. The reboot agent 104 can make the determination of whether to reboot the system 100 or postpone the reboot of the system 100 based on the service activity level of the services 118.”];
identifying, at the agent [Fig. 1: software updater; para. 0025: “…the reboot agent 104 can be incorporated into the software updater 102.”], a first update operation [Fig. 3, step 330: update a software of a UE] associated with a first level of criticality [step 336: update criticality level] based on metadata associated with an instruction implemented to locally perform the first update operation on the managed endpoint [step 332, 334: state data and service activity level] ;
comparing, at the agent, the first level of criticality of the first update operation with the reboot policy [step 336: compare the service activity level to an update criticality level] to determine a first reboot behavior;
transitioning, at the agent, an endpoint state to a first reboot state [step 338: reschedule determination of whether to reboot] to actuate the first reboot behavior [i.e., the actual reboot operation], wherein the first reboot state comprises one or more of an advised reboot state, a mandatory reboot state, or a critical reboot state [BRI of “advised”, “mandatory”, or “critical” may encompass the options presented in step 338]; and
actuating, at the agent, the first reboot behavior using the first reboot state [step 338: rescheduled determination indicates that a reboot may eventually be determined later; see para. 0041, incrementing the criticality level].
Regarding claim 5, Puustinen teaches that the first update operation includes installation of a first patch [para. 0023: “An update (e.g., system update) can comprise replacing and/or adding computer readable instructions to the services 118, the containers 106, an operation system (OS) associated with system 100, and/or firmware associated with a computing device hosting the system 100”]; and the first level of criticality is based on one or more of a criticality score of the first patch, a patch type of the first patch, or a vulnerability type of the first patch [para. 0042: “For example, the software updater can set the update criticality level cased on a type of update, among other factors associated with setting the update criticality level.”].
Claim 14 recites the same steps as recited in claim 1 and is rejected on the same basis.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2, 3, 6-13, and 15-20 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Claim 4 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Minnich, U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2025/0117205, discloses a BMC that may selectively provide an immediate or delayed reboot and firmware update depending upon on a criticality level of the update [para. 0056].
Ji et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2025/0094156, discloses an invention that determines update priority scores for a set of application updates that used to prioritize the updates [para. 0081].
Samuel et al., U.S. Patent No. 11,204,756, discloses a system with software updates that have criticality values which determine the necessity of a reboot [col. 9, lines 20-26].
Thapar et al., U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2018/0267790, discloses a system that groups software updates according to whether a restart is involved [abstract].
Cha, U.S. Patent No. 8,250,621, discloses a system that determines an importance of a firmware upgrade and selects either an immediate or deferred reset [col. 2, lines 35-38].
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/JI H BAE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2176
U.S. Patent and Trademark Office
Phone: 571-272-7181
Fax: 571-273-7181
ji.bae@uspto.gov
