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 .
Drawings
The drawings received on 1/28/2025 have been accepted by the examiner.
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 1-13 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.
Claims 1, 11, 13, the limitations drawn to “safety-relevant” and “non-safety-relevant” applications render the claim indefinite since it is not clear safety of what or from what the claim refers to. The context of the claimed safety is unclear. Additionally, the claimed service is unclear since it is not clear what the service entails, what is being serviced or what the service is doing.
Claims 2-10 are rejected for having the same deficiencies as Claim 1.
Claim 2, the limitation “…the partition manager or separate memory managing component” is unclear since it is not understood under what circumstances it would be one or the other thus requiring the use of the claimed “or”. Additionally, the “ownership of memory pages” is unclear since the claim does not define what is owning the pages.
Claim 5, the term inter-process communication is unclear and renders the claim indefinite since it is not understood in between what processes the communication is occurring.
Claims 6-10 are rejected for having the same deficiencies as Claim 5.
Claim 7, the information as claimed is indefinite. It is not clear what the information being claimed refers to. Is the information being exchanged or is other data being exchanged?
Claim 9, the phase “in consideration” renders the claim indefinite since it is not clear what is being considered.
Claim 10, the phrase “shall be isolated from another” renders the claim indefinite since it is not clear if its being isolated or not. Under what conditions is it or is it not being isolated? What does the term “another” refer to?
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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 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 1-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Heiser [The seL4 Microkernel].
Claim 1, Heiser discloses a method for a kernel and for executing at least one safety-relevant application and at least one non-safety-relevant application [Chapter 1, seL4 ensures safety on time critical system, Chapter 5 intro], the method comprising: receiving, by a partition manager for the kernel, from at least one of the applications a system call for a service [Chapter 1, seL4 is an operating system microkernel; section 2.1]; checking, by the partition manager, if the service is permitted to the application [Chapter 1, seL4 improves security with fine grained access control, section 2.1]; and providing the service to the application if the service is permitted to the application [section 3.1, security properties].
Claim 2, Heiser discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the method further comprises tracking, by the partition manager or a separate memory managing component, ownership of memory pages for the safety-relevant application and the at least one non-safety-relevant application [Chapter 1 and section 2.1].
Claim 3, Heiser discloses the method of claim 1, wherein checking if the service is permitted to the application comprises: obtaining information on service privileges of the application and information on the service; and comparing the information on the service privileges and the information on the service to check if the service is permitted to the application [capabilities encode bot the service and the privilege level, Chapter 1].
Claim 4, Heiser discloses the method of claim1, wherein providing the service to the application comprises forwarding the system call to the kernel for the kernel to provide the service [seL4’s IPC mechanism forwards requests to kernel managed endpoints, section 2.1].
Claim 5, Heiser discloses the method of claim1, wherein the service call includes a request for an inter-process communication (IPC), and wherein providing the service to the application comprises establishing the IPC [IPC is the core mechanism of seL4, section 2.1].
Claim 6, Heiser discloses the method of claim 5, wherein establishing the IPC comprises forwarding, by the partition manager, the IPC request to the kernel for the kernel to establish an IPC connection for the IPC [kernel establishes IPC channels, section 2.1].
Claim 7, Heiser discloses the method of claim 6, wherein establishing the IPC connection comprises providing the application with information on an IPC memory area for exchanging data as part of the IPC [shared memory IPC is explicitly described, section 3.2 and Fig 3.3].
Claim 8, Heiser discloses the method of claim 1,wherein the method further comprises: obtaining, by the partition manager, memory for applications from the memory management component; and mapping, by the partition manager, a first memory area of the memory to a safety partition for the safety-relevant application; and mapping, by another or the same partition manager, a second memory area of the memory to one or more other safety or non-safety partitions for another safety or non- safety-relevant applications, wherein the first and the second memory area do not overlap besides an explicitly shared memory area, if such a shared memory is provided [seL4 partitions memory into isolated sandboxes, Chapter 1, section 2.1].
Claim 9, Heiser discloses the method of claim 8, wherein the method comprises determining, by the partition manager, the second memory area in consideration of the first memory area and providing the second memory area to the other partition manager or itself [seL4 capability controlled memory allocation ensures non overlap, section 2.1].
Claim 10, Heiser discloses the method of claim 9, wherein the method further comprises allocating one or more memory areas to another partition manager for one or more safety and non-safety-relevant applications which shall be isolated from another and previously defined memory areas [seL4 allocates isolated memory regions, section 2.1].
Claims 11 and 13 are rejected using the same rationale as Claim 1.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Ishikawa et al. [US 2013/0191617]; Computer System, Computer System Control Method, Computer System Control Program, and Integrated Circuit. See par. 0145.
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/MIDYS ROJAS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2133
