DETAILED ACTION
This Office action is responsive to the following communication: Application filed on 30 January 2025.
Claim(s) 1-14 is/are pending and present for examination. Claim(s) 1 and 13 is/are in independent form.
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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 30 January 2025 is being considered by the examiner.
Drawings
The drawings were received on 30 January 2025. These drawings are accepted.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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) 1-4, 13, and 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bucchi et al, USPGPUB No. 2019/0196890, filed on 13 June 2018, and published on 27 June 2019, and in view of Arora et al, USGPUB No. 2025/0245219, filed on 7 April 2025, claiming priority to 10 June 2022, and published on 31 July 2025.
As per independent claims 1 and 13, Bucchi, in combination with Arora, discloses:
A data processing system for an automation system, comprising:
one or more processors, and
non-transitory memory storing a software stack comprising computational modules executable by the one or more processors, the software stack including a unified data management module configured to:
receive a query request via a unified query API layer configured to expose a common interface {See Bucchi, [0028], wherein this reads over “An API query engine that supports multiple query languages and API protocols is disclosed.”} for accessing data from a persistent storage layer including a plurality of data stores that ingest data respectively from a plurality of data sources in the automation system {See Bucchi, [0031], wherein this reads over “The use of the API query engine parallels the use of SQL (Structured Query Language) for relational databases. An API Query may enable “SQL” like capabilities on top of systems that expose their data via APIs rather than have the systems exposing their underlying databases directly. Providing a unified declarative query mechanism that may be used over any number of unrelated data sources, with associated description meta-data so they may be consumed as a single unified data graph, is disclosed.”}, wherein the plurality of data stores include different access APIs and data schema {See Bucchi, [0033], wherein this reads over “Different plugins for an API Query mechanism for different types of data sources may provide the mapping mechanism for the new type of data source to participate in the API Query mechanism. An API Query engine may parse a declarative query over the unified data graph as a query algebra expression and may compute a query plan to be executed to extract information from the data sources connected through the unified query plan and/or compose the final answer.”},
extract query parameters from the unified query API layer and use the extracted query parameters to build a dedicated query structured for a specific data store by a query builder utilizing a semantic layer, wherein the semantic layer is configured to map queries to individual data stores based on context information derived from query parameters and provide access to individual data stores based on their respective access API and data schema {See Arora, [0028], wherein this reads over “The data intake and query system can use flexible schema to specify how to extract information from events. A flexible schema may be developed and redefined as needed. The flexible schema can be applied to events “on the fly,” when it is needed (e.g., at search time, index time, ingestion time, etc.). When the schema is not applied to events until search time, the schema may be referred to as a “late-binding schema.””; and [0245], wherein this reads over “As described herein, the search head 601 may translate the first query language query to the second query language query based on the query syntax or semantics of the first query language query, one or more query commands, user query parameters, system query parameters of the first query language query, and/or a time zone associated with the first query language query”}, and
execute the dedicated query directly on the specific data store by a query engine and return a query result via the unified query API layer {See Arora, [0251], wherein this reads over “At 606, the search head 601 communicates the second query language query in the second query language to a search coordinator associated with the external data system 512.”; [0252], wherein this reads over “At 608, the search coordinator 604 processes the second query language query. The search coordinator 603 may process the query in a manner similar to the manner in which the search coordinator 603 processes queries that it receives from client computing devices 602.”; and [0256], wherein this reads over “In response to the request, the search coordinator 603 may receive the object identifiers for the relevant data objects.”}.
Bucchi is directed to the invention of a query in a distributed API computing environment. Bucchi fails to expressly disclose each and every limitation in the instant claim. Arora is directed to reading query results from an external system via a combination of a schema and semantics. Specifically, Arora discloses that “the search head 601 may translate the first query language query to the second query language query based on the query syntax or semantics of the first query language query” which would read upon the claimed feature of building a query based on query parameters and a semantic layer. See Arora, [0245]. Additionally, Arora discloses that “[t]he data intake and query system can use flexible schema to specify how to extract information from events” which would read upon the claimed feature of using a schema for mapping queries. See Arora, [0028]. Lastly, Arora discloses that “the search head 601 communicates the second query language query in the second query language to a search coordinator associated with the external data system 512” and “the search coordinator 603 may receive the object identifiers for the relevant data objects” which would read upon the claimed features directed to executing a query and returning a query result. See Arora, [0251]-[0252]. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date of the instant application to improve the prior art of Bucchi with that of Arora such that the invention of Bucchi may be allowed to further process query data according to extracted query parameters and processing via a semantic layer. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the aforementioned combination such that the query processing of Bucchi may be further enhanced to contextual process the query according to semantics and a schema.
As per dependent claim 2, Bucchi, in combination with Arora, discloses:
The data processing system according to claim 1, wherein the unified query API layer comprises a first one or more APIs for providing programmatic access to data from the persistent storage layer by an application or a plant data model on top of the unified data management module in the software stack {See Arora, [0255], wherein this reads over “In some cases, the search coordinator 603 may identify and use other information associated with the query as filter criteria. For example, the search coordinator 603 may use the identity of the user that initiated the query, a tenant or account associated with the data to be searched/processed, or other data associated with the query as filter criteria and request object identifiers of objects that include data that satisfies at least a portion of the filter criteria from the second storage system 609.”}.
As per dependent claim 3, Bucchi, in combination with Arora, discloses:
The data processing system according to claim 1, wherein the unified query API layer comprises a second one or more APIs for providing physical data access from the persistent storage layer by a user interacting with the data processing system for retrieving data from the persistent storage layer {See Arora, [0257], wherein this reads over “As described herein, in some cases the metadata service 607 and search coordinator 603 are associated with different client service accounts, different cloud service providers, and/or different external data systems 512. In some such cases, prior to requesting the metadata, the search coordinator 603 may authenticate itself with the metadata service 607. For example, the search coordinator 603 may send a request to the metadata service 607 with one or more identifiers or tokens that enable the metadata service 607 to authenticate search coordinator 603 to interact with the metadata service 607. In certain cases, prior to the search coordinator 603 interacting with the metadata service 607, a user stores one or more authorizations with the metadata service 607, e.g., in one or more configuration files of the metadata service 607 to authorize search coordinator 603 to interact with metadata service 607.”}.
As per dependent claim 4, Bucchi, in combination with Arora, discloses:
The data processing system according to claim 1, wherein the persistent storage layer is realized, at least in part, by data stores local to the respective data sources {See Arora, [0051], wherein this reads over “Similarly, the components of the storage system 116 may include data stores of individual components of the indexing system and/or may be a separate shared data storage system, like AWS S3, that is accessible to distinct components of the intake system 110, indexing system 112, and query system 114.”}.
As per dependent claim 14, Bucchi, in combination with Arora, discloses:
A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium encoded with instructions that, when processed by a data processing system, configure the data processing system to perform the method according to claim 13 {See Arora, [0038], wherein this reads over “Examples of a client computing device 106 may include, without limitation, smart phones, tablet computers, handheld computers, wearable devices, laptop computers, desktop computers, servers, portable media players, gaming devices, or other device that includes computer hardware (e.g., processors, non-transitory, computer-readable media, etc.) and so forth. In certain cases, a client computing device 106 can include a hosted, virtualized, or containerized device, such as an isolated execution environment, that shares computing resources (e.g., processor, memory, etc.) of a particular machine with other isolated execution environments.”}.
Claim(s) 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bucchi et al, USPGPUB No. 2019/0196890, filed on 13 June 2018, and published on 27 June 2019, and in view of Arora et al, USGPUB No. 2025/0245219, filed on 7 April 2025, claiming priority to 10 June 2022, and published on 31 July 2025, in further view of Weaver et al, USPGPUB No. 2019/0361916, filed on 13 August 2019, and published on 28 November 2019.
As per dependent claim 5, Bucchi, in combination with Arora and Weaver, discloses:
The data processing system according to claim 4, wherein the unified data management module provides one or more pre-built data stores as part of the persistent storage layer for ingesting data from one or more data sources without local storage, the one or more pre-built data stores configured based on a data type associated with the one or more data sources {See Weaver, [0126], wherein this reads over “[i]n embodiments, a unified architecture is provided for the database 100. Data storage is enabled for data types that support a variety of query models, including any of search, graph, temporal, geospatial, key/value, document, and analytics queries. Further, a unified query language is provided for enabling access to the functionality of each of the query models. As a result, users, such as enterprises are not constrained in how they need to store data just to support the use of a particular query model; instead, storage can be undertaken without concern for the query model, and any and all of the query models can be used.”}.
The combination of Bucchi and Arora fail to expressly disclose the features of the instant claim. Weaver is directed to a database system for data storage and within a transactional database. Specifically, Weaver discloses data storage which is enabled for a plurality of data types which support a variety of query models (i.e., pre-built data stores based on data types). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date of the instant application to improve the prior art of Bucchi and Arora such that the system of Bucchi may be further configured to receive and store a plurality of data types within pre-built data stores. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the aforementioned combination such that data may be ingested and organized by data type.
Claim(s) 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bucchi et al, USPGPUB No. 2019/0196890, filed on 13 June 2018, and published on 27 June 2019, and in view of Arora et al, USGPUB No. 2025/0245219, filed on 7 April 2025, claiming priority to 10 June 2022, and published on 31 July 2025, in further view of Bourbie et al, USPGPUB No. 2025/0252135, filed on 9 December 2024, and published on 7 August 2025.
As per dependent claim 6, Bucchi, in combination with Arora and Bourbie, discloses:
The data processing system according to claim 1, wherein the context information includes a data store identifier and/or a data type specified in the query parameters {See Bourbie, [0360], wherein this reads over “For example, the search heads 504 can parse the queries to identify the set of data to be processed and the manner of processing the set of data, identify the location of the data (non-limiting examples: intake system 210, common storage 216, acceleration data store 222, etc.), identify tasks to be performed by the search head and tasks to be performed by the search nodes 506, distribute the query (or sub-queries corresponding to the query) to the search nodes 506, apply extraction rules to the set of data to be processed, aggregate search results from the search nodes 506, store the search results in the query acceleration data store 222, return search results to the client device 204, etc.”}.
The combination of Bucchi and Arora fail to expressly disclose the features of the instant claim. Bourbie is directed to the invention of executing one query based on the results of another query. Specifically, Bourbie discloses that “the search heads 504 can parse the queries to identify the set of data to be processed and the manner of processing the set of data, identify the location of the data (non-limiting examples: intake system 210, common storage 216, acceleration data store 222, etc.), identify tasks to be performed by the search head and tasks to be performed by the search nodes 506, distribute the query (or sub-queries corresponding to the query) to the search nodes 506, apply extraction rules to the set of data to be processed, aggregate search results from the search nodes 506, store the search results in the query acceleration data store 222, return search results to the client device 204, etc.” See Bourbie, [0360]. That is, Bourbie discloses context information such as the set of data to be processed or the manner of processing a set of data (i.e., a data type specified in the query parameters). One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the aforementioned combination such that the context information of Bourbie may be utilized to enhance query processing.
Claim(s) 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bucchi et al, USPGPUB No. 2019/0196890, filed on 13 June 2018, and published on 27 June 2019, and in view of Arora et al, USGPUB No. 2025/0245219, filed on 7 April 2025, claiming priority to 10 June 2022, and published on 31 July 2025, in further view of Official Notice.
As per dependent claim 7, Bucchi, in combination with Arora and Official Notice, discloses the claimed feature of “wherein the semantic layer comprises, for each of the data stores in the persistent storage layer, a registry containing an address, data type, assess API and data schema.” That is, the non-functional descriptive materials of “a registry containing an address, data type, assess API and data schema” would be have been widely-known and obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date of the instant application to improve the prior art combination of Bucchi and Arora such that said non-functional descriptive material may be further included within the semantic evaluations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the aforementioned combination such that the systems of Bucchi and Arora would have additional context for the semantic evaluations.
Claim(s) 7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bucchi et al, USPGPUB No. 2019/0196890, filed on 13 June 2018, and published on 27 June 2019, and in view of Arora et al, USGPUB No. 2025/0245219, filed on 7 April 2025, claiming priority to 10 June 2022, and published on 31 July 2025, in further view of Raghunathan, USPGPUB No. 2016/0328432, filed on 6 May 2015, and published on 10 November 2016.
As per dependent claim 7, Bucchi, in combination with Arora and Raghunathan, discloses: The data processing system according to claim 1, wherein the semantic layer is further configured to dynamically detect a status of existing and new data stores added to the persistent storage layer {See Raghunathan, [0115], wherein this reads over “The Node Status Data Entity 610 has fields that may include the logical node number (LN), the address of the node (ADDR), the node data center (DC), a name for the node (NM), a unique identifier for the node (BD), whether the node is a bootstrap node (ISBOOT), whether the node is a seed node (ISSEED), which data node the current node is a designated replica of (REPLICAOF), the type of the node (STYPE), the user data storage size (STORAGE), and the various statuses of the storage (STSTAT), indexing/sketching (ISSTAT), views (VWSTAT), overlay (OWSTAT), and the global views (GLSTAT)”}.
The combination of Bucchi and Arora fail to expressly disclose the features of the instant claim. Raghunathan is directed to the invention of a system for management of time series data sets. Specifically, Raghunathan discloses that “[t]he Node Status Data Entity 610 has fields that may include the logical node number (LN), the address of the node (ADDR), the node data center (DC), a name for the node (NM), a unique identifier for the node (BD), whether the node is a bootstrap node (ISBOOT), whether the node is a seed node (ISSEED), which data node the current node is a designated replica of (REPLICAOF), the type of the node (STYPE), the user data storage size (STORAGE), and the various statuses of the storage (STSTAT), indexing/sketching (ISSTAT), views (VWSTAT), overlay (OWSTAT), and the global views (GLSTAT).” See Raghunathan, [0115]. That is, Raghunathan discloses field data which includes the various statuses of the storage (i.e., a status of existing and new data stores added to the persistent storage layer). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date of the instant application to improve the prior art combination of Bucchi and Arora with that of Raghunathan such that the status of the data stores of Bucchi may be monitored according to the node management system of Raghunathan. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date of the instant application to improve the prior art of Bucchi such that storage status information may be readily available for system-use.
Claim(s) 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bucchi et al, USPGPUB No. 2019/0196890, filed on 13 June 2018, and published on 27 June 2019, and in view of Arora et al, USGPUB No. 2025/0245219, filed on 7 April 2025, claiming priority to 10 June 2022, and published on 31 July 2025, in further view of Nixon et al, USPGPUB No. 2024/0231333, filed on 20 October 2023, claiming priority to 20 October 2022, and published on 11 July 2024.
As per dependent claim 10, Bucchi, in combination with Arora and Nixon, discloses:
The data processing system according to claim 1, comprising a process historian software that includes the unified data management module for providing an interface to access historical process data of the automation system, wherein the data sources include field devices and/or controllers of the automation system, and wherein the process data produced by the data sources include digital and/or analog input and output data {See Nixon, [0072], wherein this reads over “Each of the field devices has a corresponding input/output device that receives the signal(s) from the field device, coverts the signals into a common format (e.g., Ethernet packets), and transmits the data from the field devices to the compute fabric. A pre-configured gateway/router/aggregator, facilitating secure communication between the first process plant (e.g., I/O devices and field devices, collectively comprising a set of physical devices) and the compute fabric, is among the only non-field device or I/O device hardware that is located on the premises of the first process plant.”}.
The combination of Bucchi and Arora fail to expressly disclose the features of the instant claim. Nixon is directed to the invention of compute functionalities for a process control or automation system. Specifically, Nixon discloses that “[e]ach of the field devices has a corresponding input/output device that receives the signal(s) from the field device, coverts the signals into a common format (e.g., Ethernet packets), and transmits the data from the field devices to the compute fabric. A pre-configured gateway/router/aggregator, facilitating secure communication between the first process plant (e.g., I/O devices and field devices, collectively comprising a set of physical devices) and the compute fabric, is among the only non-field device or I/O device hardware that is located on the premises of the first process plant.” See Nixon, [0072]. That is, Nixon discloses field devices which receive and output signals (i.e., digital and/or analog input and output data). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing date of the instant application to improve the prior art combination of Bucchi and Arora such that system of Bucchi may further include historical data such as process data at a plurality of physical sites by utilizing the field devices of Nixon. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the aforementioned combination such that invention of Bucchi may include field device data for improved monitoring of process data.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 8, 11, and 12 is/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.
Conclusion
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/Paul Kim/
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2152
/PK/
Prosecution Insights