Ex Parte Alimi et alDownload PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardApr 30, 201412115257 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Apr. 30, 2014) Copy Citation UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE United States Patent and Trademark Office Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS P.O. Box 1450 Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450 www.uspto.gov APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 12/115,257 05/05/2008 Richard A. Alimi YOR920070628US1 4758 59144 7590 04/30/2014 CAHN & SAMUELS, LLP 1100 17th STREET, NW SUITE 401 WASHINGTON, DC 20036 EXAMINER LIN, WEN TAI ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2454 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 04/30/2014 PAPER Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding. The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication. PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________________ Ex parte RICHARD A. ALIMI, WILLIAM SWEENEY, and NIANJUN ZHOU ____________________ Appeal 2011-011838 Application 12/115,257 Technology Center 2400 ____________________ Before: JOHN C. KERINS, JAMES P. CALVE, and ANNETTE R. REIMERS, Administrative Patent Judges. CALVE, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from the final rejection of claims 1-20. App. Br. 3. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM-IN-PART. Appeal 2011-011838 Application 12/115,257 2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER Claims 1, 9, and 16 are independent. Claim 1 is reproduced below. 1. A system for distributing task assignments on a computer network comprising: a client grid having at least one server coupled to at least one client node, a plurality of client computers coupled to said client node through a plurality of monitoring agents; wherein each said monitoring agent collects data regarding the available resources of a particular client computer and periodically transmits said data to a grid server and said grid server anticipates the available resources of each client computer coupled to said client node based on previously received data regarding the available resources of each client computer and distributes grid tasks to each client computer of the grid based on said previously received data regarding the available resources. REJECTIONS Claims 1-8 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Powers (US 2006/0075079 A1; iss. Apr. 6, 2006). Claims 9-18 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Powers and Willen (US 7,058,949 B1; iss. Jun. 6, 2006). ANALYSIS Claims 1-8 and 19 unpatentable over Powers The Examiner found that Powers discloses a system for distributing task assignments substantially as claimed including a monitoring agent that collects data regarding available resources of a particular client computer, but does not teach that transmission of resource availability data to a grid server is done periodically. Ans. 4. The Examiner also found that Powers teaches the use of a metering agent to monitor agent activities and resources being used, and an availability store that stores information about the current Appeal 2011-011838 Application 12/115,257 3 status of all active computing resources. Ans. 4. The Examiner reasoned that the availability store must be updated so the metering agent transmits resource usage to the control server on a periodic basis and that it would have been obvious to convey resource availability data to the grid server periodically to allow the grid server to maintain updated resource availability for allocation of resources. Ans. 4-5, 8. The Examiner also found that Powers teaches a job manager that uses a status updater to update the current status of active computing resources stored in an availability store and the status updater must receive status updates of all of the active computing resources. Ans. 9. Appellants argue that Powers teaches a distributed processing system that delegates the allocation and control of computing tasks to intelligent agent applications that run on computing nodes, collects information about those computing nodes, and uses that information to assess the ability of the computing node to complete jobs that are posted on the server. App. Br. 8 (citing Powers, paras. [0033-0034]. Appellants also argue that each agent manages execution of work units on its computing node and returns results for a job rather than transmitting data regarding the available resources of a particular client computer to a grid server that distributes grid tasks to each client computer of the grid based on resource availability data received from an agent. App. Br. 8. Appellants further argue that the meter agent monitors the intelligent agent and measures the resources that the agent uses on the system rather than providing periodic updates of resource availability. Id. The Examiner has not established by a preponderance of evidence that Powers discloses monitoring agents that collect data regarding the available resources of a particular client computer and periodically transmit the data to Appeal 2011-011838 Application 12/115,257 4 a grid server that distributes grid tasks to each client computer based on the previously-received data regarding the available resources. See App. Br. 6, 8. Powers discloses intelligent agents that collect information for computing nodes on which they run, use that information to assess the ability of the computing node to complete jobs posted on a server, and manage execution of the work units on each computing node. Powers, para. [0033]. Agents measure the processor, main memory, network capacity, storage capacity, and other attributes of the computing node on which it is installed. Powers, para. [0033]. The Examiner has not explained how these measurements track the available or idle resources of a client computer versus the total resources of a client computer. Appellants disclose that a monitoring agent 320 collects the idle resources of a client computer and returns the collected results to the grid server. Spec. 7, para. [0022]; see Spec. 3, para. [008]. This data relates to computing resources that are available to the grid such as a client computer’s CPU availability, the available memory, the available network bandwidth, the amount of time the client computer’s CPU dedicates to grid tasks, the time interval that the resource is available to the grid, how long a resource is idle, and general data as to when a resource is available. Spec. 7, para. [0024]. This arrangement avoids duplicative tasking and wasting time in continued attempts to assign a task to a client computer whose resources are being used for other tasks. Spec. 3, para. [006]. Nor has the Examiner explained how a Meter Agent collects data for available resources of a client computer. Powers discloses that a Meter Agent monitors intelligent agents and hosted applications and measures the resources that they use including the amount of CPU time used, peak CPU used, amount of data read from or written to the hard disk, and number of Appeal 2011-011838 Application 12/115,257 5 hard disk accesses. Powers, para. [0151]. Although Powers discloses an availability store that stores information on the current status of all active computing resources including new or reintroduced computing resources (see Powers, para. [0058]), the Examiner has not explained how the current status of active computing resources necessarily discloses the idle resources of a computing resource that are available to perform grid tasks. The Examiner also determined that although Powers does not use the term “resource availability” it would have been obvious to a skilled artisan that resource availability can be derived by subtracting a respective resource usage from a total resource amount of its kind. Ans. 8-9. Even if resource availability can be derived in this manner, that capability does not make it obvious to modify Powers to do so. The Examiner has not explained how the cited portions of Powers provide a rational underpinning for this change. Powers discloses that information captured by the Meter Agent is sent to a control server where it can be aggregated and used for informational, cost- allocation, billing, price setting, storing, and to present results for computing resources. Powers, para. [0151]. This disclosure suggests that Powers is concerned with tracking computing resources that are used, rather than idle. Powers also discloses that a status updater updates a current status of active computing resources (para. [0058]), and the Examiner has not explained how this disclosure necessarily indicates that the status information relates to available computing resources or renders such a feature obvious. Ans. 9. We do not sustain the rejection of claims 1-8 and 19. Appeal 2011-011838 Application 12/115,257 6 Claims 9-18 and 20 unpatentable over Powers and Willen Appellants argue claims 9-18 and 20 as a group. App. Br. 8-10. We select claim 9 as representative. 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(vii) (2011). Claims 10-18 and 20 stand or fall with claim 9. The Examiner found that Powers discloses a method of distributing task assignments from a server to client computers on a grid, as recited in claim 9, except for forming a resource probability distribution based on historical computing resource data and employing a scheduling algorithm to distribute grid tasks to the client computers using at least the probability distribution. Ans. 7. The Examiner found that Willen teaches these features by disclosing a task scheduler/dispatcher that uses a probability algorithm to assign task resources based on usage history, which affects the probability distribution of the resource. Ans. 7. The Examiner found that claim 9 does not recite any particulars of the resource probability distribution nor does Appellants’ Specification provide any definition or other disclosure relating to the claimed resource probability distribution that distinguishes over the combined teachings of Powers and Willen. Ans. 9-10. The Examiner also found that Powers teaches the use of an agent core module 715 that predicts the availability of a computing resource based on past patterns of usage that form a probability and Willen teaches an example showing how a lottery probability model is implemented for resource assignment. Ans. 10. Appellants argue that Willen discloses a system supporting multiple classes of tasks by allocating processor resources to classes according to a probability model that teaches away from Appellants’ use of historical computing resource availability data to anticipate the availability of grid computing resources and efficiently distribute grid tasking based on the Appeal 2011-011838 Application 12/115,257 7 resources anticipated availability. App. Br. 9-10. Appellants argue that the randomness of a lottery-type draw is contrary to the concept of anticipating a grid resource’s availability based on actual historical usage. App. Br. 10. These arguments are not persuasive for the following reasons. Appellants have not identified any disclosure in Willen that criticizes, discredits, or discourages the claimed solution and thus Appellants have not shown that Willen teaches away from the claimed subject matter. Willen discloses that the probability of IP resources being used for various tasks is calculated based on historical usage and this historical resource availability data is used to assign resources for future tasks. Willen, col. 6, ll. 33-47. Appellants have not identified a definition or other disclosure of probability distribution in their Specification that distinguishes over Willen’s resource probability distribution nor have Appellants pointed to any claimed feature of the resource probability distribution that distinguishes over Willen. We also agree with the Examiner that Powers teaches an agent core module 715 that predicts availability of computing resources based on patterns of usage of that computing resource and that Willen and Powers render obvious this claimed subject matter. We sustain the rejection of claims 9-18 and 20. DECISION We REVERSE the rejection of claims 1-8 and 19 and AFFIRM the rejection of claims 9-18 and 20. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv). AFFIRMED-IN-PART llw Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation