How to Safely Shut Down Microservices Without Breaking Apps
A method for shutting down parts of a software system one by one by mapping active requests to specific services, ensuring no tasks are interrupted during updates.
Original patent title: “Microservice termination while maintaining high availability”
A method for shutting down parts of a software system one by one by mapping active requests to specific services, ensuring no tasks are interrupted during updates. Granted to Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC in 2025 with 23 claims.
Key facts
Coverage
What does this patent actually cover?
This patent describes a 'termination manager' that watches the work queues of a complex software application built from many small, independent programs called microservices. When an application needs to be updated or shut down, the manager looks at every active request and builds a 'call graph'—a map showing exactly which microservices that request needs to touch to finish its job. If a microservice is not on any active map, the system knows it is safe to turn off that service immediately. As requests finish and drop off the map, the manager keeps killing off the remaining services in a smart, orderly sequence until the entire old version of the application is gone without dropping a single user request.
The gap
What does this patent NOT cover?
- Does not cover shutting down services based on time-based delays or static timers.
- Does not cover systems that simply kill all services at once regardless of active requests.
- Does not cover load balancing or routing traffic to new services.
- Does not cover hardware-level power management or physical server shutdown.
These exclusions are unique to PatentBrief — derived from the actual claim language, not patent-office boilerplate.
What made this novel
Instead of waiting for an arbitrary 'drain' period to expire, the system uses the actual call stack of pending requests to mathematically prove which services are no longer needed, allowing for the fastest possible safe shutdown.
Schematic visualization of the patent's claim structure. Hand-drawn diagrams in progress for each landmark patent.
Where you've seen this
Real-world examples
Rolling updates of microservice-based cloud applications
Continuous deployment pipelines in Azure Kubernetes Service
Automated infrastructure decommissioning
Why it matters
The bigger picture
In modern cloud computing, applications are composed of hundreds of tiny, interconnected services. Updating these without causing 'downtime' or 'request failures' is a massive engineering challenge. This patent provides a formal logic for ensuring that service termination is request-aware, which is essential for maintaining high availability in platforms like Microsoft Azure or large-scale enterprise software.
Filed
March 20, 2024
Granted
February 4, 2025
Market context
Who's building on this
Companies in this space
Microsoft is the primary assigneeassigneeThe entity that owns the patent — usually the inventor's employer or a company.Read more → and is actively integrating these orchestration patterns into their Azure cloud platform. Other major cloud providers like Amazon Web Services and Google Cloud Platform also utilize similar request-aware termination logic to manage their massive distributed service architectures.
Market impact
This patent formalizes a critical step in the 'Zero Downtime' deployment lifecycle. By providing a structured way to handle service teardown, it helps companies reduce the risk of user-facing errors during software updates, which is a key requirement for enterprise-grade cloud reliability.
Claim 1 — Plain English
What this patent covers
This patent describes a 'termination manager' that watches the work queues of a complex software application built from many small, independent programs called microservices. When an application needs to be updated or shut down, the manager looks at every active request and builds a 'call graph'—a map showing exactly which microservices that request needs to touch to finish its job. If a microservice is not on any active map, the system knows it is safe to turn off that service immediately. As requests finish and drop off the map, the manager keeps killing off the remaining services in a smart, orderly sequence until the entire old version of the application is gone without dropping a single user request.
The clever bit
Instead of waiting for an arbitrary 'drain' period to expire, the system uses the actual call stack of pending requests to mathematically prove which services are no longer needed, allowing for the fastest possible safe shutdown.
What it does not cover
- Does not cover shutting down services based on time-based delays or static timers.
- Does not cover systems that simply kill all services at once regardless of active requests.
- Does not cover load balancing or routing traffic to new services.
- Does not cover hardware-level power management or physical server shutdown.
Patent timeline
Application submitted to the patent office
Application published, typically 18 months after filing
Patent officially issued
PatentBrief Score
Impact Score
Moderate
Citation count
0/40
No citations yet
Claim breadth
15/20
Broad claimsclaimsThe numbered statements at the end of a patent that legally define what the inventor owns.Read more →
Recency
20/20
Granted within 5 years
Assignee scale
20/20
Major company or institution
PatentBrief Impact Score — based on citation count, claim breadth, recency, and assignee scale. Not a legal assessment.
Heuristic Value Estimate
What this patent might be worth
$37K – $120K
Midpoint $75K · 17.8 yr remaining · industry ×1.6
Heuristic only — blends forward/backward citation counts, claim scope, time remaining, litigation history, and CPC-derived industry baseline. Real valuations need a professional appraisal.
The original legal language
Original claims
23 claims as filed with the patent office.
Concepts involved
Citations
Patent lineage
Cite this patent
Kanso, A., & SUBRAMANIAN, K. M. S. (2025). How to Safely Shut Down Microservices Without Breaking Apps (U.S. Patent No. 12,217,035). U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/12217035/vision-pro-spatial-photos-videos
Auto-generated from the patent record. Double-check author order and the issue date against the official USPTO document before submitting.
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Common Questions
Frequently Asked Questions
What does How to Safely Shut Down Microservices Without Breaking Apps cover?
A method for shutting down parts of a software system one by one by mapping active requests to specific services, ensuring no tasks are interrupted during updates.
Who owns patent US 12217035?
Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC owns this patent, granted in 2025.
When does this patent expire?
This patent is expected to expire on February 4, 2045, when the invention enters the public domain.
What problem does this patent solve?
In modern cloud computing, applications are composed of hundreds of tiny, interconnected services. Updating these without causing 'downtime' or 'request failures' is a massive engineering challenge. This patent provides a formal logic for ensuring that service termination is request-aware, which is essential for maintaining high availability in platforms like Microsoft Azure or large-scale enterprise software.
What does this patent NOT cover?
Does not cover shutting down services based on time-based delays or static timers.
Same assignee
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