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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
Claims 1, 2, 4-7, 9, 10, 12, 14, 15, 18, 19 and 21-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shen et al. US 2020/0413283, of record, in view of in view of MUÑOZ SANCHEZ (US 20190297487 A1) and further in view of Tormasov (US 7665090 B1)
Claims 1, 14 and 15:
Shen et al. discloses a method, a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing computer program code and an apparatus (SD-WAN controller; Shen et al.; Fig. 3; [0061]) comprising: at least one processor; and at least one memory including computer program code, the at least one memory and computer program code configured to, with the at least one processor, cause the apparatus to perform,
obtaining, from a network controller (controlling functions of a branch edge router), an indication of contention of a communications network (bandwidth utilization exceeds a threshold; Shen et al.; [0061] The illustrated example also indicates bandwidth usage per TLOC);
obtaining, from a network controller (controlling functions of branch edge router), a historical bandwidth utilization indication (historical bandwidth utilization; Shen et al.; [0061]) of respective participants (respective branch edge routers on Fig. 3; Shen et al.) of the communications network; , and
determining, based on the indication of contention and the historical bandwidth utilization indication, a shaper parameter for being provided to an output of the apparatus, wherein, the shaper parameter is related to allocating bandwidth to the respective participants of the communications network on a per-participant basis (SD-WAN controller may take the action based on the congestion state, and enforce an OMP TLOC update with “bandwidth shaper ratio” 40, for example, to components of the SD-WAN fabric. The TLOC update is to facilitate dynamic shaping of the top TLOC session bandwidth consumption to bring the total ingress bandwidth usage under Critical congestion state for border edge router 104, such as the illustrated Br1-cEdge1. In general, SD-WAN controller 114 may determine updated QoS policy 322 based on the previously received TLOC publications and the received congestion indication. Updated QoS policy 322 is updated to reduce congestion at branch edge routers 104. In the illustrated example, updated QoS policy 322 includes a bandwidth shaper ratio of 40 percent. In particular embodiments, updated QoS policy 322 may include any suitable QoS attributes to reduce congestion. SD-WAN controller 114 may transmit updated QOS policy 322 to aggregation edger routers 110 using QoS policy message 220, illustrated in FIG. 3; Shen et al.; [0063]-[0066]; For example, aggregation edge router 110 may limit an amount communicated to branch edge router 104 according to the QoS policy and determined parent shape rate. Shen et al.; [0089]).
Shen doesn’t teach a scheduler parameter;
Shen doesn’t teach wherein the respective participants of the communication network are network subscribers provided access to the communications network via a network node; wherein, bandwidth availability to a respective participant of the communications network is selectively reduced by applying a penalty to the scheduler parameter in response to the historical bandwidth utilization indication for the respective participant having met or exceeded at least one threshold level over a first time period.
MUÑOZ SANCHEZ teaches the respective participants of the communication network are network subscribers provided access to the communications network via a network node. (See para 0012 “ enable a network device (e.g., of a network provider) to dynamically (or intelligently) allocate quota to a subscriber (e.g., a subscriber device) based on the subscriber's (e.g., the subscriber device's) historical usage of network resources and/or based on historical usage of network resources by a group of subscribers (e.g., a group of subscriber devices) with which the subscriber (e.g., the subscriber device) is associated”; see para 0032 “OCS 145 may receive , from PGW 125 , a credit control request ( update ) to allocate more quota to the subscriber ( e . g . , subscriber device 105” )[ subscriber is connected to network via PDW]
Thus it would have been obvious to a person with ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine the respective participants of the communication network are network subscribers provided access to the communications network in the system of modified Shen. The motivation is to improve reliability (Shen: See para 0041)
Modified Shen doesn’t teach a scheduler parameter ; bandwidth availability to a respective participant of the communications network is selectively reduced by applying a penalty to the scheduler parameter in response to the historical bandwidth utilization indication for the respective participant having met or exceeded at least one threshold level over a first time period.
Tormasov (US 7665090 B1) teaches a scheduler parameter (“a first set of parameters used by the add-on scheduler for managing the resource allocation”);
bandwidth availability to a respective participant of the communications network is selectively reduced by applying a penalty to the scheduler parameter in response to the historical bandwidth utilization indication for the respective participant having met or exceeded at least one threshold level over a first time period. ( see col 2 lines 55-62 “the manager is capable … by correcting (e.g., reducing) allocation restrictions….The manager can correct a resource allocation restrictions or resources to a particular process based on… history of consumption of the resource by that process, a history of consumption of other resources by that process….col 2 lines 40-42 “ the manager reallocates the resources and/or resources restrictions based on a request for resources over an established limit,”; see col1 lines 32-40 “upon allocation of a particular resource, the scheduler takes into account a number of aspects--for example, current utilization of that resource by a consumer, recent requests for that resource's use, system load, history of that resource's use, limits imposed on the use of that resource for a particular consumer and for all the consumers”…. Col 3 lines 63 “penalty introduced during reallocation of resources”..” “he scheduler 302 can act periodically (e.g., timer-based)[ reducing / correction of resource is based on history of consumption of the resource, where history of consumption of the resource is interpreted as historical bandwidth utilization indication; reallocation of resources i.e. reducing resources also cause penalties; further reduction is based on limits imposed on the use of that resource implies reduction based on threshold]
Thus it would have been obvious to a person with ordinary skills in the art before the effective data of invention to combine bandwidth availability to a respective participant of the communications network is selectively reduced by applying a penalty to the scheduler parameter in response to the historical bandwidth utilization indication in the system of Modified Shen. The motivation is to reallocate resource (Tormasov: see col 1 lines 40)
Claim 2:
Shen et al. disclose to repeat the obtaining of said indication of contention; the obtaining of said historical bandwidth utilization indication and the determining of said scheduler parameter at predetermined time intervals (intervals like 1 minute and 5 minutes, respectively. The sample intervals may be adjusted and compromised based on the reliability and responsiveness from system robustness and convergence perspective; Shen et al.; [0057])
Claim 4:
Shen et al. disclose determining the scheduler parameter in case a first predetermined threshold related to the indication of contention (Shen et al.; [0058]-[0061]; [0063])
Claim 5:
Shen et al. disclose obtaining the historical bandwidth utilization indication over a plurality of respective time windows (Shen et al.; [0057]; [0061]); determining the scheduler parameter based on a plurality of respective second predetermined thresholds, a respective one of said time windows being associated with at least one of said respective second predetermined thresholds (Shen et al.; [0060]; [0077]; [0080]; [0081]).
Claim 6:
Shen et al. disclose restoring the scheduler parameter to a default value in case a third predetermined threshold related to the indication of contention is/will be exceeded (Shen et al.; [0068]).
Claim 7:
Shen et al. storing values of the scheduler parameter over said predetermined time intervals; determining the scheduler parameter further based on the values thereof (Shen et al.; [0078]; [0057]; [0058]).
Claim 9:
Shen et al. and Yazaki et al. disclose determining, based on the indication of contention and the historical bandwidth utilization indication, scheduler parameters for respective ones of the individual participants (Shen et al.; Fig. 3; [0063]-[0065]).
Claim 10:
Shen disclose the scheduler parameter indicates a weight corresponding to the participant of the network for use in a Weighted Fair Queue scheduler (Shen et al.;[0047]-[0054]; [0089])
Claims 12, 18 and 21:
Shen doesn’t disclose wherein the participant of the network is one of: a subscriber of a network operator; or a subscriber of the virtual network operator.
MUÑOZ SANCHEZ teaches a subscriber of a network operator (See para 0046 “Subscriber device 205 includes one or more devices capable of communicating with base station 210 and / or a network ( e . g . , network 250”)
Thus it would have been obvious to a person with ordinary skills in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to combine the respective participants of the communication network are network subscribers provided access to the communications network in the system of modified Shen. The motivation is to improve reliability (MUÑOZ SANCHEZ: See para 0041)
Claims 19, 22 and 23:
Shen et al. disclose determining, based on the indication of contention and the historical bandwidth utilization indication parameter, a shaper parameter for being provided to the output of the apparatus, wherein, the shaper parameter is related to allocating bandwidth respective to a participant of the communication network (Shen et al.; Fig. 3; [0063]-[0065]).
Claims 3, 8 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shen et al. US 2020/0413283, of record, in view of in view of MUÑOZ SANCHEZ (US 20190297487 A1) and further in view of Tormasov (US 7665090 B1) and further in view of Balasubramanian et al. US 2022/0150760, of record.
Modified Shen et al. fail to teach regarding claim 3, determining a predicted indication of contention, based on history of the indication of contention; and determining the scheduler parameter further based on the predicted indication of contention.
Modified Shen et al. fail to teach regarding claim 8, implementing a reinforcement learning algorithm for determining said scheduler parameter based on said indication of contention; said historical bandwidth utilization indication, and previous values of said scheduler parameter.
Modified Shen et al. fail to teach regarding claim 17, predicting contention in a next time interval based on past contention measurements; determining future scheduler parameters to be applied during the next time interval; and transmitting the future scheduler parameters to the participant of the network.
However, Balasubramanian et al. discloses the above limitations (Balasubramanian et al.; Fig. 4A; [0041]; [0102]; [0106]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to provide reinforcement learning techniques and control operations based upon predicted congestion taught by Balasubramanian et al. in the context of congestion indications for QoS policy and bandwidth shaper ratio for a scheduler in the system of modified Shen in order to improve network performance.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/PAMIT KAUR/Examiner, Art Unit 2416