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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This communication is in response to applicant’s 09/30/2025 amendment/response in the application of GUPTA et al. for “Methodology for Achieving Highly Scalable and Distributed Secured Connectivity per IPSEC Tunnel” filed 07/25/2022. The amendments/response to the claims have been entered. No claims have been canceled. No claims have been added. Claims 1-20 are now pending.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-2, 15-16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by XIONG et al. (US 2020/0351254 A1), hereinafter XIONG.
Regarding claim 1, XIONG discloses a method for providing scalable and secured connectivity per Internet Protocol Security (IPSEC) tunnel, comprising:
spreading Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP) encryption for a same IPSEC tunnel across multiple backend application servers ( the GMN 113 may send the incoming ESP/AH traffic steering rules, which may be used to determine by which GPN 110 the incoming ESP/AH traffic of each IPSec tunnel should be processed, to a gateway input node 114, and the gateway input node 114 may forward data packets of the incoming ESP/AH traffic of some IPSec tunnel to the GPN 110 for processing the incoming ESP/AH traffic of that IPSec tunnel according to the incoming ESP/AH traffic steering rules upon receiving the data packets of the incoming ESP/AH traffic, see ¶ 0046; the GPNs 100 may a plurality of independent servers, see ¶ 0120); and
processing application flows using decrypted packets by embedding the Application Server instance-id in ESP and application packets for correlation with application packet flows (the main processing of GPN 110 may include encryption and encapsulation and/or decryption and decapsulation on packets. More particularly, on one hand, GPN 110 may decrypt and decapsulate the data packets of the incoming ESP/AH traffic of the IPSec tunnel to generate the data packets of the incoming IP traffic, and send the data packets of the incoming IP traffic to the virtual private cloud network 107 of the cloud tenant; on the other hand, GPN 110 may encrypt and encapsulate the data packets of the outgoing IP traffic to generate the data packets of the outgoing ESP/AH traffic, and send the data packets of the outgoing ESP/AH traffic to the local network 102 of the cloud tenant via internet, see ¶ 0097; the incoming ESP/AH traffic steering rules may include a matching relationship between SPI (Security Parameter Index) and IP addresses of GPNs 110, see ¶ 0047).
Regarding claim 2, XIONG discloses spreading Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP) encryption for a same IPSEC tunnel across multiple backend application servers includes using multiple equal number of security associations (SAs) as a number of backend Applications servers (a GMN (Gateway Management Node) 113 may be provided to perform message exchanges with IPSec gateways 104 of a plurality of tenants to generate IPSec SAs of a plurality of IPSec tunnels and send the same to the GPN 110 for processing data packets of respective IPSec tunnel, see ¶ 0025).
Regarding claim 15, XIONG discloses a non-transitory computer-readable medium containing instructions for providing scalable and secured connectivity per Internet Protocol Security (IPSEC) tunnel which, when executed, cause the system to perform steps comprising:
spreading Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP) encryption for a same IPSEC tunnel across multiple backend application servers ( the GMN 113 may send the incoming ESP/AH traffic steering rules, which may be used to determine by which GPN 110 the incoming ESP/AH traffic of each IPSec tunnel should be processed, to a gateway input node 114, and the gateway input node 114 may forward data packets of the incoming ESP/AH traffic of some IPSec tunnel to the GPN 110 for processing the incoming ESP/AH traffic of that IPSec tunnel according to the incoming ESP/AH traffic steering rules upon receiving the data packets of the incoming ESP/AH traffic, see ¶ 0046; the GPNs 100 may a plurality of independent servers, see ¶ 0120); and
processing application flows using decrypted packets by embedding the Application Server instance-id in ESP and application packets for correlation with application packet flows (the main processing of GPN 110 may include encryption and encapsulation and/or decryption and decapsulation on packets. More particularly, on one hand, GPN 110 may decrypt and decapsulate the data packets of the incoming ESP/AH traffic of the IPSec tunnel to generate the data packets of the incoming IP traffic, and send the data packets of the incoming IP traffic to the virtual private cloud network 107 of the cloud tenant; on the other hand, GPN 110 may encrypt and encapsulate the data packets of the outgoing IP traffic to generate the data packets of the outgoing ESP/AH traffic, and send the data packets of the outgoing ESP/AH traffic to the local network 102 of the cloud tenant via internet, see ¶ 0097; the incoming ESP/AH traffic steering rules may include a matching relationship between SPI (Security Parameter Index) and IP addresses of GPNs 110, see ¶ 0047).
Regarding claim 16, XIONG discloses spreading Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP) encryption for a same IPSEC tunnel across multiple backend application servers includes using multiple equal number of security associations (SAs) as a number of backend Applications servers (a GMN (Gateway Management Node) 113 may be provided to perform message exchanges with IPSec gateways 104 of a plurality of tenants to generate IPSec SAs of a plurality of IPSec tunnels and send the same to the GPN 110 for processing data packets of respective IPSec tunnel, see ¶ 0025).
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.
Claim(s) 3-4, and 17-18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over XIONG in view of PIRIYATH et al. (US 2021/0143997 A1), hereinafter PIRIYATH.
Regarding claims 3 and 17, XIONG fails to disclose that rekeying to add more sets of pair of security association scaling and to add more backend application servers.
In the same field of endeavor, PIRIYATH discloses that a network device to use dynamic information for determining rekey scheduling times to manage a distribution of rekeying procedures in a scaling VPN. For example, the network device may determine that network traffic for a communication session between a first peer device and a second peer device is to be protected using a security protocol suite (e.g., IPsec). In this case, the network device may establish, using one or more tunnels, multiple security associations that are to be used to securely provide the network traffic of the communication session over an unsecured medium (see ¶ 0013, 0014).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement PIRIYATH’s teaching in the network taught by XIONG for “rekeying” allows a security association between network devices before an expiration of a set time period without having to mutual authentication between devices at the beginning of the communication session. In this way, the cryptographic keys may be recycled before the rogue user is able to identify the cryptographic keys.
Regarding claims 4 and 18, XIONG discloses feeding Application-Data to the Application-server hosting the application flows for this application-data packet (GIN 114, GMN 113, GPNs 110, OR GEN 115 may be a plurality of independent application servers, see figure 5 and ¶ 0120).
Claim(s) 5-6, and 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of XIONG -PIRIYATH in further in view of MOHEBBI (US 2014/0213219 A1).
Regarding claims 5-6 and 19, the combination of XIONG-PIRIYATH fails to disclose embedding the server-instance-id in a TE-Id for GTPU packets or embedding the server-instance-id in a verification-tag for SCTP packets.
In the same field of endeavor, MOHEBBI discloses routing GTPU packets between eNB and SGW and routing SCTP packets between eNB and MME in exiting LTE network architecture (see ¶ 0102).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement MOHEBBI’s teaching of routing of GTPU packets or SCTP packets in the communication network taught by the combination of XIONG-PIRIYATH for seamlessly and securely routing packets overs existing LTE network based on the type of packets.
Claim(s) 7 and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over XIONG in view of ROCH (US 2016/0212098 A1).
Regarding claim 20, XIONG fails to disclose using a load balancer to host sets of Virtual IP-address (VIP) to distribute the traffic to backend-servers.
In the same field of endeavor, ROCH discloses A load balancer is provided that can direct Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) traffic received from a single IPsec tunnel initiator to one of a plurality of endpoints provided Virtual Private Network (VPN) gateways in a network. The load balancer uses IP (Internet Protocol) addresses and SPIs (Security Parameter Identifier) to identify an endpoint responsible for processing particular packets for the VPN (see ¶ 0006-0011).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement ROCH’s teaching in the network taught by XIONG to provide traffic congestion control by providing a load balancer in front servers or computing devices to distribute traffic between the servers.
Claim(s) 8-9, 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over XIONG in view of ROCH.
Regarding claim 9, and 14, XIONG discloses a system for providing scalable and secured connectivity per Internet Protocol Security (IPSEC) tunnel, comprising:
an IPSEC control element exchanging IPSEC signaling with a peer (in the control plane 108, a GMN (Gateway Management Node) 113 may be provided to perform message exchanges with IPSec gateways 104 of a plurality of tenants to generate IPSec SAs of a plurality of IPSec tunnels and send the same to the GPN 110 for processing data packets of respective IPSec tunnel, see ¶ 0025);
a plurality of Application servers in communication with the IPSEC control element (the GMN 113 may send the incoming ESP/AH traffic steering rules, which may be used to determine by which GPN 110 the incoming ESP/AH traffic of each IPSec tunnel should be processed, to a gateway input node 114, and the gateway input node 114 may forward data packets of the incoming ESP/AH traffic of some IPSec tunnel to the GPN 110 for processing the incoming ESP/AH traffic of that IPSec tunnel according to the incoming ESP/AH traffic steering rules upon receiving the data packets of the incoming ESP/AH traffic, see ¶ 0046; the GPN 100 may a plurality of independent servers, see ¶ 0120);
wherein the system spreads Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP) encryption for a same IPSEC tunnel across the plurality of backend application servers (the ESP/AH protocol may be used to encrypt and decrypt data packets transferred between IPSec gateways by using the IPSec SA so as to ensure confidentiality, integrity and data origin authenticity. The outgoing IPSec SA may be used to encrypt the data packets of outgoing IP traffic from a virtual private cloud network 107 of a cloud tenant to generate data packets of outgoing ESP/AH traffic 204 and transfer the same to an IPSec gateway 104 of the cloud tenant through an IPSec tunnel, see ¶ 0032, 0110; the gateways maybe a plurality of servers, see ¶ 0120); and
wherein the system processes application flows using decrypted packets by embedding the Application Server instance-id in ESP and application packets for correlation with application packet flows (the main processing of GPN 110 may include encryption and encapsulation and/or decryption and decapsulation on packets. More particularly, on one hand, GPN 110 may decrypt and decapsulate the data packets of the incoming ESP/AH traffic of the IPSec tunnel to generate the data packets of the incoming IP traffic, and send the data packets of the incoming IP traffic to the virtual private cloud network 107 of the cloud tenant; on the other hand, GPN 110 may encrypt and encapsulate the data packets of the outgoing IP traffic to generate the data packets of the outgoing ESP/AH traffic, and send the data packets of the outgoing ESP/AH traffic to the local network 102 of the cloud tenant via internet, see ¶ 0097; the incoming ESP/AH traffic steering rules may include a matching relationship between SPI (Security Parameter Index) and IP addresses of GPNs 110, see ¶ 0047).
XIONG fails to disclose using a load balancer to host sets of Virtual IP-address (VIP) to distribute the traffic to backend-servers.
In the same field of endeavor, ROCH discloses a load balancer is provided that can direct Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) traffic received from a single IPsec tunnel initiator to one of a plurality of endpoints provided Virtual Private Network (VPN) gateways in a network. The load balancer uses IP (Internet Protocol) addresses and SPIs (Security Parameter Identifier) to identify an endpoint responsible for processing particular packets for the VPN (see ¶ 0006-0011).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement ROCH’s teaching in the network taught by XIONG to provide traffic congestion control by providing a load balancer in front servers or computing devices to distribute traffic between the servers.
Regarding claim 9, XIONG discloses spreading Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP) encryption for a same IPSEC tunnel across multiple backend application servers includes using multiple equal number of security associations (SAs) as a number of backend Applications servers (a GMN (Gateway Management Node) 113 may be provided to perform message exchanges with IPSec gateways 104 of a plurality of tenants to generate IPSec SAs of a plurality of IPSec tunnels and send the same to the GPN 110 for processing data packets of respective IPSec tunnel, see ¶ 0025).
Claim(s) 10-11 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of XIONG- ROCH in view of PIRIYATH et al. (US 2021/0143997 A1), hereinafter PIRIYATH.
Regarding claim 10, the combination of XIONG-ROCH fails to disclose that rekeying to add more sets of pair of security association scaling and to add more backend application servers.
In the same field of endeavor, PIRIYATH discloses that a network device to use dynamic information for determining rekey scheduling times to manage a distribution of rekeying procedures in a scaling VPN. For example, the network device may determine that network traffic for a communication session between a first peer device and a second peer device is to be protected using a security protocol suite (e.g., IPsec). In this case, the network device may establish, using one or more tunnels, multiple security associations that are to be used to securely provide the network traffic of the communication session over an unsecured medium (see ¶ 0013, 0014).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement PIRIYATH’s teaching in the network taught by the combination of XIONG-ROCH for “rekeying” allows a security association between network devices before an expiration of a set time period without having to mutual authentication between devices at the beginning of the communication session. In this way, the cryptographic keys may be recycled before the rogue user is able to identify the cryptographic keys.
Regarding claim 11, XIONG discloses feeding Application-Data to the Application-server hosting the application flows for this application-data packet (GIN 114, GMN 113, GPNs 110, OR GEN 115 may be a plurality of independent application servers, see figure 5 and ¶ 0120).
Claim(s) 12-13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of XIONG-ROCH-PIRIYATH in further in view of MOHEBBI.
Regarding claims 12-13, the combination of XIONG-ROCH-PIRIYATH fails to disclose embedding the server-instance-id in a TE-Id for GTPU packets or embedding the server-instance-id in a verification-tag for SCTP packets.
In the same field of endeavor, MOHEBBI discloses routing GTPU packets between eNB and SGW and routing SCTP packets between eNB and MME in exiting LTE network architecture (see ¶ 0102).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement MOHEBBI’s teaching of routing of GTPU packets or SCTP packets in the communication network taught by the combination of XIONG-ROCH-PIRIYATH for seamlessly and securely routing packets overs existing LTE network based on the type of packets.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 9/30/2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. In response to the applicant’s argument in page 1, the cited reference XIONG discloses the following:
In ¶ 0047:
The incoming ESP/AH traffic steering rules may include a matching relationship between SPI (Security Parameter Index) and IP addresses of GPNs 110. The SPI may be generated during negotiation of IPSec SA and may be used to identify the key used by the data packets of this ESP/AH traffic. The SPI may be contained in the data packets of the incoming ESP/AH traffic.
In ¶ 0097:
As shown in FIG. 4, it shows a structural diagram 400 showing gateway processing nodes 110 of embodiments of the present disclosure. The main processing of GPN 110 may include encryption and encapsulation and/or decryption and decapsulation on packets. More particularly, on one hand, GPN 110 may decrypt and decapsulate the data packets of the incoming ESP/AH traffic of the IPSec tunnel to generate the data packets of the incoming IP traffic, and send the data packets of the incoming IP traffic to the virtual private cloud network 107 of the cloud tenant; on the other hand, GPN 110 may encrypt and encapsulate the data packets of the outgoing IP traffic to generate the data packets of the outgoing ESP/AH traffic, and send the data packets of the outgoing ESP/AH traffic to the local network 102 of the cloud tenant via internet. Each GPN 110 may process the traffic of one or more IPSec tunnels. The specific number of the IPSec tunnels to be processed may depend on the data amount transferred through the IPSec tunnels and the loads capability threshold of VMs 111.
As cited above, the GPN 110 receives in coming ESP traffic over the IPSec tunnel from the IPSec gateway according to a matching relationship between SPI and IP address of the respective GPN 110 and performs the decryption the incoming traffic. The assigned IP address of the GPN 110 is considered as the application server instance-id. This IP address of the GPN 110 is used to route the incoming packets to the corresponding GPN 110 (see also ¶ 0110). Therefore, the cited reference XIONG discloses the claimed subject matter “processing application flows using decrypted application packets based on an application server instance-id in ESP and the decrypted application packets for correlation with application packet flows.”
The applicant makes the same ground of argument for dependent claims -thus please see above for examiner’s response.
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.
Any response to this action should be mailed to:
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Mail Stop _____________
Commissioner for Patents
P. O. Box 1450
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or faxed to:
(571) 273-8300, (for formal communications intended for entry)
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Bob A. Phunkulh whose telephone number is (571) 272-3083. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Thursday from 8:00 A.M. to 5:00 P.M. (first week of the bi-week) and Monday-Friday (for second week of the bi-week).
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor CHARLES C. JIANG can be reach on (571) 270-7191.
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/BOB A PHUNKULH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2412