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 .
Election of Species and Restriction of Subcombinations
The requirements have been made FINAL. Upon the cancellation of claims to a non-elected species or invention, the inventorship must be amended in compliance with 37 CFR 1.48(b) if one or more of the currently named inventors is no longer an inventor of at least one claim remaining in the application. Any amendment of inventorship must be accompanied by a request under 37 CFR 1.48(b) and by the fee required under 37 CFR 1.17(i).
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.
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 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.
Claims 1, 9, and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20200021449 (Ganguli) in view of US 20130054396 (Goldfinger) further in view US 20150180779 (Geetha), US 20230222110 (Mammen), and US-20080069114 (Shimada).
Ganguli teaches or suggests an apparatus for controlling traffic in a data transmission channel comprising a plurality of physical links (¶ 89), the apparatus comprising:
a processor (¶ 26); and
a machine-readable medium including instructions executable by the processor (¶ 26) comprising:
one or more instructions for monitoring traffic in the data transmission channel (¶ 92);
one or more instructions for detecting a traffic change associated with at least one physical link in the data transmission channel (¶ 93);
one or more instructions for, based at least in part on the traffic change, determining whether to energize or de-energize at least one of a plurality of physical components (¶ 93); and
one or more instructions for, based at least in part on the determination and using at least one of an energize algorithm and a de-energize algorithm, i) energizing or de- energizing the at least one of the plurality of physical links; and ii) upon the energizing or de-energizing, redirecting a traffic flow between the plurality of physical components (¶ 93, the point of energizing/de-energizing is to redirect traffic flow).
Ganguli does not expressly disclose but Goldfinger teaches or suggests retaining a sequential ordering of data frames between a plurality of network devices to ensure that the sequential ordering of data frames is retained (¶ 84).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Ganguli’s system and Goldfinger’s ordering to ensure that data can be understood.
Ganguli does not expressly disclose but Geetha teaches or suggests devices, redirecting the traffic flow comprises identifying the at least one of the plurality of physical links to energize or de-energize using a hash algorithm (¶¶ 34-38).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Ganguli’s system, Goldfinger’s ordering, and Geetha’s hash to allows a link to be removed from consideration while still providing a fair balancing of network traffic among the links that remain up.
Ganguli does not expressly disclose but Mammen teaches or suggests redirectinq the traffic flow comprises locally analyzing a traffic in a particular physical link of the plurality of links, defining a larger hash to split the traffic, and sending at least a portion of the traffic to another one of the plurality of physical links according to the larger hash (claims 2 and 5).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Ganguli’s system, Goldfinger’s ordering, Geetha’s hash, and Mammen’s larger hash to minimize the need to move connections if interfaces fail or if new interfaces are brought online.
Ganguli does not expressly disclose but Shimada teaches or suggests a number of physical links in a logical link is used as an input to the hash algorithm (¶¶ 9, 43, 52).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Ganguli’s system, Goldfinger’s ordering, Geetha’s hash, Mammen’s larger hash, and Shimada’s input to respond to a physical link failing.
Claims 2, 10, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20200021449 (Ganguli) in view of US 20130054396 (Goldfinger) further in view US 20150180779 (Geetha), US 20230222110 (Mammen), US-20080069114 (Shimada), and US 20130329747 (Walid).
Ganguli does not expressly disclose but Walid teaches or suggests subsequent to de-energizing at least one of the plurality of physical links, reducing energy consumption of at least one network device associated with the at least one physical link (¶ 45).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Ganguli’s system, Goldfinger’s ordering, Geetha’s hash, Mammen’s larger hash, Shimada’s input, and Walid’s reducing to conserve power.
Claims 3, 11, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20200021449 (Ganguli) in view of US 20130054396 (Goldfinger) further in view US 20150180779 (Geetha), US 20230222110 (Mammen), US-20080069114 (Shimada), and US 20220091657 (Tsien).
Ganguli does not expressly disclose but Tsien teaches or suggests determining a minimum bundle size threshold; and determining whether a number of energized links is above or below the minimum bundle size threshold (¶ 60).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Ganguli’s system, Goldfinger’s ordering, Geetha’s hash, Mammen’s larger hash, Shimada’s input, and Tsien’s determining to quantify power conservation.
Claims 7, 8, 15, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20200021449 (Ganguli) in view of US 20130054396 (Goldfinger) further in view US 20150180779 (Geetha), US 20230222110 (Mammen), US-20080069114 (Shimada), and WO 2023016633 (Frenger).
Regarding claims 7, 15, and 20, the original combination teaches or suggests energizing or de-energizing at least one of the plurality of physical links during a future time period based at least in part on the amount of traffic as aforementioned. Ganguli does not expressly disclose but Frenger teaches or suggests predicting an amount of traffic in the data transmission channel at a future time period (¶ 102); and
energizing or de-energizing at least one of the plurality of physical links during the future time period based at least in part on the predicted amount of traffic (¶ 102).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Ganguli’s system, Goldfinger’s ordering, Geetha’s hash, Mammen’s larger hash, Shimada’s input, and Frenger’s predicting to speed up operations.
Regarding claim 8, Frenger teaches or suggests the predicting the amount of traffic is performed by a controller in electronic communication with the data transmission channel predicting an amount of traffic in the data transmission channel at a future time period (¶ 102).
A rationale to combine teachings and suggestions of the references would have been for the same reason as for claim 7.
Claim 22 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20200021449 (Ganguli) in view of US 20130054396 (Goldfinger) further in view US 20150180779 (Geetha), US 20230222110 (Mammen), US-20080069114 (Shimada), and US-20210328929 (Kleiman).
Ganguli does not expressly disclose but Kleiman teaches or suggests an adaptive load distribution algorithm is used to hash existing flows to a same physical link of the plurality of physical links even where bundle membership of the bundle changes (¶ 16).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Ganguli’s system, Goldfinger’s ordering, Geetha’s hash, Mammen’s larger hash, Shimada’s input, and Kleiman’s adaptive load distribution algorithm to apply hash-based balancing schemes in layer 2 and layer 3.
Claim 23 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20200021449 (Ganguli) in view of US 20130054396 (Goldfinger) further in view US 20150180779 (Geetha), US 20230222110 (Mammen), US-20080069114 (Shimada), and US 4317076 (Price).
Ganguli does not expressly disclose but Price teaches or suggests sequentially energizing the plurality of links, beginning with a physical link of the plurality of physical links that has been de-energized a longest period of time, then a next longest time, and so on (2:25-40).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine Ganguli’s system, Goldfinger’s ordering, Geetha’s hash, Mammen’s larger hash, Shimada’s input, and Price’s sequence to provide uniform usage.
Response to Arguments
The arguments have been fully considered. “Geetha [and Mammen] do[ ] not teach that ‘a number of physical links in a logical link bundle is used as an input to the hash algorithm,’ . . . .” (Resp. 10.) Shimada has been added, however, to teach or suggest the argued limitations.
Other Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to the instant disclosure. For example, US 20080298236 discloses dynamic link aggregation in a communications network.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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 inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Lance Leonard Barry whose telephone number is (571)272-5856. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 700-430 ET 730-1630.
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/LANCE LEONARD BARRY/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2457