DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
2. Claims 52-77 are pending.
Information Disclosure Statement
3. The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 03/02/2023 and 04/11/2023 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the Examiner.
Claim Objections
4. Claim 57 is objected to because of the following informalities: Line 1 states “the ITD” and should be replaced with “the ITPD”. Appropriate correction is required.
5. Claim 58 is objected to because of the following informalities: Line 2 states “the ITD” and should be replaced with “the ITPD”. Appropriate correction is required.
6. Claim 59 is objected to because of the following informalities: Lines 1-3 state “ITD” or “ITDs” and should be replaced with “ITPD” or “ITPDs”. Appropriate correction is required.
7. Claim 60 is objected to because of the following informalities: Line 1 states “ITD” or “ITDs” and should be replaced with “ITPD” or “ITPDs”. Appropriate correction is required.
8. Claim 63 is objected to because of the following informalities: Line 1 states “non-transitory computer-readable media” and should be replaced with “non-transitory computer-readable media (NTCRM)”. Appropriate correction is required.
9. Claim 63 is objected to because of the following informalities: Line 4 states “an individual packet” and should be replaced with “an individual receiver (Rx) packet”. Appropriate correction is required.
10. Claim 63 is objected to because of the following informalities: Line 6 states “the individual packet” and should be replaced with “the individual Rx packet”. Appropriate correction is required.
11. Claim 63 is objected to because of the following informalities: Line 7 states “packets” and should be replaced with “Rx packets”. Appropriate correction is required.
12. Claim 63 is objected to because of the following informalities: Line 9 states “the individual packet” and should be replaced with “the individual Rx packet”. Appropriate correction is required.
13. Claim 63 is objected to because of the following informalities: Lines 11-12 state “one additional packet” and should be replaced with “one additional Rx packet”. Appropriate correction is required.
14. Claim 69 is objected to because of the following informalities: Line 3 states “steering packets” and should be replaced with “steering receiver (Rx) packets”. Appropriate correction is required.
15. Claim 69 is objected to because of the following informalities: Line 9 states “other packet” and should be replaced with “other Rx packet”. Appropriate correction is required.
16. Claim 69 is objected to because of the following informalities: Line 12 states “other packets” and should be replaced with “other Rx packets”. Appropriate correction is required.
17. Claim 71 is objected to because of the following informalities: Line 2 states “the packets” and should be replaced with “the Rx packets”. Appropriate correction is required.
18. Claim 71 is objected to because of the following informalities: Line 3 states “the packets” and should be replaced with “the Rx packets”. Appropriate correction is required.
19. Claim 71 is objected to because of the following informalities: Line 4 states “the packets” and should be replaced with “the Rx packets”. Appropriate correction is required.
20. Claim 72 is objected to because of the following informalities: Line 2 states “the individual packet” and should be replaced with “the individual Rx packet”. Appropriate correction is required.
21. Claim 74 is objected to because of the following informalities: Line 3 states “steer Rx packets” and should be replaced with “steer receiver (Rx) packets”. Appropriate correction is required.
22. Claim 74 is objected to because of the following informalities: Lines 16-18 state “the individual packet” and should be replaced with “the individual Rx packet”. Appropriate correction is required.
23. Claim 76 is objected to because of the following informalities: Lines 2-4 state “the packets” and should be replaced with “the Rx packets”. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
24. The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
25. Claims 57-60, 72 and 74-77 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 57 recites the limitation "the ITD" in line 1. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 58 recites the limitation "the ITD" in line 2. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 59 recites the limitation "the ITD" in line 1. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 72 recites the limitation "the individual packet" in line 2. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 74 recites the limitation "the individual packet" in lines 16-18. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 76 recites the limitation "the packet" in lines 2-4. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claims 60, 75 and 77 are further rejected based on their dependency of claims 59 and 74.
Related Prior Art
26. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
a. Chow (US Patent No. 6,944,174 B1 hereinafter “Chow”) discloses a multiport device includes a time-stamping component that appends a time-stamp value to voice packets. Output queues use the time-stamp value to monitor the time the packet spends in the output queue. If the packet is in the queue for greater than a predetermined amount of time, a time-stamp control component expedites the processing of the packet. In this manner, jitter introduced into the voice packet by variable length delays in the network device can be controlled.
b. Titus (US Pub. No. 2008/02021468 A1 hereinafter “Titus”) discloses a method that creates Real-Time Estimates (RTE) of network parameters for responsive resources of a network management zone (NMZ) by sending requests in a management protocol and uses those real-time estimates to present a resource map of the NMZ, possibly altering a responsive resource, possibly posting a service schedule request. The invention includes implementation mechanisms and installation packages. The RTE of network parameter is a product of the process. Constructing a quality of service measure from RTE of at least two network parameters. Quality of service measure as a product of the process. The quality of service measure may include or be the Mean Opinion Score.
c. Michaelis et al. (US Pub. No. 2010/0271944 A1 hereinafter “Michaelis”) discloses he use of two or more buffers, at a common receiving node, to reduce the effects of jitter, packet loss, and/or packet latency and/or synchronize different types of packets.
d. LeBlanc (US Patent No. 8,520,519 B2 hereinafter “LeBlanc”) discloses a packet voice communication system having a jitter buffer external to a voice processor. The jitter buffer stores voice packets received from a packet network. The voice processor processes the voice packets from the jitter buffer. A jitter buffer processor may place an indicator in each voice packet it holds. The indicator can indicate a length of time the voice packet was held. The rate at which packets come from the jitter buffer may be based upon the indicator, a higher rate if holding times are high and a slower rate if low. The voice processor can store the voice packets in a packet queue prior to processing the voice packets. The rate voice packets come to the voice processor may be based upon how full the packet queue is, a higher rate if the packet queue is relatively empty and a slower rate if relatively full.
e. Thyagaturu et al. (US Pub. No. 2020/0412655 A1 hereinafter “Thyagaturu”) discloses methods and apparatus for dynamic offline end-to-end packet processing based on traffic class. An end-to-end connection is set up between an application on a client including a processor and host memory and an application on a remote server. An offline packet buffer is allocated in host memory. While the processor and/or a core on with the client application is executed is in a sleep state, the client is operated in an interrupt-less and polling-less mode as applied to a predetermined traffic class. Under the mode, a Network Interface Controller (NIC) at the client receives network traffic from the remote server and determines whether the network traffic is associated with the predetermined traffic class. When it is, the NIC writes packet data extracted from the network traffic to an offline packet buffer. Descriptors are generated and provided to the NIC to inform the NIC of the location and size of the offline packet buffer.
Allowable Subject Matter
27. Claims 52-73 are allowed.
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
The examiner finds that the prior art of record taken alone or in combination fails to teach and/or fairly suggest “A network interface controller (NIC), comprising:… wherein, after or during an individual Rx packet in the network packet batch is transferred from the Rx buffer to an Rx queue slot indicated by a descriptor, the ITPD circuitry is to: cause a next bit field in the descriptor to be set to a first value when at least one other Rx packet belonging to the network packet batch is still stored in the Rx buffer, and cause the next bit field in the descriptor to be set to a second value when no other Rx packets belonging to the network packet batch are still stored in the Rx buffer.”, in combination with other recited limitations in independent claim 52.
The examiner finds that the prior art of record taken alone or in combination fails to teach and/or fairly suggest “for an individual packet belonging to a network packet batch during a batch processing cycle, read a descriptor to determine a slot in which the individual packet is stored, wherein packets belonging to the network packet batch are stored in respective slots of a receiver (Rx) queue maintained in a system memory of the host platform, read the individual packet out of the determined slot, and continue the batch processing cycle when a next bit field in the descriptor is active, wherein the next bit field being active indicates that at least one additional packet belonging to the network packet batch is stored in another slot of the Rx queue or will be transferred into the another slot.”, in combination with other recited limitations in independent claim 63.
The examiner finds that the prior art of record taken alone or in combination fails to teach and/or fairly suggest “A method of operating a network interface controller (NIC), the method comprising:… during or after the transferring, causing a next bit field in the descriptor to be set to a first value when at least one other packet belonging to the network packet batch is still stored in the buffer, and causing the next bit field in the descriptor to be set to a second value when no other packets belonging to the network packet batch are stored in the buffer; and after the transferring, releasing control of the descriptor.”, in combination with other recited limitations in independent claim 69.
Claims 53-62, 64-68 and 70-73 would be allowable based on their dependencies of claims 52, 63 and 69.
28. Claims 74-77 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, set forth in this Office action.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
The examiner finds that the prior art of record taken alone or in combination fails to teach and/or fairly suggest a compute node, comprising: a network interface controller (NIC) that can perform the operation of setting a next bit field in the descriptor to a first value when at least one other Rx packet belonging to the network packet batch is still stored in the Rx buffer, and setting the next bit field in the descriptor to a second value when no other Rx packets belonging to the network packet batch are still stored in the Rx buffer, and releasing control of the descriptor after the transfer of the individual Rx packet, in combination with other recited limitations in independent claim 74.
Dependent claims 75-77 would be allowable based on their dependencies of independent claim 74.
Conclusion
The examiner requests, in response to this office action, support be shown for language added to any original claims on amendment and any new claims. That is, indicate support for newly added claim language by specifically pointing to page(s) and line number(s) in the specification and/or drawing figure(s). This will assist the examiner in prosecuting the application. When responding to this office action, applicant is advised to clearly point out the patentable novelty which he or she thinks the claims present, in view of the state of art disclosed by the references cited or the objections made. He or she must also show how the amendments avoid such references or objections. See 37 C.F.R.I .Ill(c).
In amending in reply to a rejection of claims in an application or patent under reexamination, the applicant or patent owner must clearly point out the patentable novelty which he or she thinks the claims present in view the state of the art disclosed by the references cited or the objections made. The applicant or patent owner must also show how the amendments avoid such references or objections.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DAYTON LEWIS-TAYLOR whose telephone number is (571) 2707754. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday through Thursday, 8AM TO 4PM, EASTERN TIME.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Idriss Alrobaye, can be reached on (571) 270-1023. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Dayton Lewis-Taylor/
Examiner, Art Unit 2181
Prosecution Insights