DETAILED ACTION
Notice of 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 Amendment
The amendment filed 2026-04-27 has been entered and fully considered.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Invention II (claims 1 and 3) in the reply filed on 2026-04-27 is acknowledged.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 2023-01-23 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to under 37 CFR 1.84(l) because, for Figure 5, the text and imagery is not durable, clean, black, sufficiently dense and dark, and uniformly thick and well-defined. Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Edsall (US Pre-Grant Publication No. 20180115548-A1, hereinafter “Edsall”).
With respect to independent claim 1, Edsall discloses an apparatus comprising:
a switch comprising {para. 0016: “local switch 10”}:
an interface to an ingress port {paras. 0019-0022: “InsSec egress and/or ingress”, wherein “InsSec PHY 30 receives a packet”}.
switch circuitry coupled to the interface to apply encryption for packets received from a first network interface device {paras. 0019-0035: “the VxLAN packet is encrypted”} and tunnel the encrypted packets to a second network interface device {paras. 0017-0024: “VxLAN packets 100 are transformed into InsSec packets 200 and routed over an InsSec tunnel”}, wherein:
forwarding operations by the first network interface device and forwarding operations by the second network interface device are based on different header fields {paras. 0016-0023 and 0037-0042: “switching/steering” packets based on “a MAC header 102, an internet protocol (IP) header 104, a User Datagram Protocol (UDP) header or a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) header 108, a VxLAN header 108”}.
the tunnel the encrypted packets to the second network interface device is to utilize a Virtual Extensible Local Area Network (VXLAN) {para. 0018: “switch ASIC 20 can provide for VxLAN encapsulation … to create a DCI tunnel from one site to the next using VxLAN”}.
the encryption comprises Media Access Control Security (MACsec) {para. 0016: “‘InsSec’ refers to the MACSec based encryption and data integrity checking processes disclosed herein. ‘MACSec’ refers to the Institution of Electronical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Media Access Control (MAC) Security standard (known by the designation IEEE 902.1AE)”}.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102 and/or 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 of this title, 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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Edsall (US Pre-Grant Publication No. 20180115548-A1, hereinafter “Edsall”) or, in the alternative, under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Edsall (US Pre-Grant Publication No. 20180115548-A1, hereinafter “Edsall”).
With respect to dependent claim 3, Edsall discloses wherein the tunnel the encrypted packets to the second network interface device comprises provide security for the encrypted packets sent to the second network interface device without utilization of Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) {para. 0018: the Examiner notes that IPSec is not mentioned anywhere in Edsall, and one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that IPSec would not be employed in the tunnel, as the tunnels are over “a layer-2 network topology” (whereas IPSec operates on layer 3). If it is not inherent for the absence of IPSec in Edsall, the Examiner finds that before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to remove IPSec since its features would provide no additional benefit and its removal would decrease latency; See MPEP § 2144.04(II)}.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure.
The reference Schwering et al. (US Pre-Grant Publication No. 20250175451-A1) discloses a switch that tunnels Virtual extensible Local-Area Network (VXLAN) frames that are secured by 802.1AE (MACSec).
The reference Paul et al. (US Pre-Grant Publication No. 20230130016-A1) discloses a switch that tunnels Virtual extensible Local-Area Network (VXLAN) frames that are secured by 802.1AE (MACSec).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Kevin Bechtel whose telephone number is 571-270-5436. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 09:00 - 17:00 ET.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, William (“Bill”) Korzuch can be reached at 571-272-7589. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Kevin Bechtel/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2491
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