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 Amendment and Argument
1. This communication is in response to applicant's 09/03/2025 communications in the application of Puvvada for the "MANAGING PROCESSING QUEUE ALLOCATION USING SEQUENCE NUMBER BITS OF AN IPSEC PACKET" filed 02/13/2023 has been examined. This application claims foreign priority to 202241077257, filed 12/30/2022 in India. The amendment and response have been entered and made of record. Claims 1-20 are pending in the present application.
2. Applicant’s remarks and argument to the rejected claims are insufficient to distinguish the claimed invention from the cited prior arts or overcome the rejection of said claims under 35 U.S.C. 103 as discussed below. Applicant’s argument with respect to the pending claims have been fully considered, but they are not persuasive for at least the following reasons.
3. In response to applicant's argument that the combination of cited references fails to present a prima facie case of obviousness. In response, it has been held that a prior art reference must either be in the field of applicant’s endeavor or, if not, then be reasonably pertinent to the particular problem with which the applicant was concerned, in order to be relied upon as a basis for rejection of the claimed invention. See In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 24 USPQ2d 1443 (Fed. Cir. 1992). It is not necessary that a “prima facie” case of unpatentability exist as to the claim in order for “a substantial new question of patentability” to be present as to the claim. Thus, “a substantial new question of patentability” as to a patent claim could be present even if the examiner would not necessarily reject the claim as either fully anticipated by, or obvious in view of, the prior art patents or printed publications. As to the importance of the difference between “a substantial new question of patentability” and a “prima facie” case of unpatentability see generally In re Etter, 756 F.2d 852, 857 n.5, 225 USPQ 1, 4 n.5 (Fed. Cir. 1985). Also, See MPEP § 2141.01(a) for a discussion of analogous and nonanalogous art in the context of establishing a prima facie case of obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103. See MPEP § 2131.05 for a discussion of analogous and nonanalogous art in the context of 35 U.S.C. 102. 904.02. It is prima facie obvious to combine two compositions each of which is taught by the prior art to be useful for the same purpose, in order to form a third composition to be used for the very same purpose, the idea of combining them flows logically from their having been individually taught in the prior art. See MPEP 2144.06 and In re Kerkhoven, 626 F.2d 846, 850, 205 USPQ 1069, 1072 (CCPA 1980).
4. In response to Applicant’s argument that the reference does not teach or reasonably suggest the functionality upon which the Examiner relies for the rejection. The Examiner first emphasizes for the record that the claims employ a broader in scope than the Applicant’s disclosure in all aspects. In addition, the Applicant has not argued any narrower interpretation of the claim limitations, nor amended the claims significantly enough to construe a narrower meaning to the limitations. Since the claims breadth allows multiple interpretations and meanings, which are broader than Applicant’s disclosure, the Examiner is required to interpret the claim limitations in terms of their broadest reasonable interpretations while determining patentability of the disclosed invention. See MPEP 2111. In other words, the claims must be given their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification and the interpretation that those skilled in the art would reach. See In re Hyatt, 211 F.3d 1367, 1372, 54 USPQ2d 1664, 1667 (Fed. Cir. 2000), In re Cortright, 165 F.3d 1353, 1359, 49 USPQ2d 1464, 1468 (Fed. Cir. 1999), and In re American Academy of Science Tech Center, 2004 WL 1067528 (Fed. Cir. May 13, 2004). Any term that is not clearly defined in the specification must be given its plain meaning as understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. See MPEP 2111.01. See also In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319, 321, 13 USPQ2d 1320, 1322 (Fed. Cir. 1989), Sunrace Roots Enter. Co. v. SRAM Corp., 336 F.3d 1298, 1302, 67 USPQ2d 1438, 1441 (Fed. Cir. 2003), Brookhill-Wilk 1, LLC v. Intuitive Surgical, Inc., 334 F.3d 1294, 1298 67 USPQ2d 1132, 1136 (Fed. Cir. 2003). The interpretation of the claims by their broadest reasonable interpretation reduces the possibility that, once the claims are issued, the claims are interpreted more broadly than justified. See In re Prater, 415 F.2d 1393, 1404-05, 162 USPQ 541, 550-551 (CCPA 1969). Also, limitations appearing in the specification but not recited in the claim are not read into the claim. See In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 26 USPQ2d 1057 (Fed. Cir. 1993). Therefore, the failure to significantly narrow definition or scope of the claims and supply arguments commensurate in scope with the claims implies the Applicant intends broad interpretation be given to the claims. The Examiner has interpreted the claims in parallel to the Applicant in the response and reiterates the need for the Applicant to distinctly define the claimed invention.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
5. 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.
The factual inquiries 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.
6. This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims under 35 U.S.C. 103, the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned at the time any inventions covered therein were made absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and invention dates of each claim that was not commonly owned at the time a later invention was made in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 103 and potential 35 U.S.C. 102(e), (f) or (g) prior art under 35 U.S.C. 103.
7. Claims 1-2, 6-7, 10-11, 15-16, 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Davis (US#7,215,667) in view of McDonnell et al. (US#12,309,067) and further in view of Wang (US#12,170,652).
Regarding claims 10-11, the references disclose an apparatus for managing queue allocation based on addressing attributes of an inner packet, according to the essential features of the claims. Davis (US#7,215,667) discloses an apparatus comprising: a first gateway; and
a second gateway configured to: in response to receiving an encapsulated packet from the first gateway, wherein the encapsulated packet comprises an internet protocol security (IPsec) packet (Fig. 1; Col. 3, lines 46-62: tunnel devices 112, 114 may implement an IPSec tunnel protocol for communication of IPSec tunnel packets. Packets between source and destination communication devices in subnets 116 and 118 may be communicated through network 110 using an IPSec tunnel established between tunnel device 114 and tunnel device 112. Tunnel devices 114 and 112 may implement an IPSec tunnel protocol which encapsulates the packets communicated therebetween providing, for example, security for the communications); determine a value of a subset of the bits reserved for the sequence number of the encapsulated packet (Fig. 2; Col. 4; lines 55-64: IPSec tunnel packet 230 may include outer IP header 232, IPSec header 234, compressed inner headers 236, payload 233, padding 235 and message authentication code (MAC) 237. IPSec header 234 may include security policy index (SPI) number field 231 and sequence number (SN) field 239. Certain predetermined bits of the SPI number may be used to represent an security association database entry address pointer for the inbound IPSec tunnel packets). It’s also noted that, Internet Protocol Security (IPSec) have been developed to establish secure sessions between remote systems. These security protocols allow remote systems to establish a secure session through message exchange and calculations, thereby allowing sensitive data being transmitted across the different communication networks to remain secure and untampered. IPSec allows for use of an Extended Sequence Number (ESN), which increases the size of the sequence numbers, compared to a sequence number, and allows more packets to be transferred or in-flight for a given Internet Protocol (IP) connection (Davis: Col. 1, lines 15-50).
However, Davis (US#7,215,667) reference does not disclose expressly wherein selecting a queue from a plurality of queues at the second gateway to process the encapsulated packet based on the determined value of the subset of the bits. In the same field of endeavor, McDonnell et al. (US#12,309,067) teach in Fig. 18 a flow diagram illustrated hardware queue scheduling for multi-core computing environments, in which the queue controller 1830 configures a queue to process a queue operation. For example, the queue controller 1830 can configure a queue to be an unordered queue, an ordered queue, an atomic queue, etc. In some examples, the queue controller 1830 generates identifiers (e.g., flow identifiers, data flow identifiers, queue identifiers, etc.) to facilitate the execution of workloads of interest (see also Fig. 22; Col. 18, line 45 to Col. 19, line 26: assigning the identifier in the queue to a first core of the processor; and means for allocating the identifier to a second core to cause the second core to distribute the data packet).
Although Davis (US#7,215,667) in view of McDonnell et al. (US#12,309,067) references does not disclose expressly wherein the encapsulated packet having a header, the header including a number of bits reserved for a sequence number of the encapsulated packet. However, Davis (US#7,215,667) teaches in Fig. 9 a flow chart illustrated of an IPSec tunnel packet reception procedure with the IPSec protocol and inner header compression for IPSec tunnel packets. The IPSec tunnel may implement the encapsulation security protocol (ESP) or an authentication header (AH) protocol with encryption. In operation, a portion of a security policy index (SPI) number contained in the IPSec header is read to identify a security association database entry for an IPSec tunnel between the source tunnel device and the destination tunnel device. In operation 904, the security association database entry may include a flag to indicate when the encapsulated portion is encrypted (See also Fig. 2; Col. 4., lines 30-54 & Col. 10, lines 8-38: IPSec tunnel protocol which encapsulates the packets communicated therebetween providing security for the communications). In the same field of endeavor, Wang (US#12,170,652) teaches in Figs. 1-2 schematic diagrams illustrated the structure of an ESP packet obtained by encapsulation, in which the encapsulating security payload (ESP) header includes an security parameters index (SPI) field and a sequence number (SN). The SPI field is used to carry an SPI, and the SPI is used to uniquely identify a security association. The sequence number is used to uniquely identify a packet to prevent a packet replay attack. The ESP trailer includes a padding field (optional), a pad length field, and a next header. The pad length field is used to indicate a length of the padding field. The next header is used to indicate a payload type of the payload data field, and the next header carries an identifier of a next field of the ESP header (see also Figs. 4-6; Col. 6, lines 4-41 & Col. 7, line 46 to Col. 8, line 7).
Regarding claim 15, it’s noted that the use of network offload protocol such as receive side scaling (RSS) offload/TCP segment offload (TSO)/large receive offload (LRO) are well known in the art. Furthermore, Receive-side scaling (RSS) is a network interface card (NIC) technology that involves routing data packets to different processor cores of an application processor. In RSS, the NIC may send different received packets to different receive queues to distribute processing among processor cores (McDonnel et al.: Figs. 2-4; Col. 5, line 59 to Col. 6, line 19: receive side scaling functionality).
Regarding claim 16, the reference further teaches wherein the indication further indicates a quantity of queues at the first gateway (McDonnel et al.: Figs. 22-23; Col. 25, lines 38-61).
Regarding claims 1-2, 6-7, they are method claims corresponding to the apparatus claims 10-11, 15-16 examined above. Therefore, claims 1-2, 6-7 are analyzed and rejected as previously discussed with respect to claims 10-11, 15-16 above.
Regarding claims 18-20, they are system claims corresponding to the apparatus claims 10-11, 16 examined above. Therefore, claims 18-20 are analyzed and rejected as previously discussed with respect to claims 10-11, 16 above.
One skilled in the art would have recognized the need for effectively and efficiently managing queue allocation for multi-core computing environments, and would have applied Wang’s novel use of the ESP packet obtained after an original packet is encapsulated based on the ESP protocol, and McDonnel’s dynamic load balancers (DLBs) to facilitate a scheduling of computing tasks across a multi-core computing architecture into Davis’s IPSec protocol and inner header compression of IPSec tunnel packets. Therefore, It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the invention was made to apply Wang’s packet transmission method and apparatus and computer storage medium, and McDonnell’s hardware queue scheduling for multi-core computing environments into Davis’s system and method for communicating IPsec tunnel packets with compressed inner headers with the motivation being to provide a method and system for managing processing queue allocation using sequence number bits of an IPsec packet.
Allowable Subject Matter
7. Claims 3, 8, 9 and 12, 17 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claims, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Claims 4-5 and 13-14 depend on the objected claims above.
8. The following is an examiner's statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The closest prior art of record fails to disclose or suggest wherein in the second gateway, determining a hash value based at least on a hash of tuple information from a second packet encapsulated in the packet; in the second gateway, setting the subset of bits of the sequence number portion of the packet to the hash value; and in the second gateway, communicating the packet to the first gateway; wherein in the first gateway, receiving a second packet from the second gateway; in the first gateway, identifying a second value of a second subset of bits in a sequence number portion of the second packet; and in the first gateway, selecting a second queue from the plurality of queues on the first gateway based on the second value of the second subset of bits, as specifically recited in the claims.
Conclusion
13. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure is indicated in PTO form 892.
14. Applicant's future amendments need to comply with the requirements of MPEP § 714.02, MPEP § 2163.04 and MPEP § 2163.06.
"with respect to newly added or amended claims, applicant should show support in the original disclosure for the new or amended claims." See MPEP § 714.02 and § 2163.06 ("Applicant should * * * specifically point out the support for any amendments made to the disclosure."); and MPEP § 2163.04 ("If applicant amends the claims and points out where and/or how the originally filed disclosure supports the amendment(s), and the examiner finds that the disclosure does not reasonably convey that the inventor had possession of the subject matter of the amendment at the time of the filing of the application, the examiner has the initial burden of presenting evidence or reasoning to explain why persons skilled in the art would not recognize in the disclosure a description of the invention defined by the claims."). See In re Smith, 458 F.2d 1389, 1395, 173 USPQ 679, 683 (CCPA 1972) In re Wertheim, 541 F.2d at 262,191 USPQ at 96 (emphasis added). "The use of a confusing variety of terms for the same thing should not be permitted.
New claims and amendments to the claims already in the application should be scrutinized not only for new matter but also for new terminology. While an applicant is not limited to the nomenclature used in the application as filed, he or she should make appropriate amendment of the specification whenever this nomenclature is departed from by amendment of the claims so as to have clear support or antecedent basis in the specification for the new terms appearing in the claims. This is necessary in order to insure certainty in construing the claims in the light of the specification." Ex parte Kotler, 1901 C.D. 62, 95 O.G. 2684 (Comm'r Pat. 1901). See 37 CFR 1.75, MPEP § 608.01 (i) and § 1302.01.
Note that examiners should ensure that the terms and phrases used in claims presented late in prosecution of the application (including claims amended via an examiner's amendment) 07find clear support or antecedent basis in the description so that the meaning of the terms in the claims may be ascertainable by reference to the description, see 37 CFR 1,75(d)(1 ). If the examiner determines that the claims presented late in prosecution do not comply with 37 CFR 1.75(d)(1), applicant will be required to make appropriate amendment to the description to provide clear support or antecedent basis for the terms appearing in the claims provided no new matter is introduced."
"USPTO personnel are to give claims their broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the supporting disclosure." In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054-55, 44 USPQ2d 1023,1027-28 (Fed. Cir. 1997). MPEP § 2106. "
15. Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION 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 extension fee 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.
16. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to M. Phan whose telephone number is (571) 272-3149. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon - Fri from 6:00 to 3:00.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor Chirag Shah, can be reached on (571) 272-3144. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300.
Any inquiry of a general nature or relating to the status of this application or proceeding should be directed to the receptionist whose telephone number is (571) 272-2600.
17. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have any questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at toll free 1-866-217-9197.
Mphan
Oct. 16, 2025
/MAN U PHAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2477