CTNF 18/132,666 CTNF 92362 DETAILED ACTION Claims 1-20 have been examined and are rejected. Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status 07-03-aia AIA 15-10-aia The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA. Drawings 06-22 AIA The drawings are objected to because Fig. 3 is illegible. The Examiner suggests enlarging the text in Fig. 3 to make it readable . 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. Specification 07-29 AIA The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities: the specification should include a “BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION” section and a “BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION” section (see MPEP 608.01(a)) . Appropriate correction is required. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112 07-30-02 AIA 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. Claims 1-20 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. Claims 1, 10 and 17 recite “the service mesh interface is to provide access”. Claims 4 and 7-8 recite “the circuitry is to”. Claim 5 recites “the host interface is to…” However, the claims do not recite that “the service mesh interface”, “the circuitry” and “the host interface” are configured to perform the recited steps. Therefore, it is unclear how “the service mesh interface”, “the circuitry” and “the host interface” can perform the steps in the claims if they are not configured to do so. Dependent claims 2-9, 11-16 and 18-20 fail to remedy the deficiencies of claims 1, 10 and 17 and are rejected. This rejection may be overcome by adding the limitation “configured” to the claims (e.g. “wherein the service mesh interface is configured to provide access…”, “wherein the circuitry is configured to…”, “the host interface is configured to copy…”) Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103 07-06 AIA 15-10-15 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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA) 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. 07-20-aia AIA 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. 07-21-aia AIA Claim s 1-2, 5-6, 9-11, 14-15 and 17-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ganguli et al. (U.S. PGPub 2022/0014459) in view of Wangde et al. (U.S. PGPub 2022/0291973) . Regarding claims 1, 10 and 17, Ganguli teaches An apparatus comprising: a host interface and a network interface device circuitry comprising circuitry coupled to the host interface, wherein the circuitry is configured to: perform offloaded proxy operations of a service mesh interface for multiple services, (Ganguli, see figs. 2A-2B and 5; see paragraph 0023 offloading host services…; see paragraph 0025 network L7 offload to the IPU 105 for a service mesh that supports one or more microservices running on a host device ...an L7 proxy endpoint, illustrated as L7 proxy 107, operating on the IPU 105, that provides a communication interface (e.g., PCIe, CXL) exposing, for example, a gRPC or HTTP interface to the microservices...) wherein the service mesh interface is to provide access to a service mesh to communicate with one or more services. (Ganguli, see figs. 2A-2B and 5; see paragraphs 0025-0026 offload to the IPU 105 for a service mesh that supports one or more microservices running on a host device…; see paragraph 0122 where offload to an infrastructure processing unit (IPU) for a service mesh...host a network layer 7 (L7) proxy endpoint for the service mesh; and communicate messages between the network L7 proxy endpoint and an L7 interface device of the one or more microservices...; it is noted that although the cited paragraphs and figures teach this entire limitation, this limitation recites the phrase “is to”, which indicates intended use, and therefore, the limitation following the phrase “is to” is interpreted as an intended use and as such, no patentable weight is given to the limitation following the phrase “is to”.) However, Ganguli does not explicitly teach wherein the circuitry is accessible via a virtual network device by a host processor-executed service of the multiple services and Wangde teaches wherein the circuitry is accessible via a virtual network device by a host processor-executed service of the multiple services and (Wangde, see fig. 1; see paragraph 0026 deploy containers, application and cluster of container-based virtualization…; see paragraph 0031 cloud service that may enable developers or operators to scale, organize, and manage containers using container-based virtualization. Once the container is deployed, the service mesh proxy 118 may be deployed as a respective microservice sidecar proxy alongside each of a plurality of microservices...) It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, at the time the invention was filed, to combine Ganguli and Wangde to provide the technique of the circuitry is accessible via a virtual network device by a host processor-executed service of the multiple services of Wangde in the system of Ganguli in order to allow users to have flexibility in calling the service effectively, so as to thereby improve the performance of the application requesting the service (Wangde, see paragraph 0013). Regarding claims 2 and 11, Ganguli-Wangde teaches wherein the offloaded proxy operations of a service mesh interface comprise packet forwarding and packet filtering. (Ganguli, see figs. 2A-2B and 6A-6B; see paragraph 0037 packet processor 222 provides hardware offload of a classifier and forwarder... through side band filters. The packet processor 222 may then provide inline filters to be added in hardware as part of transmitting the packet.) Regarding claims 5 and 14, Ganguli-Wangde teaches wherein the virtual network device is based on a software development kit and (Wangde, see fig. 1; see paragraph 0026 deploy containers, application and cluster of container-based virtualization…; see paragraph 0031 cloud service that may enable developers or operators to scale, organize, and manage containers using container-based virtualization. Once the container is deployed, the service mesh proxy 118 may be deployed as a respective microservice sidecar proxy alongside each of a plurality of microservices...) The motivation regarding to the obviousness to claims 1, 10 and 17 is also applied to claims 5 and 14. the host interface is to copy a packet from the host to the circuitry. (Ganguli, see paragraph 0035 strip out data from packets destined for the microservices 207 ... copying between microservices 207 (e.g., copying between containers hosting the microservices 207; see paragraph 0025 utilize direct memory access (DMA) to copy data between the memory regions in the IPU and CPU based on a routing table for the service mesh…; see paragraph 0032 copy data between the shared memory spaces 217, 232 in the IPU 202 and host device 201 is based on a routing table 235 for the service mesh.) Regarding claims 6 and 15, Ganguli-Wangde teaches wherein the circuitry comprises an accelerator and at least one processor and (Ganguli, see fig. 2A and paragraph 0026 . Host device 201 may include one or more of a CPU, GPU, accelerator…) the accelerator performs the operations of at least one network filter chain on packets from the host processor-executed service of the multiple services. (Ganguli, see figs. 2A-2B and 6A-6B; see paragraph 0037 packet processor 222 provides hardware offload of a classifier and forwarder... through side band filters. The packet processor 222 may then provide inline filters to be added in hardware as part of transmitting the packet.; see paragraphs 0039-0046 packet processing using network L7 offload to the IPU is as follows:...Microservice application selected (filtered) based on load balancing...This results in ATR component programming a connection filter in the hardware with 3+1 tuple...) Regarding claims 9 and 18, Ganguli-Wangde teaches wherein the network interface device comprise one or more of: an infrastructure processing unit (IPU), data processing unit (DPU), smartNIC, or network interface controller. (Ganguli, see paragraphs 0130 see paragraphs 0023-0024 an infrastructure processing unit (IPU), data processing unit (DPU), or Smart Network Interface Card (SmartNIC)) 07-21-aia AIA Claim s 3-4, 8, 12-13 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ganguli-Wangde in view of He et al. (U.S. PGPub 2021/0243247) . Regarding claims 3, 12 and 19, Ganguli-Wangde teaches all of the features of claims 1, 10 and 17. However, Ganguli-Wangde does not explicitly teach wherein the virtual network device comprises at least one device driver configured to bypass performance of operations of at least one network filter chain on packets from the host processor-executed service of the multiple services and provide the packets to the circuitry. He teaches wherein the virtual network device comprises at least one device driver configured to bypass performance of operations of at least one network filter chain on packets from the host processor-executed service of the multiple services and provide the packets to the circuitry. (He, see paragraph 0089 where An AF_XDP socket receives and sends packets from an eBPF/XDP-based program attached to the network device (netdev) bypassing Linux kernel's subsystems...read or make changes to network packet data and make decisions on how to handle the packet at an earlier stage with the attached XDP program so that the kernel stack may be bypassed in the data path.) It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, at the time the invention was filed, to combine Ganguli-Wangde and He to provide the technique of the virtual network device comprises at least one device driver configured to bypass performance of operations of at least one network filter chain on packets from the host processor-executed service of the multiple services and provide the packets to the circuitry of He in the system of Ganguli-Wangde in order to improve latency (He, see paragraph 0053). Regarding claims 4, 13 and 20, Ganguli-Wangde-He teaches wherein the circuitry is to perform the operations of at least one network filter chain on the packets prior to performance of the offloaded proxy operations of the service mesh interface. (Ganguli, see figs. 2A-2B; see paragraphs 0039-0046 packet processing using network L7 offload to the IPU is as follows:...Microservice application selected (filtered) based on load balancing...This results in ATR component programming a connection filter in the hardware with 3+1 tuple...; it is noted that although the cited paragraphs and figures teach this entire limitation, this limitation recites the phrase “is to”, which indicates intended use, and therefore, the limitation following the phrase “is to” is interpreted as an intended use and as such, no patentable weight is given to the limitation following the phrase “is to”.) Regarding claim 8, Ganguli-Wangde teaches all of the features of claim 1. However, Ganguli-Wangde does not explicitly teach wherein the circuitry is to tunnel packets from the host processor- executed service of the multiple services to a processor-executed network kernel stack in the circuitry. He teaches wherein the circuitry is to tunnel packets from the host processor- executed service of the multiple services to a processor-executed network kernel stack in the circuitry. (He, see a paragraphs 00104-0105 connection management messages can be sent from transmitter to receiver or receiver to transmitter using UDP packets through a kernel stack… apply to all NICs that can support RX header split, TX header buffer, queue steering, and/or packet sequence number insertion or extraction; it is noted that although the cited paragraphs and figures teach this entire limitation, this limitation recites the phrase “is to”, which indicates intended use, and therefore, the limitation following the phrase “is to” is interpreted as an intended use and as such, no patentable weight is given to the limitation following the phrase “is to”.) It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, at the time the invention was filed, to combine Ganguli-Wangde and He to provide the technique of the circuitry is to tunnel packets from the host processor- executed service of the multiple services to a processor-executed network kernel stack in the circuitry of He in the system of Ganguli-Wangde in order to improve latency (He, see paragraph 0053) . 07-21-aia AIA Claim s 7 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ganguli-Wangde in view of Ramesh et al. (U.S. PGPub 2020/0249973) . Regarding claims 7 and 16, Ganguli-Wangde teaches all of the features of claims 1 and 10. However, Ganguli-Wangde does not explicitly teach wherein the circuitry is to adjust a number of instances of a proxy based on a load from the offloaded proxy operations according to a policy associated with the host processor-executed service of the multiple services. Ramesh teaches wherein the circuitry is to adjust a number of instances of a proxy based on a load from the offloaded proxy operations according to a policy associated with the host processor-executed service of the multiple services. (Ramesh, see fig. 3; see paragraph 0064 determining that the node usage exceeds the threshold (320: YES), the migration server 140 determines a migration plan to offload the hotspot nodes at 330... migrating (adjusting) at least a VM from a first origin node (e.g., a hotspot node) to a first candidate destination node over a network...; it is noted that although the cited paragraphs and figures teach this entire limitation, this limitation recites the phrase “is to”, which indicates intended use, and therefore, the limitation following the phrase “is to” is interpreted as an intended use and as such, no patentable weight is given to the limitation following the phrase “is to”.) It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, at the time the invention was filed, to combine Ganguli-Wangde and Ramesh to provide the technique of the circuitry is to adjust a number of instances of a proxy based on a load from the offloaded proxy operations according to a policy associated with the host processor-executed service of the multiple services of Ramesh in the system of Ganguli-Wangde in order to improve system performance (Ramesh, see paragraph 0077) . Conclusion 07-96 AIA The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. This includes: U.S. PGPub 2019/0253357, which describes a computing platform that includes a classifier to classify a packet and assign a processing load weight to the packet based at least in part on the packet classification and a load balancer coupled to the classifier to compute a total processing load weight of a queue of a packet processing system and assign the packet to a queue with a lowest total processing load weight; U.S. PGPub 2021/0314303, which describes platforms, systems, and methods for actuating transmission control protocol/Internet protocol (TCP/IP); and U.S. PGPub 2022/0272071, which describes methods and systems for synchronizing state information amongst monitoring nodes for DDoS attack mitigation. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MENG VANG whose telephone number is (571)270-7023. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8AM-2PM, 3PM-5PM. 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, NICHOLAS TAYLOR can be reached at (571) 272-3889. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. 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If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /MENG VANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2443 Application/Control Number: 18/132,666 Page 2 Art Unit: 2443 Application/Control Number: 18/132,666 Page 3 Art Unit: 2443 Application/Control Number: 18/132,666 Page 4 Art Unit: 2443 Application/Control Number: 18/132,666 Page 5 Art Unit: 2443 Application/Control Number: 18/132,666 Page 6 Art Unit: 2443 Application/Control Number: 18/132,666 Page 7 Art Unit: 2443 Application/Control Number: 18/132,666 Page 8 Art Unit: 2443 Application/Control Number: 18/132,666 Page 9 Art Unit: 2443 Application/Control Number: 18/132,666 Page 10 Art Unit: 2443 Application/Control Number: 18/132,666 Page 11 Art Unit: 2443 Application/Control Number: 18/132,666 Page 12 Art Unit: 2443
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