DETAILED ACTION
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 .
This action is in response to the communication filed on 01/19/2026.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 01/19/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments with respect to claim(s) 1 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection.
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 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.
Claim(s) 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gupta et al. (WIPO. Pub. WO2022055614) in view of Chaubey et al. (U.S. Pub. 20210281656), further in view of Straub et al. (U.S. Pub. 20200059497).
Regarding claim 1 Gupta disclose, a method for processing data packets in a virtualized computing network comprising a plurality of computing nodes hosting a plurality of virtual machines and hardware-based network interface devices configured to implement a software defined network (SDN), wherein at least some of the hardware-based network interface devices are configured to enable communications between the virtual machines within a user network of the virtualized computing network in accordance with associated policies, the method comprising:
receiving, by a first hardware-based network device via a cloud edge node from a source outside of the virtualized computing network para. 158, “receiving, by the SDN appliance, a first data packet comprising a network protocol request. In an embodiment, the first data packet includes a virtual address”, an input data packet addressed to an endpoint hosted by a virtual machine of the user network para. 159, “the virtual address of the received data packet corresponds to a MAC address of the programmable network device”;
applying, by the first hardware-based network device, a networking function to the input data packet para. 158, Fig. 24, “Operation 2406 illustrates generating a response to the network protocol request based on a configuration of the programmable network device and structured to identify the programmable network device as a source of the response”,
wherein the networking function is disaggregated from physical dependencies on a set of the computing nodes that are hosting the virtual machines of the user network para. 172, “the SDN appliance configured to disaggregate enforcement of policies of the SDN from hosts of the virtual computing environment” and wherein the networking function is disassociated from logical connections to the set of the computing nodes para. 166, Fig. 24, “receiving, via the programmable network device, a second data packet addressed to an endpoint in the virtual computing environment; mapping one of a plurality of policies to the endpoint”; and
forwarding, by the first hardware-based network device, the input data packet to a second hardware-based network interface device configured to apply to the input data packet, a policy associated with the input data packet and the user network para. 166, Fig. 24, “offloading, to the programmable network device, application of the mapped policy to the second data packet, wherein the programmable network device is configured to operate in accordance with the response to the network protocol request”,
thereby enabling the input data packet to be processed by the networking function by the first hardware-based network device prior to being forwarded to any of the virtual machines of the user network para. 172, “sending the response on behalf of the programmable network device; receiving, via the programmable network device, a second data packet addressed to an endpoint in the virtual computing environment; mapping one of a plurality of policies to the endpoint”.
Gupta does not specifically disclose, enabling the policy to be applied to the input data packet by the second hardware-based network device. However, Chaubey teach, “The second network device may receive the packet from the first network device, and may perform various actions associated with the packet, such as applying one or more policy rules to the packet, transmitting the packet to another device”, see para. 11.
Chaubey further teach, wherein the first hardware-based network device is configured to apply the networking function to the input data packet para. 101, “FIG. 6 is a flow chart of an example process 600 for applying application-based policy rules. In some implementations, one or more process blocks of FIG. 6 may be performed by a first network device (e.g., network device 230)”.
Gupta and Chaubey do not specifically disclose, wherein the second hardware-based network device is configured to apply the policy to the input data packet and the networking function is executed in the first hardware-based network device. However, Straub teach, “Based on the information contained in the message, the CPE may update record(s) in the client device registry (step 404). For example, if the message contains a subscription request, the CPE updates a record associated with the client device to indicate that the client device has subscribed to content from the content provider. When the CPE receives a message from the content provider that satisfies the subscription information in the record, the CPE forwards the message to the client device”, see para. 151, Fig. 4.
Gupta, Chaubey and Straub are analogous because they pertain to the field of wireless communication and, more specifically, to processing data packets.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Chaubey and Straub in the system of Gupta so the system may determine based on the configuration information how to apply the policy rules for routing and processing traffic. The motivation for doing so would have been to implement and dynamically apply the configured rules and policies on the network traffic.
Regarding claim 2 Gupta disclose, wherein the first and second hardware-based network devices are physically distributed in the virtualized computing network and configured as a pooled resource para. 13, “The described embodiments may support multiple FPGAs and other connected devices on SDN appliances in multiple different network and physical topologies”.
Regarding claim 3 Gupta disclose, wherein a plurality of the networking functions are executed in a plurality of the hardware-based network devices para. 78, “Software defined networking (SDN) is conventionally implemented on a general- purpose compute node. The SDN control plane may program the host to provide core network functions such as security, virtual network, and load balancer policies”.
Regarding claim 4 Gupta disclose, wherein the networking functions comprise one or more of gateway functions configured to provide gated services to traffic attempting to access resources in the virtualized computing network para. 78, “The on-premises network and VNet are typically operatively coupled using instances of gateways 330, or other networking devices, over a communication network 335 which may include, for example, private and/or public networking infrastructure using various combinations of connectivity services”,
Layer 4 (L4) firewalls, Layer 7 (L7) firewalls, L4 load balancers, L7 load balancers, distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) services, virtual switches providing steering functions based on SDN policies, edge functions that require SDN policy enforcement and forwarding, 5G functions that allow for SDN gateway access to cloud services, 5G functions that allow for multi-cloud connectivity to cloud services, wireless access to cloud applications via SDN gateway functions, or providing access from a remote edge site to cloud applications. The claim list features in the alternative. While the claim lists a number of optional limitations only one limitation from the list is required and needs to be met by the prior art. The Examiner has chosen the first of the alternatives.
Regarding claim 5 Gupta disclose, wherein the first hardware-based network device is a smart network interface card (sNIC) para. 82, Fig. 22, “the SDN appliance 1340 may offload the flow to a local offload device, such as a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) device. In one embodiment, the described systems and methods may include an FPGA device that is configured to be a hardware acceleration device so that data traffic will be processed in hardware”.
Regarding claim 6 Gupta disclose, wherein the first hardware-based network device is an appliance comprising a plurality of smart network interface cards (sNICs), para. 127, Fig. 22, “The above solution may be used to support multiple FPGAs (connected devices) on SDN Appliances (servers) in multiple different network and physical topologies. In one example, the SDN appliance may have 6 FPGAs with 2 pipelines (ports each)”.
Regarding claim 7 Gupta disclose, further comprising applying a plurality of networking functions by the plurality of sNICs para. 13, 97, Fig. 22, “The described embodiments may support multiple FPGAs and other connected devices on SDN appliances in multiple different network and physical topologies…the FPGAs may have the capability to ingress a packet to a pipeline on one port, and egress the packet from a different port associated with a different pipeline”.
Claim 8 recites an apparatus corresponding to the method of claim 1 and thus is rejected under the same reason set forth in the rejection of claim 1.
Regarding claims 9-10 and 11-13 the limitations of claims 9-10 and 11-13, respectively, are rejected in the same manner as analyzed above with respect to claims 2-3 and 5-7, respectively.
Claim 14 recites an apparatus corresponding to the method of claim 1 and thus is rejected under the same reason set forth in the rejection of claim 1.
Regarding claims 15-20 the limitations of claims 15-20, respectively, are rejected in the same manner as analyzed above with respect to claims 2-7, respectively.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: Mulkey et al. (U.S. Pub. 20190116106) which disclose(s) dynamic quality of service over communication circuits.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RAUL RIVAS whose telephone number is (571)270–5590. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday – Friday, from 8:30am to 5:00pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Sujoy K. Kundu, can be reached on (571) 272 - 8586. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571–273–8300.
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/RR/
Examiner, Art Unit 2471
/SUJOY K KUNDU/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2471