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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This action is responsive to RCE filed February 3, 2026 entering amendment of 1/2/26.
Status of Claims
Applicant amended the claims. Claims 1-14,19-21,26,28 remain pending.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments/amendments, filed 1/2/26, have been fully considered and are partially persuasive.
The previous 101 rejection of claims 1-11 is overcome and therefore withdrawn.
Regarding the independent claims, Applicant argues that Jin does not teach establishing the forward priority by identifying a service type with a service type identifier; and that the Boldyrev reference does not fill the gaps of Jin.
In reply, Applicant is reminded that the claims are given their broadest reasonable interpretation. Furthermore, the claims are missing essential elements needed to give the claims more contextual and functional details that are clearly distinguishable from the applied references. In this case, the claimed "service type" lacks contextual and functional details that make it distinguishable from packet handling as shown in the references. The Jin reference was relied upon to teach that the service of packet handling is performed by extracting service handling information from a packet, to identify a type of service handling technique using a flow entry generated based on the extracted information, and utilizing the flow entry for determining a handling priority for the packet. The priority/flow entries of Jin are forwarded to the switch/device and stored there for flow control. (see ¶s 27,34,35 in addition to the below rejection and citations). The claims are silent about the limits of what information is sent from one device to another. Specifically the claims do not mention that the edge does not send priority information to the core, or that the core generates a priority independent of the edge. Accordingly, it is seen that Jin covers the broad functional limitations of the claim.
Furthermore, the Boldyrev reference was only relied upon to convey the networking framework of the claim, where the network interactions are between a core device and an edge device.
Dependent claims 8,9,21 are rejected under a new grounds of rejection, as made based on Jin in view of Boldyrev in view of Nazari. And further rejected under 112(b).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
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 8,9,21 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.
In claim 8 for example: line 3 recites “the second service packet received from…”. In is unclear if this is in response to the ‘forwarding’ of claim 1 or to some other instance where the second packet is sent/received. Furthermore, there is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim, since the second packet was not previously established to be received.
Claims 9,21 are slight variations of claim 1 and are rejected based upon the same rationale.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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.
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.
Claims 1-3,7,10,12,14,19,26,28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Jin et al (US Publication 20190245782) in view of Boldyrev et al (US Publication 20140067758).
In reference to claim 1, Jin teaches a network system, comprising:
a second/edge device configured to: receive a first service packet from a first/core device; (see at least ¶ 33, which teaches a controller device receiving a packet from a first/switch device)
extract service feature information from the first service packet; (see at least ¶ 36, which teaches extracting information from the packet)
identify, based on the first service feature information, a service type of the first service packet, (see at least ¶s 39-40, which teach based on the packet information, identifying an encapsulation/service type for the packet) and
send a service type identifier to the first device, wherein the service type identifier is used to identify the service type; (see at least ¶ 43, which teaches sending a flow entry with the service type to the first/switch device) and
wherein the first device is configured to: store a service priority correspondence indicating a mapping from a plurality of service types to a plurality of priorities; (see at least ¶s 31,40,44, which teaches the first/switch device storing the flow entry mapping the encapsulation type and a plurality of priorities)
determine a priority for the service type identifier based on the service priority correspondence; (see at least ¶s 41-42, which teaches determining the priority based on the flow entry) and
forward a second service packet based on the priority, wherein the second service packet and the first service packet belong to a same service flow (see at least ¶s 43,44, which teaches forwarding subsequent packets based on the priority and according to the matching flow entry).
Jin fails to explicitly teach a core device is the first device and an edge device is the second device, wherein the edge device is configured to receive the packet from the core device, process the packet, and send a result back to the core device. However, Boldyrev teaches edge based processing in a cloud computing platform (see Boldyrev, at least Abstract), and discloses distributing core functions and workloads to edge devices (see Boldyrev, at least ¶s 53,54). It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Jin based on the teachings of Boldyrev for the purpose of improving function processing and service throughput.
In reference to claim 2, this is taught by Jin, see at least ¶ 43, which teaches sending flow entry with service flow indication for the packet.
In reference to claim 3, this is taught by Jin, see at least ¶s 41,44, which teaches establishing a correspondence between the flow and the priority.
In reference to claim 7, this is taught by Jin, see at least ¶s 44,49, which teaches setting the priority filed for subsequent packets.
In reference to claim 10, this is taught by Jin, see at least ¶s 3,19-21, which teaches overlay network.
Claims 12,14,19,26,28 are slight variations of the rejected claims 1-3,7,10 above, and are therefore rejected based on the same rationale.
Claims 4-6,11,13,20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Jin et al (US Publication 20190245782) in view of Boldyrev et al (US Publication 20140067758) in further view of Yamaguchi (US Publication 20130010803).
In reference to claim 4, Jin fails to explicitly teach wherein the edge device is further configured to if no service packet belonging to the service flow is received within preset duration, send a deletion message to the core device, wherein the deletion message carries the service flow indication. However, Yamaguchi teaches packet forwarding (see Yamaguchi, at least Abstract), and discloses where there is no flow entry matching the packet then processing a deletion of the flow (see Yamaguchi, at least ¶ 47). It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Jin based on the teachings of Yamaguchi for the purpose of maintaining efficient flow processing.
In reference to claim 5, Yamaguchi teaches deleting the corresponding flow entry (Yamaguchi, at least ¶s 47,54). One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to modify Jin based on the teachings of Yamaguchi in accordance to the rationale given for claim 4.
In reference to claim 6, Yamaguchi teaches deleting the corresponding flow entry (Yamaguchi, at least ¶s 47,54). One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to modify Jin based on the teachings of Yamaguchi in accordance to the rationale given for claim 4.
In reference to claim 11, Yamaguchi teaches packet forwarding system using an open flow scheme, and within the context of a campus network (Yamaguchi, at least ¶s 8,46). One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to modify Jin based on the teachings of Yamaguchi in accordance to the rationale given for claim 4.
Claims 13,20 are slight variations of the rejected claims 4-6 above, and are therefore rejected based on the same rationale.
Claims 8,9,21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Jin et al (US Publication 20190245782) in view of Boldyrev et al (US Publication 20140067758) in further view of Nazari (US Publication 20050025182).
In reference to claim 8, this is taught by Jin, see at least ¶s 38,42,54, which teaches if the subsequent packet matches the priority, then the packet is forwarded based on the priority and without further processing. Jin fails to explicitly teach ignoring identification of the service type. However, Nazari teaches a service advisor analyzing packets and teaches ignoring identifying a subset of packets (see Nazari, at least ¶s 119,120). It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Jin based on the teachings of Nazari for the purpose of maintaining efficient packet analysis.
In reference to claim 9, this is taught by Jin as shown above, see at least ¶s 38,42,54. And further taught by Nazari which teaches a service advisor analyzing packets and teaches ignoring identifying a subset of packets (see Nazari, at least ¶s 119,120). One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to modify Jin based on the teachings of Nazari in accordance to the rationale given for claim 8 above.
Claim 21 is a slight variation of the rejected claims 8-9 above, and is therefore rejected based on the same rationale.
Conclusion
For any subsequent response that contains new/amended claims, Applicant is required to cite its corresponding support in the specification. (See MPEP chapter 2163.03 section (I.) and chapter 2163.04 section (I.) and chapter 2163.06) Applicant may not introduce any new matter to the claims or to the specification.
In formulating a response/amendment, Applicant is encouraged to take into consideration the prior art made of record but not relied upon, as it is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See attached Form 892.
Contact & Status
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RAMY M OSMAN whose telephone number is (571)272-4008. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri, 9AM-5PM.
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/Ramy M Osman/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2457
February 19, 2026