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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 3/10/2026 has been entered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-3, 16-18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Budnik et al. US 20210328697.
Regarding claim 1, A message processing method, comprising: receiving, by a first network device (peer forward receiver switch, Figure 1, element 122a) through a first port of a first network device (each peer switch, Figure 2, element 212, includes physical ports and peer switches communicate with each other over peer link to exchange control information and data traffic between peer switches, para. 0017), a first message sent by a second port of a second network device (peer forward sender switch, Figure 1, element 122b), wherein the first message is used to measure a delay (the peer-forward receiver can receive a DelayReq-type message, the DelayReq-type message can be a PTP DelayReq message, another PTP node can send a PTP DelayReq message to the peer-forward receiver as part of a clock synchronization sequence, para. 0088); and in response to receiving the first message being used to measure the delay, skipping sending, by the first network device, a second message based on a port status of the first port being a non-master state (the peer-forward receiver can determine whether the port that the PTP DelayReq message came in on is enabled or disabled, when the PTP DelayReq message is received on a disabled port, then processing can proceed directly to process the PTP DelayReq message according to IEEE 1588-2008, para. 0090, Figure 8, element 818)., wherein the second message comprises a response message and a followup (if the peer-forward receiver is already active, then the peer-forward receiver remains active and continues to send Announce, Sync, FollowUp, and DelayResp messages, para. 0091).
Regarding claim 2, The method according to claim 1, wherein that a port status of the first port is a non-master state comprises: the port status of the first port is one of a listening state, a pre-master state, an uncalibrated state, a passive state, or a slave state (synchronization messages such as DelayReq are exchanged between two PTP nodes (master and slave) to synchronize the slave clock to the master clock, para. 0014, the PTP DelayReq message is received on a port of the peer receiver switch, para. 0090).
Regarding claim 3, The method according to claim 1, wherein the skipping sending, by the first network device, the second message based on the port status of the first port being the non-master state comprises: skipping sending, by the first network device, to the first message with the second message based on the port status of the first port being the non-master state and a first condition (synchronization messages such as DelayReq are exchanged between two PTP nodes (master and slave) to synchronize the slave clock to the master clock, para. 0014, the PTP DelayReq message is received on a port of the peer receiver switch, para. 0090, the peer-forward receiver can determine whether the port that the PTP DelayReq message came in on is enabled or disabled, when the PTP DelayReq message is received on a disabled port, then processing can proceed directly to process the PTP DelayReq message according to IEEE 1588-2008, para. 0090, Figure 8, element 818).
Claims 16-18 are rejected under the same rationale.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-7, 19-22 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Claims 8-15, 23-30 are allowed. The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance: the closest prior art being Verbree et al. US 20190166062, Moon et al. US 20220046570, Budnik et al. US 20210328697, Guignard et al. US 20210385058, Qiao et al. US 20170288802 and Yang US 20130227008.
Verbree discloses the communication interface controller includes a time manager or a clock manager that synchronizes a local clock of the communication interface controller to a grand master clock associated with a device included in the network and the time manager of the communication interface controller implements a generalized precision time protocol. Verbree discloses the gPTP (IEEE 802.1AS-rev) protocol may involve exchange of several time-stamped messages between neighboring time-aware nodes on a network to facilitate accurate propagation of a grand-master's time, each node may transmit pdelay request messages, and each node may respond to a pdelay request message by transmitting pdelay response and optionally transmitting a pdelay response follow-up message for 2-step timestamping, the timestamps included in the pdelay request messages may be used by each node to calculate the propagation delay relative to its neighbor node and the ratio of the node's clock to the neighbor node's clock, para. 0094-0095.
Moon et al. discloses to perform the time synchronization method using gPTP, it is first needed to select an optimal (best) clock serving as a reference clock from among the devices constituting the time sensitive network, the selecting such a reference clock is called a best master clock algorithm, para. 0080.
Budnik discloses nodes in a network are organized into a master/slave synchronization hierarchy (timing tree) with a grandmaster clock at the top of the hierarchy that determines the reference time in a given network. Budnik discloses the peer switches in an MLAG device can forward messages peer-forwarded messages between each other to coordinate the processing of PTP messages that each peer switch may receive, the peer-forwarding can include the exchange of messages between peer switches via peer link such as PTP Announce, Sync, FollowUp, DelayReq, and DelayResp message.
Guignard discloses a method of synchronization of a communication device comprising a first and second communication ports, each of the first and second communication port being associated with a respective first and second time system, the method comprising a regular master synchronization process synchronizing regularly the first time system with an external synchronization server according to a time synchronization protocol; a regular slave synchronization process synchronizing regularly the second time system with the first-time system; detecting a loss of synchronization between the first and second time system, para. 0014.
Qiao et al. discloses determining, by a boundary device of an upstream network side, a time synchronization offset from a time domain of a third-party network includes receiving, by a first BC device of the boundary device of the upstream network side using a first PTP port that is preset to a Passive state or a Monitor state, a synchronization packet that is sent by a second BC device of the boundary device of the third-party network side using a second PTP port that is preset to a Master state, sending, by the first BC device, a peer delay-request packet to the second PTP port of the second BC device using the first PTP port, receiving, by the first BC device using the first PTP port, a peer delay-response packet that is sent by the second BC device using the second PTP port, para. 0015.
Yang discloses hen an announce message arrives at the PTP device, the grandmaster identity such as a clockIdentity or an IP address in the message is checked against the grandmaster candidate list, if a match is found, PTP synchronization continues using the identified grandmaster clock as the clock source, if a match is not found, the announce message is dropped (ignored) and the PTP device will continue to synchronize with the previous grandmaster in accordance with a previous synchronization hierarchy, or if no grandmaster has been identified, no synchronization will be performed, para. 0021, a local clock is synchronized with the grandmaster clock, which may comprise synchronizing with another master in the synchronization hierarchy, a timestamp generator is used to timestamp synchronization messages transmitted to and received from other PTP devices, the timestamps are generated from the local clock, the PTP engine sends and receives PTP messages and executes the state machine associated with a port, if the port is in a slave state and synchronizes to a master, the PTP engine computes the master's time based on the received PTP timing messages and timestamps that were generated and adjusts its clock.
Claims 8 and 23 similarly disclose sending, by a second port of a second network device, a first message to a first port of a first network device, wherein the first message is used to measure a delay; receiving, by the second port of the second network device a second message replied from the first port of the first network device, wherein the second message comprises a response message and a follow_up message; and in response to receiving, by the second port of the second network device, the second message comprising the response message and the follow_up message, skipping processing, by the second network device, the second message based on a port status of the first port of the first network device being a non-master state.
Prior art of record does not disclose receiving both of the first and second messages from the second port of a second network device to a first port of device and subsequently skipping processing the second message comprising the response message and the follow_up message due to the first port being in a non-master state in combination with the other limitations of the claims.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure and include the following:
Bedrosian et al. US 20130039359
Mizuguchi et al. US 9154292
Yin et al. US 20160112185
Regev et al. US 20200252424
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MELANIE JAGANNATHAN whose telephone number is (571)272-3163. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9-5.
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/MELANIE JAGANNATHAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2468
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