DETAILED ACTION
This Office Action is in response to the amendment to Application Ser. No. 18/213,499 filed on October 23, 2025. Claims 14, 15, 17 and 18 are cancelled. Claims 1, 6 and 9 are currently amended. Claims 1-13 and 16 are pending and are examined.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 October 23, 2025, has been entered.
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 .
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.
Response to Arguments
The amendment to Claims 1, 6 and 9 has overcome the rejection of Claims 1-13 under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or joint inventor regards as the invention set forth in the Final Office Action mailed July 30, 2025. The rejection of Claims 1-13 under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) is hereby withdrawn.
The arguments with respect to the rejection of Claims 1-13 and 16 under 35 U.S.C. 103 have been fully considered by the Examiner but are not persuasive.
Specifically, on pages 7-8 of the response filed October 23, 2025, Applicant argues, “However, the cited portion of Paclik discloses that a cable modem termination system (CMTS) can be added to a hubsite when a scalable limit of either subscribers or bandwidth of subscriber is reached. Put simply, if there are not enough physical ports to deliver the required bandwidths to the required number of subscribers, Paclik adds new, physical ports. This is different from the present claims, which recites instantiating a new device to change an available communication speed for Internet service, as Paclik recites adding new ports only when a scalable limit is reached. In other words, Paclik will add a new port when there is no room for more subscribers without lowering bandwidth for existing subscribers below allowed limits, while the present claims recites adding a new virtual network device to improve communication speeds. Thus, for at least this reason, Paclik fails to disclose or suggest the above recitations of the present claims.”
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. Paragraph 7 of Paclik states, in part:
“A new set of concurrency equations is obtained for new speed tiers, and a forecasted subscriber bandwidth is predicted for the new speed tiers. Based on the forecasted subscriber bandwidth, expected subscriber growth, and changes in data consumption, the site is reconfigured with additional ports in accordance with the forecast model (emphasis added).”
Contrary to Applicant’s assertion, Paclik discloses adding additional ports or an additional cable modem termination system (CMTS), i.e., a network device, to a headend site for the purpose of offering new speed tiers to subscribers, i.e., faster communication speeds.
Continuing on page 9 of the response filed October 23, 2025, Applicant additionally argues, “In addition, the Applicant notes that the combination of Gandhewar and Alcala are cited by the Office for disclosing the autonomous instantiation of a virtual network device in response to specific criteria. Paclik, on the other hand, explicitly discloses the use of physical devices to provide Internet service to subscribers. There is no teaching in Paclik that would suggest to a person having ordinary skill in the art to use the techniques of Paclik, which focuses solely on physical devices, in conjunction with virtual network devices. In other words, a person having ordinary skill in the art would, modify the combination of Gandhewar and Alcala, based on the teachings of Paclik, by adding physical ports if a scalable limit of subscribers or bandwidth is reached. Thus, for this additional reason, the Applicant respectfully submits that the cited references fail to disclose or suggest the above recitation of the amended claims.”
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. Paragraph 67 of Gandhewar states, in part:
“In the example of FIG. 3, all the vBNG instances are running at close to full capacity. That is, for example, the existing vBNG instances are running out of resources and/or the number of subscribers logged in are nearing the capacity of the vBNG instances. In such instances, an administrator may want to spawn a new instance of vBNG to take up the new subscribers (emphasis added).”
As shown, Gandhewar discloses expanding capacity by instantiating new vBNG instances at the edge of the aggregation network for the purpose of accommodating new subscribers. As previously noted, Paclik discloses expanding capacity by adding new ports or a new CMTS to a headend site for the purpose of offering new speed tiers. It would be readily understood by one of ordinary skill in the art that the purpose for expanding capacity in a network in which capacity is provided using physical devices, and the motivation for doing so, is equally applicable to networks in which capacity is provided using virtual devices (see MPEP § 2141.03 I). Therefore, contrary to Applicant’s assertion, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing to modify the method of Gandhewar, as modified by Alcala, to expand capacity by instantiating additional vBNGs for the purpose of offering new speed tiers as suggested by Paclik in order to be more competitive with competing data services (Paclik paragraph 33).
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, 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 1-13 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gandhewar et al., Pub. No. US 2019/0245748 A1, hereby “Gandhewar”, in view of Alcala et al., Pub. No US 2018/0159750 A1, hereby “Alcala”, and in further view of Paclik et al., Pub. No. US 2011/0013537 A1, hereby “Paclik”.
Regarding Claim 1, Gandhewar discloses “A network management method (Gandhewar paragraphs 3-4: a technique for managing deployment of virtual broadband network gateway (vBNG) instances): comprising:
in a network including a network device and providing an Internet service..., autonomously instantiating..., a virtual network device on the network device... (Gandhewar fig. 1 and paragraphs 23, 25, 30, 33-34, 39-40, 49-50, 55 and 71: in service provider network 20 comprising edge router 30 providing internet access to one or more subscriber devices 18, network resource monitor (NRM) 41 triggers network instance configuration manager (NICM) 45 to instantiate a new vBNG instance 57 on edge router 30).”
However, while Gandhewar discloses that the service provider network provides Internet access to one or more subscriber devices that connect to the service provider network via one or more edge routers (Gandhewar paragraphs 24-25, 27, 31 and 63), and further discloses instantiating a new vBNG instance on an edge router when the number of subscribers served by the existing vBNG instances exceeds a threshold amount of subscriber capacity (Gandhewar paragraphs 50 and 67), Gandhewar does not explicitly disclose “in a network including a network device and providing an Internet service to a connected network, autonomously instantiating, in response to (i) Internet service consumption by the connected network, (ii) an Internet traffic profile associated with the connected network, and (iii) time-based capacity data in the Internet traffic profile, a virtual network device on the network device, to change an available communication speed for Internet service to the connected network (emphasis added).”
In the same field of endeavor, Alcala discloses “in a network including a network device and providing an Internet service to a connected network, autonomously instantiating, in response to (i) Internet service consumption by the connected network, (ii) an Internet traffic profile associated with the connected network, and (iii) time-based capacity data in the Internet traffic profile, a... network device on the network device (Alcala fig. 1 and paragraphs 4, 38-40, 47-50, 56-58 and 82: NSP network 102 may add a router to a network interconnection point 110 in response to traffic flow measurements of traffic flowing through the NSP network to one or more AS 104 and historical average traffic volumes of the one or more AS 104).”
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing to modify the method of Gandhewar to provide Internet access to a plurality of customer networks and to instantiate an additional vBNG on an edge router connecting a customer network to the service provider network in response to an increase in a measured traffic volume as taught by Alcala because doing so constitutes a simple substitution of one known element (a customer network connected to a provider network) for another (a customer device connected to a provider network) to obtain predictable and desirable results (providing Internet access to a connected customer network). See KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 82 USPQ2d 1385 (U.S. 2007).
However, while Gandhewar discloses instantiating a new vBNG instance on the edge router to increase capacity to support additional subscribers (Gandhewar paragraphs 3, 33, 38-40, 50 and 67), the combination of Gandhewar and Alcala does not explicitly disclose “in a network including a network device and providing an Internet service to a connected network, autonomously instantiating, in response to (i) Internet service consumption by the connected network, (ii) an Internet traffic profile associated with the connected network, and (iii) time-based capacity data in the Internet traffic profile, a virtual network device on the network device, to change an available communication speed for Internet service to the connected network (emphasis added).”
In the same field of endeavor, Paclik discloses adding additional capacity to a hubsite providing Internet access to a plurality of subscriber premises in order to offer new speed tiers to subscribers, i.e., to change an available communication speed for Internet service (Paclik figs. 1 and 11 and paragraphs 7, 27-33 and 55-56: an additional CMTS 105 may be added to hubsite 151 to enable the cable provider to offer higher speed tiers to subscribers).”
It would have been obvious to one or ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing to modify the method of Gandhewar, as modified by Alcala, to increase capacity by instantiating a new vBNG on the edge device in order to offer higher access speeds to subscribers as taught by Paclik. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine increasing capacity by instantiating a new vBNG on the edge device in order to offer higher access speeds to subscribers to enable the service provider to be more competitive with competing providers (Paclik paragraph 33).
Regarding Claim 2, the combination of Gandhewar, Alcala and Paclik discloses all of the limitations of Claim 1.
Additionally, Alcala discloses “wherein the connected network is one of a plurality of connected networks accessing the network via a shared access point to the network (Alcala fig. 1 and paragraphs 10, 45-49: AS 104 is one of a plurality of AS that connect to the NSP network via a communication nodes 112 implementing a network interconnection point 110).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing to modify the method of Gandhewar, to provide Internet access to a plurality of customer networks and to instantiate an additional vBNG on an edge router connecting a customer network to the service provider network in response to an increase in a measured traffic volume as taught by Alcala for the reasons set forth in the rejection of Claim 1.
Regarding Claim 3, the combination of Gandhewar, Alcala and Paclik discloses all of the limitations of Claim 2.
Additionally, Alcala discloses “sampling, over a period of time, one or more communication packets from a stream of packets associated with Internet access by the plurality of connected networks (Alcala fig. 1 and paragraphs 9-10, 46 and 49-50: sampling agent 114 samples packets flowing through communication node 112 to/from one or more AS 104).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing to modify the method of Gandhewar, to provide Internet access to a plurality of customer networks and to instantiate an additional vBNG on an edge router connecting a customer network to the service provider network in response to an increase in a measured traffic volume as taught by Alcala for the reasons set forth in the rejection of Claim 1.
Regarding Claim 4, the combination of Gandhewar, Alcala and Paclik discloses all of the limitations of Claim 3.
Additionally, Alcala discloses “wherein the sampling of the one or more communication packets occurs at a rate of every X number packets of the stream of packets, with X being an integer value greater than one (Alcala fig. 1 and paragraph 50: sampling agent 114 samples 1 in N packets).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing to modify the method of Gandhewar, to provide Internet access to a plurality of customer networks and to instantiate an additional vBNG on an edge router connecting a customer network to the service provider network in response to an increase in a measured traffic volume as taught by Alcala for the reasons set forth in the rejection of Claim 1.
Regarding Claim 5, the combination of Gandhewar, Alcala and Paclik discloses all of the limitations of Claim 3.
Additionally, Alcala discloses “wherein the Internet service consumption by the connected network is based on the sampling of the one or more communication packets (Alcala figs. 1 and 8 and paragraphs 10, 58, 62 and 82-83: a measure of total traffic flow for an AS 104 is determined based on the sampled packets).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing to modify the method of Gandhewar, to provide Internet access to a plurality of customer networks and to instantiate an additional vBNG on an edge router connecting a customer network to the service provider network in response to an increase in a measured traffic volume as taught by Alcala for the reasons set forth in the rejection of Claim 1.
Regarding Claim 6, the combination of Gandhewar, Alcala and Paclik discloses all of the limitations of Claim 3.
Additionally, Alcala discloses “generating, based on the sampling of the one or more communication packets, the Internet traffic profile associated with the connected network, the Internet traffic profile comprising the time-based capacity data including a time period and an average consumption of the Internet service during the time period (Alcala figs. 6A and 8 and paragraphs 10, 57-58, 70 and 82-83: an average traffic volume associated with an AS 104 may be determined based on the sampled packets).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing to modify the method of Gandhewar, to provide Internet access to a plurality of customer networks and to instantiate an additional vBNG on an edge router connecting a customer network to the service provider network in response to an increase in a measured traffic volume as taught by Alcala for the reasons set forth in the rejection of Claim 1.
Regarding Claim 7, the combination of Gandhewar, Alcala and Paclik discloses all of the limitations of Claim 6.
Additionally, Alcala discloses “wherein a network operating condition comprises the Internet traffic profile associated with the connected network and autonomously instantiating the... network device is further based on the Internet traffic profile (Alcala fig. 6a and paragraphs 4, 10, 45-49 and 56-58: network service provider utilizes customer attributes data 122 including traffic historical average traffic volume information in determining whether a router should be added to a network interconnection point 110 interconnecting NSP network 102 to one or more AS 104).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing to modify the method of Gandhewar, to provide Internet access to a plurality of customer networks and to instantiate an additional vBNG on an edge router connecting a customer network to the service provider network in response to an increase in a measured traffic volume as taught by Alcala for the reasons set forth in the rejection of Claim 1.
Regarding Claim 8, the combination of Gandhewar, Alcala and Paclik discloses all of the limitations of Claim 1.
Additionally, Gandhewar discloses “wherein the virtual network device is one of a virtual Border Network Gateway networking device or a virtual Provider Edge networking device (Gandhewar paragraphs 18 and 33-34: vBNG 57)”.
Regarding Claim 9, Gandhewar discloses “An apparatus (Gandhewar fig. 1 and paragraphs 27 and 33: controller 55 implementing BNG controller 35) comprising:
a processing device (Gandhewar paragraph 33: one or more processors); and
a non-transitory computer-readable medium encoded with instructions (Gandhewar paragraph 33: a computer-readable storage medium storing software instructions for elastically provisioning one or more VBNG instances to satisfy subscriber demand), which when executed by the processing device, cause the processing device to:”
“autonomously instantiate... on a computing device of a network, a virtual networking device... (Gandhewar fig. 1 and paragraphs 23, 25, 30, 33-34, 39-40, 49-50, 55 and 71: in service provider network 20 comprising edge router 30 providing internet access to one or more subscriber devices 18, network resource monitor (NRM) 41 triggers network instance configuration manager (NICM) 45 to instantiate a new vBNG instance 57 on edge router 30).”
However, while Gandhewar discloses that the service provider network provides Internet access to one or more subscriber devices that connect to the service provider network via one or more edge routers (Gandhewar paragraphs 24-25, 27, 31 and 63), and further discloses instantiating a new vBNG instance on an edge router when the number of subscribers served by the existing vBNG instances exceeds a threshold amount of subscriber capacity (Gandhewar paragraphs 50 and 67), Gandhewar does not explicitly disclose “sample, over a period of time, communication packets from a stream of packets associated with Internet access by a plurality of connected networks; and
autonomously instantiate, in response to (i) the sampled communication packets, (ii) an Internet traffic profile associated with a connected network of the plurality of connected networks, and (iii) time-based capacity data in the Internet traffic profile, and on a computing device of a network, a virtual network device to increase an available transmission speed for Internet access to the plurality of connected network (emphasis added).”
In the same field of endeavor, Alcala discloses “sample, over a period of time, communication packets from a stream of packets associated with Internet access by a plurality of connected networks (Alcala fig. 1 and paragraphs 9-10, 46 and 49-50: sampling agent 114 samples packets flowing through communication node 112 to/from one or more AS 104); and
autonomously instantiate, in response to (i) the sampled communication packets, (ii) an Internet traffic profile associated with a connected network of the plurality of connected networks, and (iii) time-based capacity data in the Internet traffic profile, and on a computing device of a network, a... network device... autonomously instantiate, in response to the sampled communication packets and on a computing device of a network, a... networking device... (Alcala fig. 1 and paragraphs 4, 38-40, 47-50, 56-58 and 82: NSP network 102 may add a router to a network interconnection point 110 in response to traffic flow measurements of traffic flowing through the NSP network to one or more AS 104 and historical average traffic volumes of the one or more AS 104).”
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing to modify the apparatus of Gandhewar to provide Internet access to a plurality of customer networks and to instantiate an additional vBNG on an edge router connecting a customer network to the service provider network in response to an increase in a measured traffic volume as taught by Alcala because doing so constitutes a simple substitution of one known element (a customer network connected to a provider network) for another (a customer device connected to a provider network) to obtain predictable and desirable results (providing Internet access to a connected customer network). See KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 82 USPQ2d 1385 (U.S. 2007).
However, while Gandhewar discloses instantiating a new vBNG instance on the edge router to increase capacity to support additional subscribers (Gandhewar paragraphs 3, 33, 38-40, 50 and 67), the combination of Gandhewar and Alcala does not explicitly disclose “autonomously instantiate, in response to (i) the sampled communication packets, (ii) an Internet traffic profile associated with a connected network of the plurality of connected networks, and (iii) time-based capacity data in the Internet traffic profile, and on a computing device of a network, a virtual network device to increase an available transmission speed for Internet access to the plurality of connected network (emphasis added).”
In the same field of endeavor, Paclik discloses adding additional capacity to a hubsite providing Internet access to a plurality of subscriber premises in order to offer new speed tiers to subscribers, i.e., to change an available communication speed for Internet service (Paclik figs. 1 and 11 and paragraphs 7, 27-33 and 55-56: an additional CMTS 105 may be added to hubsite 151 to enable the cable provider to offer higher speed tiers to subscribers).”
It would have been obvious to one or ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing to modify the apparatus of Gandhewar, as modified by Alcala, to increase capacity by instantiating a new vBNG on the edge device in order to offer higher access speeds to subscribers as taught by Paclik. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine increasing capacity by instantiating a new vBNG on the edge device in order to offer higher access speeds to subscribers to enable the service provider to be more competitive with competing providers (Paclik paragraph 33).
Regarding Claim 10, the combination of Gandhewar, Alcala and Paclik discloses all of the limitations of Claim 9.
Additionally, Gandhewar, as modified by Alcala, discloses “wherein the plurality of connected networks access the network via a shared access transmission line to the network (Gandhewar fig. 1 and paragraph 34: vBNG instance 57 may aggregate outputs from one or more DSLAMS into a higher-speed uplink, i.e., a shared access transmission line, to service provider network 20).”
Regarding Claim 11, the combination of Gandhewar, Alcala and Paclik discloses all of the limitations of Claim 9.
Additionally, Gandhewar, as modified by Alcala, discloses “wherein the virtual network device is one of a virtual border network gateway device configured to provide access to the network for the plurality of connected networks or a virtual provider edge device configured to provide a network service to a plurality of border network gateway devices (Gandhewar paragraphs 18 and 33-34: vBNG 57 provides access to server provider network 20 to subscriber devices 18).”
Insofar as it recites similar claim elements, Claim 12 is rejected for substantially the same reasons presented above with respect to Claim 4.
Insofar as it recites similar claim elements, Claim 13 is rejected for substantially the same reasons presented above with respect to Claim 5.
Regarding Claim 16, Gandhewar discloses “A communications network (Gandhewar fig. 1 and paragraphs 23, 25 and 29-32: service provider network 20) comprising:
a first virtual networking device in communication with and receiving communication packets..., the communication packets associated with Internet access... (Gandhewar fig. 1 and paragraphs 23, 25, 30 and 33-34: a vBNG instance 57 on edge router 30, the vBNG instance providing Internet access to one or more subscriber devices 18); and
a computing device in communication with the first virtual networking device (Gandhewar fig. 1 and paragraphs 27 and 33: controller 55 implementing BNG controller 35), the computing device comprising:
a processing device (Gandhewar paragraph 33: one or more processors); and
a non-transitory computer-readable medium encoded with instructions (Gandhewar paragraph 33: a computer-readable storage medium storing software instructions for elastically provisioning one or more VBNG instances to satisfy subscriber demand), which when executed by the processing device, cause the processing device to:
“autonomously instantiate..., a second virtual networking device... (Gandhewar fig. 1 and paragraphs 23, 25, 30, 33-34, 39-40, 49-50, 55 and 71: in service provider network 20 comprising edge router 30 providing Internet access to one or more subscriber devices 18, network resource monitor (NRM) 41 triggers network instance configuration manager (NICM) 45 to instantiate a new vBNG instance 57 on edge router 30).”
However, while Gandhewar discloses that the service provider network provides Internet access to one or more subscriber devices that connect to the service provider network via one or more edge routers (Gandhewar paragraphs 24-25, 27, 31 and 63), and further discloses instantiating a new vBNG instance on an edge router when the number of subscribers served by the existing vBNG instances exceeds a threshold amount of subscriber capacity (Gandhewar paragraphs 50 and 67), Gandhewar does not explicitly disclose “a first virtual networking device in communication with and receiving communication packets from a plurality of connected networks, the communication packets associated with Internet access by the plurality of connected networks (emphasis added);” and
“autonomously instantiate, in response to a sample of the communication packets received over a period of time, a second virtual networking device to increase an available transmission speed for Internet access to the plurality of connected networks (emphasis added).”
In the same field of endeavor, Alcala discloses “autonomously instantiate, in response to a sample of the communication packets received over a period of time, a second... networking device... (Alcala fig. 1 and paragraphs 4, 38-40, 47-50, 58 and 82: NSP network 102 may add a router to a network interconnection point in response to traffic flow measurements of traffic flowing through the NSP network to one or more AS 104 indicating traffic volume through the network interconnection point is increasing).”
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing to modify the instructions encoded on the computer-readable medium of Gandhewar to provide Internet access to a plurality of customer networks and to instantiate an additional vBNG on an edge router connecting a customer network to the service provider network in response to an increase in a measured traffic volume as taught by Alcala because doing so constitutes a simple substitution of one known element (a customer network connected to a provider network) for another (a customer device connected to a provider network) to obtain predictable and desirable results (providing Internet access to a connected customer network). See KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 82 USPQ2d 1385 (U.S. 2007).
However, while Gandhewar discloses instantiating a new vBNG instance on the edge router to increase capacity to support additional subscribers (Gandhewar paragraphs 3, 33, 38-40, 50 and 67), the combination of Gandhewar and Alcala does not explicitly disclose “autonomously instantiate, in response to a sample of the communication packets received over a period of time, a second virtual networking device to increase an available transmission speed for Internet access to the plurality of connected networks (emphasis added).”
In the same field of endeavor, Paclik discloses adding additional capacity to a hubsite providing Internet access to a plurality of subscriber premises in order to offer new speed tiers to subscribers, i.e., to change an available communication speed for Internet service (Paclik figs. 1 and 11 and paragraphs 7, 27-33 and 55-56: an additional CMTS 105 may be added to hubsite 151 to enable the cable provider to offer higher speed tiers to subscribers).”
It would have been obvious to one or ordinary skill in the art at the time of the effective filing to modify the instructions encoded on the computer-readable medium of Gandhewar, as modified by Alcala, to increase capacity by instantiating a new vBNG on the edge device in order to offer higher access speeds to subscribers as taught by Paclik. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine increasing capacity by instantiating a new vBNG on the edge device in order to offer higher access speeds to subscribers to enable the service provider to be more competitive with competing providers (Paclik paragraph 33).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Dowlatkhah et al., Pub. No. US 2018/0316779 Al, discloses a method and apparatus for enhancing services in a software defined network wherein an SDN controller can instantiate additional VNF elements to increase speed of service provided to a user; and
Herger et al., Pub. No. US 2015/0296519 A1, discloses a method for managing a computer network wherein a network device may be added to a managed network for the purpose of increasing bandwidth provided to connected user devices.
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