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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The references listed in the Information Disclosure Statement, filed on 05 March 2025, have been considered by the examiner (see attached PTO-1449 form or PTO/SB/08A and 08B forms).
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 (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 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.
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Qu (PG Pub US 2022/0052876 A1) in view of Tessmer et al. (PG Pub US 2019/0068496 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Qu discloses for a software-defined datacenter (SDDC), a method of transitioning from an IPV4-based underlay network to an IPV6-based underlay network.
for each particular host computer in a plurality of host computers and configured with an IPV4 TEP (tunnel endpoint) for forwarding packets on the IPV4-based underlay network to other host computers: determining that an IPV6 TEP has been implemented on the particular host computer (“router 106 enables a dual stack in order to be able to send and receive network traffic using both the old and new IP addresses .. if router 102 transmits a network packet to router 106 using the old IPv4 address .. after router 106 enables dual stack functionality, it advertises routing and reachability information for its tunnel endpoints using both the old (e.g., IPv4) and new (e.g., IPv6) IP addresses, indicating that router 106 has dual stack processing capabilities” [0020], “router 102 receives routing and reachability information from router 106, where the routing and reachability information includes IP addresses for router 106's tunnel endpoints using both the old (e.g., IPv4) and new (e.g., IPv6) IP addresses .. if router 106 transmits a network packet to router 102 using router 102's old IPv4 address, router 102 will still receive and process the network packet” [0021], “the first tunnel is established between two virtual endpoints in the underlay network” [0034]);
providing a set of control plane information to the particular host computer for use by the particular host computer to forward packets to other host computers (“router 102 enables a dual stack in order to be able to send and receive network traffic using both the old and new IP addresses. In an embodiment, this may require additional resources, but this allows network traffic destined for router 102, using the old IPv4 address, to arrive at and be processed by router 102. For example, if router 106 transmits a network packet to router 102 using router 102's old IPv4 address, router 102 will still receive and process the network packet. Accordingly, tunnel 112, which was established between router 102 and router 106 as discussed in FIG. 1A, will be able to continue to function even after router 106 switches to the IPv6 address” [0021]); and
directing the particular host computer to switch from using the IPV4 TEP for forwarding packets on the IPV4-based underlay network to the other host computers to using the IPV6 TEP for forwarding packets on the IPV6-based underlay network to the other host computers (“a system 150 to transition from using one type of IP address family to another type of address family (e.g., switching from IPv4 addresses to IPv6 addresses). To begin transitioning, router 106 will switch to a new IP address in the IPv6 format” [0020], “As the system 150 continues to transition from using one type of IP address family to another type of address family, router 102 will eventually switch to the IPv6 address format” [0021], “Once tunnel 114 is established, router 102 and router 106 can transmit network traffic received from their respective groups of hosts and route the network traffic via tunnel 114. In an embodiment, for a period of time tunnel 112 and tunnel 114 are both used to transmit network traffic. For example, if router 102 receives a network packet destined for a host serviced by router 106, router 102 is able to transmit the network packet to router 106 using tunnel 114, which uses router 106's IP address in the IPv6 format” [0023]).
However, Qu does not explicitly disclose a software-defined datacenter (SDDC).
Nevertheless, Tessmer discloses “In software-defined datacenters .. The overlay networks usually include virtual machines and switches, and communications between the virtual machines are usually realized by encapsulating data packets communicated between the machines. Upon receiving data packets from source virtual machines, the switches encapsulate the packets, and forward the encapsulated packets to other switches via the physical network infrastructure underlay” [0001].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have a software-defined datacenter (SDDC) because “overlay networks are created over the physical network infrastructure to simplify the networks' provisioning and reconfiguring” [0001].
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-20 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHRISTINE T DUONG whose telephone number is (571)270-1664. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 8 AM - 6 PM EST with every other Friday off.
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/CHRISTINE T DUONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2462 09/03/2025