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 Office Action is in response to claim amendment filed on December 05, 2025 and wherein claims 1, 4-6, 8-9., 11-12, 14, 17, 20 and 22 being currently amended, claims 2-3, 10, 15 and 18-19 being cancelled.
In virtue of this communication, claims 1, 4-6, 8-9., 11-12, 14, 16-17, and 20-22 are currently pending in this Office Action.
The Office appreciates the explanation of the amendment and analyses of the prior arts, and however, although the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are not read into the claims. See In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 26 USPQ2d 1057 (Fed. Cir. 1993) and MPEP 2145.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see Remarks, Pages 8-9, filed on December 05, 2025, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1, 8 under 35 USC §103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Ermagan et al. (US 20170026417 A1, hereinafter Ermagan).
Applicant’s arguments, see Remarks, Pages 7-8, filed on December 05, 2025, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 9,14 under 35 USC §102 have been fully considered and are persuasive. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Ermagan et al. (US 20170026417 A1, hereinafter Ermagan) and Bull et al. (US 20190268973 A1, hereinafter Bull).
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1,4-6, 8-9, 11-12, 14,16-17, 20-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang et al. (US 20210288881 A1, hereinafter Zhang) in view of Bull et al. (US 20190268973 A1, hereinafter Bull) and further in view of Ermagan et al. (US 20170026417 A1, hereinafter Ermagan).
Claim 1: Zhang teaches a method of improving quality of service for user equipment in a mobile communication network implemented by a first customer premise equipment (CPE) ([0007], “Systems and methods are described for dynamically establishing network overlay tunnels between edges within different groups of a network architecture”, [0048], “Controller 104 can also push the SLA configuration information to each of source edge 112-1 and destination edge 112-3”. Fig. 1A, 1B, [0044], disclose a network device, including edge and hub, wherein edge is serving as user equipment, and Hub/network device is serving as CPE), wherein the first CPE is one of a plurality of CPEs operating in near proximity to form a mesh network ([0057], “IPsec configuration information determination engine 214 can determine IPsec configuration information for generating VPN links between a hub of the group and one or more edges of the group and between corresponding hubs of various groups to enable full-mesh communication among the various groups … Each of the groups further includes a cluster of a subset of multiple network devices, which are located in a particular geographical location. The network devices can be implemented as CPE”) the method comprising:
receiving any one of a session request from a user equipment with a destination (Fig. 1A, 1B. [0044], “multiple network devices (e.g., switches, routers, gateways, and/or network security devices), which may represent consumer premises equipment (CPE) of the SDWAN, are shown and each network device of the multiple network devices is assigned a specific role as either a hub or an edge …a hub device of a group can connect to one or more additional hub devices of other respective groups thereby forming a full mesh network. The hub devices of different groups can be connected using IPsec tunnels that can be used to securely transport packets between hubs, edges, or to cloud 108”, wherein edge is serving as user equipment and Hub/router is serving as CPE. [0046], “controller 104 can receive a request from a source edge (e.g., edge 112-1) to initiate a dynamic Virtual Private Network (VPN) link for a network session between source edge 112-1 and a destination edge (e.g., edge 112-3) … source edge 112-1 configures at least one SDWAN rule to trigger the request when network traffic received at source edge 112-2 matches the at least one SDWAN rule”),
establishing a tunnel according to the mesh link information and the tunnel configuration (Fig. 1B, [0047], “On receiving the request, controller 102 can determine configuration information including VPN and SDWAN configuration information for each of source edge 112-1 and destination edge 112-3. The configuration information may be used for generating the dynamic VPN link between source edge 112-1 and destination edge 112-3 and can be determined based on pre-configured rules managed by controller 104”. Fig. 9A,9B [0084], “the SDWAN controller determines Internet Protocol (IP) security (IPsec) configuration information for generating Virtual Private Network (VPN) links between a hub of the group and one or more edges of the group and between corresponding hubs of the various groups so as to enable full-mesh communication among the various groups … The IPsec tunnels can be set up in accordance with the determined IPsec configuration information by pushing the determined IPsec configuration information to each network device of the various network devices”);
and enabling mesh communication between the user equipment and the destination via the first CPE and the second CPE utilizing the tunnel (Fig. 1B, [0048], “Controller 104 then directs source edge 112-1 and destination edge 112-2 to set up a VPN overlay tunnel in accordance with the determined configuration information by pushing the determined configuration information to each of source edge 112-1 and destination edge 112-3. Controller 104 can also push the SLA configuration information to each of source edge 112-1 and destination edge 112-3.”, [0043], “controller 104 automatically builds
full-mesh overlay links to connect all the network devices participating in the SDWAN”, Fig. 9A, element 904, 9B, [0084], “the SDWAN controller determines Internet Protocol (IP) security (IPsec) configuration information for generating Virtual Private Network (VPN) links between a hub of the group and one or more edges of the group and between corresponding hubs of the various groups so as to enable full-mesh communication among the various groups … The IPsec tunnels can be set up in accordance with the determined IPsec configuration information by pushing the determined IPsec configuration information to each network device of the various network devices”, wherein Hubs is serving as CPEs and Edge is serving as user equipment. [0086], “The VPN is generated between a hub of the group and one or more edges of the group and between corresponding hubs of the groups to enable full-mesh communication among the multiple groups”).
However, Zhang does not explicitly teach receiving a quality of service change request from the user equipment, or a notification of congestion in the first CPE (alternative),
querying an orchestrator connected to the plurality of CPEs of the mesh network for an additional link to the destination,
receiving mesh link information and tunnel configuration from the orchestrator for adding the additional link to the destination via a second CPE of the plurality of CPEs of the mesh network.
Bull, from the same or similar field of endeavor, teaches receiving a quality of service change request from the user equipment (Fig. 14, [0099], “The UPF instance may be configured to receive, in a QoS flow of a PDU session, data packets from an application of a UE, process the data packets of the QoS flow of the PDU session, and send the processed data packets via the N6 interface to the tunnel router endpoint …The PDU session and QoS flow configuration of the selected policy may be mapped to a set of SD-WAN policy rules of a selected SD-WAN policy configured at the tunnel router endpoint”, [0095], “The QoS flows may be provided via a plurality of PDU sessions of the UPF instance. The plurality of mappings may be determined based on selecting QoS flows that correspond to matching or substantially matching SD-WAN policies of the SD-WAN…each VPN may be associated with a different underlying transport mechanism that satisfies characteristics of a specific SD-WAN policy”. Fig. 9, 10, [0072], “such identifiers (e.g. VID 958 and/or PCP 954 of FIG. 9, or GRE header 1006 of FIG. 10) may be utilized at the tunnel router endpoint and UPF instance for an appropriate linking or mapping between QoS flow and SD-WAN policy or VPN (or e.g. a confirmation of the mapping)”).
Zhang and Bull are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of wireless communication. Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the system of Zhang and the features of receiving a quality of service change request from the user equipment as taught by Bull, for the benefit for provision the SD-WAN endpoint with a set of SD-WAN policy rules, together with the QoS requirements (latency, bandwidth, guaranteed rates), forwarding configuration, and the routing rules for SD-WAN transport selection in response to a service request (Paragraph [0089]).
Ermagan, from the same or similar field of endeavor, teaches querying an orchestrator connected to the plurality of CPEs of the mesh network for an additional link to the destination (Fig. 3A, [0051], “FIG. 3A illustrates autoconfiguration of customer premises
equipment (CPE) (e.g., router 222) ”,wherein router is serving as CPE. [0241], “the
orchestrator is a cross domain orchestrator that is responsible for instantiating the end-to-end services by pushing abstracted service policies to the policy resolution function … The orchestration function pushes abstracted connectivity (VPN) policy, service insertion (NSH) policy, path preference (Segment Routing) policy resolver”. Fig. 12, element 1202, [0111], Fig. 13, element 1302, [0113], Fig. 14, element 1402, 1404, 1414, 1416, [0119-0120], wherein the path via the hop locator is serving as additional link.),
receiving mesh link information and tunnel configuration from the orchestrator for adding the additional link to the destination via a second CPE of the plurality of CPEs of the mesh network (Fig. 12, element 1206, [0111], Fig. 13, element 1306, [0113], Fig. 14, element 1416, 1414. [0118-0120], disclose orchestrator reply to the first router with hop locator based on the mapping request, wherein hop locator is serving as second CPE, and path via hop locator is serving as the additional link. Fig. 4, 6, [0060], “The service orchestrator 404
can apply SR policies 434. The mapping table can include an additional field (SR field) that indicates routers that can be used as intermediate path hops between a source router and a destination router”, [0061], “The mapping server 408 can receive a request from a router 410 that is attempting to reach another router 412. The request can include the RLOC of the requesting router 410 can apply a policy associated with the router 410 to use router x 424 as an intermediate hop router between router A 410 and router B 412”, wherein path through another router is serving as the additional link).
Zhang and Ermagan are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of wireless communication. Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the system of Zhang and the features of adding the additional link to the destination via a second CPE as taught by Ermagan, for the benefit for introducing extensions to the LISP mapping system by which both modern and legacy tunnel routers can be used to enforce advanced forwarding policies, such as hop-by-hop path engineering, two tuple based forwarding, and topology-based forwarding (paragraph [0094]).
Claim 8 is analyzed and rejected according to claim 1 and Zhang further teaches a machine-readable storage medium having stored (Fig. 2, element 204, Fig. 11, elements 1130, 1140, 1150) therein a mesh manager (Fig. 1A, elements 104, 102, [0043], “controller 104 automatically builds full-mesh overlay links to connect all the network devices participating in the SDWAN”); and a processor (Fig. 2, element 202, Fig. 11, element 1170) coupled to the non-transitory machine-readable storage medium, the processor to execute the mesh manager ([0051], “the management device 102 also simplifies the task of establishing full-mesh IPSec tunnels between those network devices designated as hubs and establishing tunnels between the hub devices of a group and their associated edge devices”, [0083], “FIG. 9A is a flow diagram 900 illustrating a process performed by an SDWAN controller for establishing full-mesh network communication in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention. The processing described with reference to FIG. 9A may be implemented in the form of executable instructions stored on a machine readable medium and executed by a processing resource”).
Claim 9 is analyzed and rejected according to claim 1 and Zhang further teaches of improving quality of service for user equipment in a mobile communication network implemented by a network device functioning as an orchestrator ([0007], “The SDWAN controller directs the source edge and the destination edge to set up a VPN overlay tunnel in accordance with the determined configuration information by pushing the determined configuration information to each of the source edge and the destination edge”, [0048], “Controller 104 can also push the SLA configuration information to each of source edge 112-1 and destination edge 112-3”, [0043], “ controller 104 automatically builds full-mesh overlay links to connect all the network devices participating in the SDWAN … include monitoring performance Service-Level Agreements (SLAs) of the participating network devices and determining security configuration”).
Claim 14 is analyzed and rejected according to claim 9 and Zhang further teaches and a processor (Fig. 2, element 202, Fig. 11, elements 1170) coupled to the machine-readable storage medium (Fig. 2, element 204, [0052], “processor(s) 202 are configured to fetch and execute computer-readable instructions stored in a memory 204 of the management device 102”. Fig. 11, elements 1130, 1140, 1150).
Claim 4: Zhang teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising: establishing tunnels from the first CPE to other CPEs of the plurality of CPEs of the mesh network to enable mesh communication with the destination (Fig. 1A, 1B, [0044], [0044], “multiple network devices (e.g., switches, routers, gateways, and/or network security devices), which may represent consumer premises equipment (CPE) of the SDWAN, are shown and each network device of the multiple network devices is assigned a specific role as either a hub or an edge …a hub device of a group can connect to one or more additional hub devices of other respective groups thereby forming a full mesh network. The hub devices of different groups can be connected using IPsec tunnels that can be used to securely transport packets between hubs, edges, or to cloud 108”, wherein edge is serving as user equipment and Hub/routers is serving as CPE. Fig. 9A, 9B,[0084], [0057], “IPsec configuration information determination engine 214 can determine IPsec configuration information for generating VPN links between a hub of the group and one or more edges of the group and between corresponding hubs of various groups to enable full-mesh
communication among the various groups”).
Claim 20 is analyzed and rejected according to claim 8 and claim 4.
Claim 5: The combination of Zhang and Bull teaches the method of claim 1, Bull additionally teaches comprising receiving a request to upgrade a quality of service for a group of user equipment from a user (Fig. 14, element 1450, [0099], “The UPF instance may be configured to receive, in a QoS flow of a PDU session, data packets from an application of a UE, process the data packets of the QoS flow of the PDU session, and send the processed data packets via the N6 interface to the tunnel router endpoint …The PDU session and QoS flow configuration of the selected policy may be mapped to a set of SD-WAN policy rules of a selected SD-WAN policy configured at the tunnel router endpoint”. Fig. 5A, [0055], “A plurality of mobile applications 520 may be provided at UEs … Communication of these data packets 522 may be facilitated in a plurality of established PDU sessions 540, each of which may include one or more QoS flows 530”. Wherein the PDU session request is reading as QoS request), or an administrator of the mobile communication network (alternative).
The motivation for combining Zhang and Bull regarding to the claim 1 is also applied to claim 5.
Claim 21 is analyzed and rejected according to claim 8 and claim 5.
Claim 11 is analyzed and rejected according to claim 9 and claim 5.
Claim 16 is analyzed and rejected according to claim 14 and claim 5.
Claim 6: Zhang teaches the method of claim 5, wherein enabling mesh communication enables the group of user equipment including the user equipment to communicate with the destination via the mesh communication (Fig, 9A, 9B, [0083], “FIG. 9A is a flow diagram 900 illustrating a process performed by an SDWAN controller for establishing full-mesh network communication in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention”, [0051], “the management device 102 also simplifies the task of establishing full-mesh IPSec tunnels between those network devices designated as hubs and establishing tunnels between the hub devices of a group and their associated edge devices”).
Claim 22 is analyzed and rejected according to claim 21 and claim 6.
Claim 12: Then combination of Zhang, Bull and Ermagan teaches the method of claim 11, further comprising: determining the additional link information to enable mesh communication for the group of user equipment including the user equipment to communicate with the destination via the mesh communication (Zhang, Fig. 4, [0043], “controller 104
automatically builds full-mesh overlay links to connect all the network devices participating in the SDWAN”. Fig. 9A, [0084], “the SDWAN controller determines Internet Protocol (IP) security (IPsec) configuration information for generating Virtual Private Network (VPN) links between a hub of the group and one or more edges of the group and between corresponding hubs of the various groups so as to enable full-mesh
communication among the various groups … The IPsec tunnels can be set up in accordance with the determined IPsec configuration information by pushing the determined IPsec configuration information to each network device of the various network devices”. Ermagan, Fig. 4, 6, 12, 13, 14, [0060], “The service orchestrator 404 can apply SR policies 434. The mapping table can include an additional field (SR field) that indicates routers that can be used as intermediate path hops between a source router and a destination router”, [0061], “The mapping server 408 can receive a request from a router 410 that is attempting to reach another router 412. The request can include the RLOC of the requesting router 410 can apply a policy associated with the router 410 to use router x 424 as an intermediate hop router between router A 410 and router B 412”).
Claim 17 is analyzed and rejected according to claim 16 and claim 12.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to YONGHONG ZHAO whose telephone number is (571)272-4089. The examiner can normally be reached Monday -Friday 9:00 am - 5:00pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, NICHOLAS JENSEN can be reached on (571) 270-5443. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Y.Z./Examiner, Art Unit 2472
/NICHOLAS A JENSEN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2472