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 .
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(s) 1-6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over G.8312 (ITU-T G.8312, “Interfaces for metro transport networks”, ITU-T, December 2020) in view of CICT (China Information Communication Technologies Group (CICT), Discussion of MTNP OAM receiving mechanism, January 21, 2021). CICT is provided in IDS filed 10 September 2024.
Regarding claim 1, G.8312 teaches in Section 8.3 OAM insertion where OAM blocks are inserted into the client block sequence with a nominal period T = n × 16K blocks which is equivalent to delivery cycle value of instant claim. G.8312 teaches in FIG. 8-10 that the expected position (equivalent to reference position of instant claim) are the blocks that are T apart. G.8312 teaches in FIG. 8-10 that the OAM information block is inserted in a position after a T block (terminal control block) and before an S block (start control block) of client service code blocks, and there may be a deviation value ∆T between an actual insertion position and an expected insertion position of the OAM information block; G.8312 teaches in Section 8.2.1: “The MTNP overhead is a set of messages that organizes the OAM information elements based on the OAM function and the required transmission frequency of that information. The three classes of message are: basic, automatic protection switching (APS) and low priority.” The difference between G.8312 and the claimed invention is that G.8312 does not teach determining an expected reception position of a next OAM information block according to the reference position and the delivery cycle value, determining an effective reception range according to the expected reception position, and extracting an OAM information block in the client service code block stream within the effective reception range; and synchronizing a sequence relationship of the OAM information blocks according to a type and a sorting result of the extracted OAM information blocks, and extracting content of the OAM information blocks after synchronization.
CICT teaches a method for receiving OAM information blocks (see Abstract on page 1), comprising: determining an expected reception position of a next OAM information block according to the reference position and the delivery cycle value, determining an effective reception range according to the expected reception position (CICT teaches on page 2, Section 1, “How to define expected location?”, a range ∆T = k ×1.2K blocks where k>1 ), and extracting an OAM information block in the client service code block stream within the effective reception range; and synchronizing a sequence relationship of the OAM information blocks according to a type and a sorting result of the extracted OAM information blocks, and extracting content of the OAM information blocks after synchronization, wherein the type of the OAM information blocks comprises: base code block, APS code block and low-priority code block (CICT teaches on pages 2-4 Section 2.1 to Section 2.3 alignments for B1-B2 sequences, B-A-B-L sequences and L sequences). One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teaching of CICT with the G.8312 because CICT is a proposal for G.8312. Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to determine an effective reception range and synchronize the OAM information blocks according to their types, as taught by CICT, in the system defined by G.8312.
Regarding claim 2, G.8312 teaches in FIG. 8-10 that the first (the left-most) actually-received OAM information block serves as a reference position.
Regarding claim 3, G.8312 teaches on page 9, Section 8.3 that the delivery cycle value is a configuration value.
Regarding claim 4, the combination of G.8312 and CICT suggests a preset range of ∆T = k ×1.2K blocks, where k>1, behind the expected reception position as the effective reception range for receiving the OAM information block.
Regarding claim 5, G.8312 teaches that the factors affecting the size of the effective reception range comprise deviation of client services caused by idle block addition and deletion during network carrying.
Regarding claim 6, under normal condition, the OAM information block received within the effective reception range is an OAM information block with a legal position, and is extracted from the client service code block stream.
Claim(s) 8-13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over G.8312 and CICT as applied to claims 1-6 above, and further in view of Li et al. (U.S. Patent Application Pub. 2023/0337212 A1) and Shan et al. (U.S. Patent Application Pub. 2022/0217067 A1).
G.8312 and CICT have been discussed above in regard to claims 1-6. Regarding claim 8, G.8312 and CICT further teach extracting an OAM information block within each effective reception range and performing OAM information block carrying sequence synchronization and sequence relationship detection. The difference between G.8312 and CICT and the claimed invention is that G.8312 and CICT do not teach performing a synchronous judgment process on a receiving-end OAM sequence in a case that a sequence state of the OAM information blocks at a receiving end is a step-out state; and monitoring the service quality of the carrying pipeline according to the content of the OAM information code blocks in a case the sequence state of the OAM information blocks at the receiving end is a synchronization state. Li et al. teaches in paragraph [0029] that the extraction of the OAM code block can be implemented as a state machine—i.e., assigning states at various stage of the extraction. For example, a lock state (equivalent to step-out state of instant claim) can be assigned when a first OAM block of an OAM frame has been extracted and a synchronization state can be assigned when all eight OAM blocks of an OAM frame have been extracted. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teaching of Li et al. with the modified system of G.8312 and CICT because Li et al. teaches details of implementation that are missing from G.8312 and CICT. Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use a state machine for helping the extraction of the OAM overhead frame, as taught by Li et al., in the modified system of G.8312 and CICT.
The combination of G.8312, CICT and Li et al. still fails to teach monitoring the service quality. Shan et al. teaches in paragraph [0052] that the OAM block may include signal quality information. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teaching of Shan et al. with the modified system of G.8312, CICT and Li et al. because Shan et al. teaches details of implementation that are missing from G.8312, CICT and Li et al. Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to monitor the service quality based on the OAM frame, as taught by Shan et al., in the modified system of G.8312, CICT and Li et al.
Regarding claim 9, Li et al. teaches a state machine comprising at least two states (frame lock state and frame unlock state).
Regarding claim 10, Li et al. teaches in paragraph [0044] that if i consecutive messages of the first type of extraction opportunities are found in expected positions, then entering a frame lock state (equivalent to the synchronization state of instant claim), where i is a preset value.
Regarding claim 11, it is obvious from the teaching of FIG. 3 and the teaching of Li et al. and Shan et al. that only when the complete OAM frame has been received, the contents of the frame can be decoded or interpreted.
Regarding claim 12, it is obvious that if the extracted OAM block does not follow the block sequence of FIG. 8-9, an error has occurred. For example, a low priority message block extracted after an APS code block is considered as an error.
Regarding claim 13, Li et al. teaches in paragraph [0044] that if messages of the first type of extraction opportunities are not found in j consecutive expected positions, then entering a frame unlock state (equivalent to the step-out state of instant claim).
Claim(s) 14-17 and 19-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over G.8312 and CICT as applied to claims 1-6 above, and further in view of Cheng et al. (U.S. Patent Application Pub. 2020/0220650 A1).
G.8312 and CICT have been discussed above in regard to claims 1-6. Regarding claim 14, the difference between G.8312 and CICT and the claimed invention is that G.8312 and CICT do not teach a device for receiving OAM information blocks, located at a receiving end that performs the method of extracting the OAM blocks. Cheng et al. teaches in FIG. 1 a sender for sending data stream with inserted OAM blocks to a receiver for extracting OAM from the data stream. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teaching of Cheng et al. with the modified method of G.8312 and CICT because a method has to be performed by a device to practice the method. Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use a device, as taught by Cheng et al., to practice the modified method of G.8312 and CICT.
Regarding claim 15, G.8312 teaches in FIG. 8-10 that the first (the left-most) actually-received OAM information block serves as a reference position.
Regarding claim 16, G.8312 teaches on page 9, Section 8.3 that the delivery cycle value is a configuration value.
Regarding claim 17, the combination of G.8312 and CICT suggests a preset range of ∆T = k ×1.2K blocks, where k>1, behind the expected reception position as the effective reception range for receiving the OAM information block.
Regarding claim 19, Cheng et al. teaches in paragraph [0380] computer-readable storage medium for storing a computer program, wherein the computer program is configured to, when executed by a processor implement a method.
Regarding claim 20, Cheng et al. teaches in FIG. 7 a memory 320, a processor 330 and in paragraph [0205] that the memory stores computer programs 340.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 7 and 18 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.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 27 April 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
The Applicant’s argument against Jiang is moot because the current rejection does not rely on Jiang.
The Applicant argues on page 14 of the Remarks,
It is clear that G.8312 merely teaches that idle blocks are removed from the client block sequence to compensate for the insertion of the MTNP OAM. So G.8312 also does not disclose that determining an effective reception range according to the expected reception position, and extracting an OAM information block in a client service code block stream within the effective reception range.
The argument is not persuasive. In response to applicant's arguments against the references individually, one cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 208 USPQ 871 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 231 USPQ 375 (Fed. Cir. 1986). In this case CICT teaches an effective reception range ∆T = k ×1.2K blocks where k>1.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHI K LI whose telephone number is (571)272-3031. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 6:53 a.m. -3:23 p.m.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, David Payne can be reached at 571 272-3024. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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skl20 May 2024
/SHI K LI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2635
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