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 information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 10/21/2024. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Response to Amendment
Applicant’s amendment filed on 10/14/2025 has been entered. Independent Claims 1, 11, and 21 have been amended. Dependent claims 5 and 17 have been amended. No claims have been cancelled. No claims are new and have been entered. Claims 1-18 and 20-21 are still pending in this application.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments/amendments with respect to Claim Objections have been considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the Objections are withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments filed on 10/14/2025 on pages 9-11 of applicant’s remark regarding Claims 1, 11, and 21. The applicant argues that the combination of Nandy and Holland does not teach the amended claim for clearing a multicast group , as the independent claims have been amended to say that.
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1, 11, and 21 have been considered, but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specified challenged in the argument.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim(s) 1-18 and 20-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Regarding Claim 1, Claim 11, and Claim 21
The claims recite “and in response to not receiving the second network device”. The claim is not clear as to what’s being received by the second network device. For the purposes of examining, Examiner has assumed that it is a heartbeat package.
Claims 2-10, 12-18, and 20 are rejected are rejected based upon claim dependency to Claim 1 and Claim 11.
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.
Claim(s) 1-3, 5-9, 11-13, 15-18, 21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nandy (Pub. No.: US 20210320837 A1, hereafter “Nandy”) in view of J. Holland (‘DNS Reverse IP Automatic Multicast Tunneling (AMT) Discovery. Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) [online]. 2015, [retrieved on 2025-07-10]. Retrieved from the Internet: <URL: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8777.pdf >, hereafter “Holland”), further in view of Rao (Pub. No.: US 20130080559 A1, hereafter “Rao”).
Regarding Claim 1, Claim 11, and Claim 21
Nandy teaches a method, apparatus, and computer program product
sending (Nandy Fig. 5: 502), to the second network device (Nandy ¶0041: destination device), a first detection packet (Nandy ¶0041: query message) to determine whether a route to the second network device is reachable (Nandy Fig. 5: 506; Nandy teaches sending a query message through a tunnel to a second network device); and determining (Nandy Fig. 5: 506) when a first response packet (Nandy ¶0044: identified to be unreachable) to the first determination packet (Nandy ¶0041: the query message) is not received (Nandy Fig. 5: 506, No result) from the second network device, that the route is unreachable (Nandy Fig. 5: 506 Tunnel destination is not reachable; Nandy teaches determining if the second network device is unreachable).
Nandy does not explicitly teach
A method implemented by a first network device of an automatic multicast tunneling (AMT) network, the method comprising: receiving a first packet comprising an address of a second network device
However, Holland teaches
A method implemented by a first network device (Holland Fig. 1: AMT Relay) of an automatic multicast tunneling (AMT) network (Holland Fig. 1: AMT; Holland teaches a relay acting as an AMT), the method comprising: receiving a first packet (Holland Pg. 5, 1.2.1: establish) comprising an address (Holland Fig. 1: unicast) of a second network device (Holland Fig. 1: AMT gateway; Holland teaches the AMT relay establishing a unicast communication with an AMT gateway);
It would have been obvious for one skilled in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Nandy by way of Holland, to include an element that teaches a relay acting as an AMT and the AMT relay establishing a unicast communication with an AMT gateway, as taught by Holland in Fig. 1 and Pg. 5, to improve point-to-point links for the transfer of data, thereby alleviating the server and network bottlenecks.
Nandy in view of Holland does not explicitly teach
in response to not receiving the second network device and when the first network device is a relay device and the second network device is a gateway device, clearing, at the first network device, multicast group entries associated with the second network device.
However, Rao teaches
in response to not receiving (Rao Fig. 14: 1402) the second network device (Rao ¶0122: active cluster nodes) and when the first network device (Rao ¶0124: master cluster quorum manager, e.g. the cluster quorum manager in Fig. 2, 230) is a relay device (Rao ¶0124: master cluster) and the second network device is a gateway device (Rao Fig. 1: 102-a, e.g. a device between the host, 106, and the cluster interconnect 104), clearing (Rao ¶0124: removes node from CAN group), at the first network device (Rao ¶0124: master cluster quorum manager), multicast group entries (Rao ¶0122: active cluster nodes) associated with the second network device (Rao Fig. 1: 102-a, e.g. a device between the host, 106, and the cluster interconnect 104; Rao teaches a system where when there is a failed heartbeat response to identify the failed element and remove it from the active cluster node group).
It would have been obvious for one skilled in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Nandy in view of Holland by way of Rao, to include an element that teaches a system where when there is a failed heartbeat response to identify the failed element and remove it from the active cluster node group, as taught by Rao in Fig. 1, Fig. 14, and ¶0122-¶0124, to improve reliability in a clustered storage system to operate in a coordinated manner to respond to client requests.
Claim 11 differs by the following limitation, which is also taught by the prior art,
A memory storing instructions (Nandy Fig. 2: 206); and one or more processors coupled to the memory (Nandy Fig. 2: 204; Nandy teaches memory coupled with a processor)
Claim 21 differs by the following limitation, which is also taught by the prior art,
A computer program product comprising computer-executable instructions stored on a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium (Nandy Fig. 2: 206), the computer-executable instructions when executed by one or more processors of an apparatus (Nandy Fig. 2: 208-214; Nandy teaches a storage medium with instructions)
Regarding Claim 2 and Claim 12
Nandy in view of Holland, and further in view of Rao teaches the method, apparatus, and computer program product as shown in Claim 1. Holland teaches
wherein the first network device is a first relay device (Holland Fig. 1: AMT relay), and wherein the second network device is a gateway device (Holland Fig. 1: AMT gateway; Holland teaches the first network device in a relay, and the second device is a gateway).
It would have been obvious for one skilled in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Nandy by way of Holland, and further in view of Rao, to include an element that teaches the first network device in a relay, and the second device is a gateway, as taught by Holland in Fig. 1, to improve point-to-point links for the transfer of data, thereby alleviating the server and network bottlenecks.
Regarding Claim 3 and Claim 13
Nandy in view of Holland, and further in view of Rao teaches the method, apparatus, and computer program product as shown in Claim 2. Holland further teaches
wherein the first packet is a relay discovery packet (Holland Pg. 22, 3.3.6: Relay Discovery Messages) from the second network device (Holland Pg. 22, 3.3.6: gateway can send a Relay Discovery message; Holland teaches the discovery message being sent from the AMT gateway).
It would have been obvious for one skilled in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Nandy by way of Holland, and further in view of Rao, to include an element that teaches the discovery message being sent from the AMT gateway, as taught by Holland in 3.3.6, to improve point-to-point links for the transfer of data, thereby alleviating the server and network bottlenecks.
Regarding Claim 5 and Claim 15
Nandy in view of Holland, and further in view of Rao teaches the method, apparatus, and computer program product as shown in Claim 1. Holland further teaches
wherein the first network device is a gateway device (Holland Fig. 1: AMT gateway), wherein the second network device is a first relay device (Holland Fig. 1: AMT relay), and wherein the first packet is a relay advertisement packet (Holland Pg. 22, 3.3.6: Relay Advertisement; Holland teaches the choice between a Relay Discovery or a Relay Advertisement message).
It would have been obvious for one skilled in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Nandy by way of Holland, and further in view of Rao, to include an element that teaches the choice between a Relay Discovery or a Relay Advertisement message, as taught by Holland in Fig. 1 and 3.3.6, to improve point-to-point links for the transfer of data, thereby alleviating the server and network bottlenecks.
Regarding Claim 6 and Claim 16
Nandy in view of Holland, and further in view of Rao teaches the method, apparatus, and computer program product as shown in Claim 5. Nandy further teaches
further comprising: sending (Nandy Fig. 5: 510), when the route is unreachable (Nandy Fig. 5: 506, No Branch), a relay discovery packet (Nandy Fig. 5: 510) to a fourth network device (Nandy ¶0044: network device), wherein the fourth network device is a second relay device (Nandy Fig. 3: 330, router; Nandy teaches the network equipment sending out a discovery packet in the event that the route cannot be reached).
Regarding Claim 7 and Claim 17
Nandy in view of Holland, and further in view of Rao teaches the method, apparatus, and computer program product as shown in Claim 1. Holland further teaches
wherein further comprising determining the first response packet (Holland Pg. 21, 3.3.4.1: gateway indicates) of the first detection packet (Holland Pg. 21, 3.3.4.1: discovery process) is not received when a quantity of times of sending the first detection packet reaches a threshold (Holland Pg. 21, 3.3.4.1: timeout period) and the first response packet is not received (Holland Pg. 21, 3.3.4.1: absence of traffic) within a preset duration (Holland Pg. 21, 3.3.4.1: hold-down timer) when the first response packet is not received expires (Holland Pg. 21, 3.3.4.1: restarting the process) within a preset time period (Holland Pg. 21, 3.3.4.1: timeout value) from sending the first detection packet (Holland Pg. 21, 3.3.4.1: gateway indicates; Holland teaches a system wherein the gateway indicates a membership update message, and a timeout period associated with an absence of traffic and hold-down timer for restarting the discovering process).
It would have been obvious for one skilled in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Nandy by way of Holland, and further in view of Rao, to include an element that teaches a system wherein the gateway indicates a membership update message, and a timeout period associated with an absence of traffic and hold-down timer for restarting the discovering process, as taught by Holland in 3.3.4.1, to improve point-to-point links for the transfer of data, thereby alleviating the server and network bottlenecks.
Regarding Claim 8 and Claim 18
Nandy in view of Holland, and further in view of Rao teaches the method, apparatus, and computer program product as shown in Claim 1. Nandy teaches
Wherein the first detection packet (Nandy ¶0041: query message) comprises first indication information (Nandy ¶0041: network path information) and second indication information (Nandy ¶0041: information of a second network device), wherein the first indication information indicates enable route detection (Nandy ¶0041: network path information), and wherein the second indication information indicates a first detection manner (Nandy ¶0041: information of a second network device; Nandy teaches the query message containing network path information and also information relating to a second network device for detection).
Regarding Claim 9
Nandy in view of Holland, and further in view of Rao teaches the method, apparatus, and computer program product as shown in Claim 1. Nandy teaches
wherein the first detection packet (Nandy ¶0041: query message) comprises first indication information (Nandy ¶0041: network path information) and second indication information (Nandy ¶0041: information of a second network device), wherein the first indication information indicates to enable route detection (Nandy ¶0041: network path information), and wherein the second indication information indicates a second detection manner (Nandy ¶0041: multicasting routing table; Nandy teaches the query message containing network path information, and a multicast routing table).
Claim(s) 4 and 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nandy (Pub. No.: US 20210320837 A1, hereafter “Nandy”) in view of J. Holland (‘DNS Reverse IP Automatic Multicast Tunneling (AMT) Discovery. Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) [online]. 2015, [retrieved on 2025-07-10]. Retrieved from the Internet: <URL: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8777.pdf >, hereafter “Holland”), further in view of Rao (Pub. No.: US 20130080559 A1, hereafter “Rao”), and further in view of Modi (Pub. No.: US 20190245780 A1, hereafter “Modi”).
Regarding Claim 4 and Claim 14
Nandy in view of Holland, and further in view of Rao teaches the method, apparatus, and computer program product as shown in Claim 2.
Nandy in view of Holland, and further in view of Rao does not explicitly teach
wherein the first packet is a redirection packet from a third network device, wherein the first packet based on a relay discovery packet from the second network device, and wherein the third network device is a second relay device.
However, Modi teaches
wherein the first packet (Modi Fig. 2B: 258) is a redirection packet (Modi Fig. 2B: 258, forward packet) from a third network device (Modi Fig. 3A: 302), wherein the first packet based on a relay discovery packet from the second network device (Modi Fig. 3A: 308), and wherein the third network device is a second relay device (Modi Fig. 3A: 302, Router; Modi teaches a forward packet from a third network to a second router).
It would have been obvious for one skilled in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Nandy by way of Holland, further in view of Rao, and further by Modi to include an element that teaches a forward packet from a third network to a second router, as taught by Modi in Fig. 2B and Fig. 3A, to improve intelligent prefetching to reduce latency where round trip time from a client to WAN optimization device can be significant smaller than a round trip from the client to a data center.
Claim(s) 10 and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nandy (Pub. No.: US 20210320837 A1, hereafter “Nandy”) in view of J. Holland (‘DNS Reverse IP Automatic Multicast Tunneling (AMT) Discovery. Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) [online]. 2015, [retrieved on 2025-07-10]. Retrieved from the Internet: <URL: https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8777.pdf >, hereafter “Holland”), further in view of Rao (Pub. No.: US 20130080559 A1, hereafter “Rao”), and further in view of Pope (Pub. No.: US 20080072236 A1, hereafter “Pope”).
Regarding Claim 10 and Claim 20
Nandy in view of Holland, and further in view of Rao teaches the method, apparatus, and computer program product as shown in Claim 9. Nandy further teaches
further determining (Nandy Fig. 5: 506), when a second response packet (Nandy Fig. 5: 504) of the second detection packet is not received (Nandy Fig. 5: 506, No Branch), that the route is unreachable (Nandy Fig. 5: 510; Nandy teaches determining if a packet is not received, and treating the rout as unreachable).
Nandy in view of Holland, and further in view of Rao does not explicitly teach
wherein the first detection packet further comprises a first parameter and a second parameter, wherein the first parameter indicates a first sending frequency of the first detection packet, a wherein the second parameter indicates a second sending frequency of a second detection packet to determine that the route is reachable, and wherein the method further comprises: sending the second detection packet to the second network device based on the second sending frequency, wherein the second sending frequency is greater than the first sending frequency;
However, Pope teaches
wherein the first detection packet further comprises a first parameter (Pope ¶0137: dedicated messages) and a second parameter (Pope ¶0137: second frequency), wherein the first parameter indicates a first sending frequency (Pope ¶0137: frequency) of the first detection packet (Pope ¶0137: maintain entries in the network routing table), a wherein the second parameter indicates a second sending frequency (Pope ¶0137: second frequency) of a second detection packet to determine that the route is reachable (Pope ¶0137: maintain entries in the network routing table; Pope teaches two different frequency heartbeat messages for the connected network), and wherein the method further comprises: sending the second detection packet (Pope ¶0137: second frequency) to the second network device based on the second sending frequency (Pope ¶0137: second frequency), wherein the second sending frequency is greater than (Pope ¶0137: greater than) the first sending frequency (Pope ¶0137: the first frequency; Pope teaches having two different frequencies for heartbeat sensors, and preferring the larger one);
It would have been obvious for one skilled in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Nandy by way of Holland, further in view of Rao, and further by Pope to include an element that teaches two different frequency heartbeat messages for the connected network and having two different frequencies for heartbeat sensors, and preferring the larger one, as taught by Pope in ¶0137, to improve making repeated attempts to access the memory, and fighting with prioritized applications.
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 JUSTIN MICHAEL WHITAKER whose telephone number is (703)756-4763. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Thursday 7:30am - 4:00pm.
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/JUSTIN MICHAEL WHITAKER/Examiner, Art Unit 2415
/Sudesh M. Patidar/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2415
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