DETAILED ACTION
This Office Action is with regard to the most recent papers filed 12/22/2025.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 12/22/2025 have been fully considered but they are moot based on the new ground of rejection necessitated by Applicant’s amendment
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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) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2011/0075667 (Li) in view of US 2021/0400081 (van der Mandele), US 2008/0219276 (Shah), and “Control Plane,” posted on Wikipedia at least as of 8/10/2020 at <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_plane> (Wikipedia).
With regard to claim 1, Li discloses a computer-implemented method comprising:
receiving, at a first provider edge (PE) device, an Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) request from a first customer edge (CE) device over a first control plane between the first PE device and the first CE device, wherein the ARP request indicates a destination Internet Protocol (IP) address and a broadcast Media Access Control (MAC) address, and wherein the ARP request is associated with the first CE device (Li: Paragraph [0049]. A PE can receive an ARP request from a CE. A “control plane,” as recognized by one of ordinary skill in the art, is an abstraction to represent the handling of routing protocol traffic, such as ARP messages.);
generating an IP address resolution request message based on the ARP request (Li: Paragraph [0049]. The PE can then broadcast the ARP message to other provider edge routers, where the action of sending the broadcast would constitute generating an IP address resolution request message.);
transmitting the IP address resolution request message to a set of remote PE devices over a second control plane between the first PE device and the set of remote PE devices (Li: Paragraph [0049].);
receiving remote adjacency information associated with a second CE device, wherein the second CE device is connected to a remote PE device from the set of remote PE devices (Li: Paragraph [0049]. A MAC address of a device connected to the second CE is returned to the PE.); and
transmitting an ARP reply to the first CE device over the first control plane, wherein the ARP reply includes a MAC address associated with the second CE device (Li: Paragraph [0049]. The request would be routed back to the source, which would go through the PE that performed the instant steps to the CE that the request was associated with.).
Li fails to disclose expressly, but van der Mandele teaches applying, by the first PE device, a layer 3 access control policy to the ARP request to determine whether to transmit the ARP request to one or more locally connected CE devices and whether to initiate remote address-resolution signaling (van der Mandele: Paragraph [0015]. Van der Mandele teaches edge devices that perform layer 3 processing, such as firewall protection (which would serve to allow or deny traffic based on matching firewall rules (access control policy), where allowing the traffic would initiate such remote address-resolution signaling.).
Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill int heart at the time of filing to have the PE device apply a layer 3 access control policy to the ARP request to determine whether to transmit the ARP request to one or more locally connected CE devices and whether to initiate remote address-resolution signaling to ensure that only traffic that complies with the policies, such as defined by the firewall rules, would be allowed, thus improving security of the network.
Li fails to teach expressly, but Shah teaches transmitting the ARP request to a set of locally connected CE devices over the first control plane using a local interface of the first provider edge and in accordance with the layer 3 access control policy (Shah: Paragraph [0031]. The PE may propagate an ARP request directly to a second locally connected CE, where Shah presents the propagation to ARP messages to the local endpoints, as in the instant step, as well as remote endpoints. As a note, the OSI model presents an abstraction to attempt to describe network functions, where one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that ARP operates within multiple layers (layer 2 and layer 3). MAC addresses are considered, in general, to be part of layer 2, while IP addresses would be considered to be part of layer 3. In Li, the different devices utilize IP addresses for different functions, and would appear to be layer 3 devices (Li: Paragraph [0036]), where layer 3 functionalities would be used in some form for the ARP message. It is recommended, for clarity, that the instant claim be amended to better reflect how the layer 3 access controls are being used.).
Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to transmit the ARP request (from the PE) to a set of locally connected CE devices (set is interpreted as requiring one or more CE devices) to efficiently propagate the ARP request to such devices without having to invoke any unnecessary devices, thus increasing the efficiency of reaching such CE devices.
Li does not specifically recite, but the second control plane being different than the first control plane, the second control plane being different than the first control plane (Wikipedia: Paragraph 1. As previously mentioned, the different planes are abstractions to represent functions that are being performed. The control plane, lacking any detail to the contrary, would be considered to be part of the architecture of a singular router, meaning that different routers would implement different control planes, such as by; maintaining their own ARP tables and making their own routing decisions. Further, it should be noted that Shah and Li both present ARP communications over different networks (Li: Figure 1 and Shah: Figure 1).
Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to present different control planes for different routers or at least different networks to enable the routers or networks to act independently of others to make the different decisions, such as routing decisions.
With regard to claim 2, Li fails to disclose, but Shah teaches that the IP address resolution request message is transmitted through a border gateway protocol (BGP) (Shah: Paragraph [0006]. Communications made between the PE devices can use various methods including BGP.). Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to more efficiently utilize the ARP message to discover addresses of the remote CE devices in accordance with known techniques using BGP.
With regard to claim 3, Li fails to disclose expressly, but knowledge possessed by one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing teaches withdrawing the IP address resolution request message in response to receiving the remote adjacency information associated with the second CE device (More specifically, the term “withdrawing” does not detail how such is done, what the request is withdrawn from, etc. In this case, Official Notice is taken that it would have been well-known in the art at the time of filing to at least withdraw a completed request internally, such that the device is no longer listening for a response.). Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to withdraw the request (such as to determine that the request is complete and to stop listening for a response) to allow any responses to be completed efficiently. Further, additional functionalities may be realized, such as ignoring any redundant responses to the request, thus preventing resources from being used for already completed requests.
With regard to claim 4, Li fails to disclose expressly, but knowledge possessed by one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing teaches that the ARP request and the IP address resolution request message are transmitted through a gateway interface implemented on the first PE device (More specifically, when implementing PE devices, such as in the configuration of Li (Li: Figure 1) to provide connections between different networks, Official Notice is taken that it would have been well-known in the art at the time of filing to utilize a gateway interface at the PE for such transmissions.). Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to implement a gateway interface at the PE to utilize a well-known type of interface for an edge device to provide connections to different networks.
With regard to claim 5, Li in view of Shah teaches that the first PE device automatically advertises the remote adjacency information in response to receiving another ARP reply associated with the second CE device (Li: Paragraph [0049]. Lacking detail of how such automatic functionality is different than the response of claim 1, it would appear that the instant claim would allow for the same type of response provided in the steps of claim 1 to be performed with regard to a second response. For clarity, it is recommended that language be introduced in the instant claim to clearly distinguish the automated functionality here from the also automatic functionality of claim 1, such as by reciting what functions are performed in claim 1 that may not be performed here.).
With regard to claim 6, Li in view of Shah teaches that the first PE device transmits a new ARP request to the second CE device and other CE devices connected to the remote PE device in response to receiving the IP address resolution request message, and wherein the new ARP request indicates the destination IP address (Li: Paragraph [0049]).
With regard to claim 7, Li in view of Shah fails to teach, but knowledge possessed by one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing teaches that the MAC address associated with the second CE device included in the ARP reply is a proxy MAC address that obfuscates an actual MAC address of the second CE device (More specifically, Official Notice is taken that the use of a proxy MAC address by a PE device to response to an ARP request was well-known in the art.). Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to utilize a proxy MAC address for the ARP reply to increase the security of the destination device, such that actual MAC addresses of the destination would not be known, and instead a different MAC address for the destination would be provided (e.g. a single MAC address could be used as a proxy MAC address for multiple local destinations).
With regard to claims 8-20, the instant claims are similar to claims 1-7, and are rejected for similar reasons.
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.
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SCOTT B. CHRISTENSEN
Examiner
Art Unit 2444
/SCOTT B CHRISTENSEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2444