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 .
Claims 1-20 are pending.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1, 3, 8, 11, 13, 16, 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over De Schepper et al. US 20160241484 in view of Li et al. US 20160294910.
Regarding claim 1, A networking apparatus (active queue management system, Figure 3) comprising: a plurality of communication interfaces configured to receive and send data over one or more networks (receiving module and priority scheduler, Figure 3, element 302, 310); packet-switching logic configured to determine how to process data units, including forwarding at least some of the data units to other network devices via the plurality of communication interfaces (aqm computing module, priority scheduler, Figure 3, element 303, 310); one or more buffer memories configured to store the data units while the data units await processing by the packet-switching logic (buffer queues temporarily store the incoming packets before they are routed to the receiving node, para. 0050, element 305a-b); queueing logic configured to utilize a plurality of queues to manage an order in which the buffered data units are processed by the packet-switching logic (the receiving module comprises a classifier, element 304, that differentiates received packets P1, P2 of different classes of traffic and classifies them in the respective queue, element 305a-b), delay-tracking logic configured to calculate delay measures associated with the queues based on arrival timestamps associated with at least certain data units in the queues (queue measurement devices, element 307a-b, can extract parameters from the traffic going through their respective queue, element 305a-b, the parameters can be instantaneous queue length, average queue length, packet sojourn time, incoming traffic rate, outgoing traffic rate, instantaneous packet queue overflow, average queue overflow rate, para. 0052); policy management logic configured to determine one or more policies to apply to particular data units assigned to particular queues based on particular queue delay measures calculated for the particular queues, wherein the packet-switching logic is further configured to implement the determined one or more policies by performing one or more actions indicated by the one or more policies on at least a subset of the particular data units (drop/mark controllers, element 306a-b, operate on the respective buffer queues, element 305a-b, to drop or mark packets in accordance with the corresponding marking or dropping probability, para. 0050, computing modules, element 303a-b are configured for calculating the marking or dropping probability for their respective classes, based on one or more measured parameters provided by their respective queue measurement device, para. 0051).
De Schepper discloses a tail drop queue can be represented as dropping that occurs naturally when the queue is full, the queue measurement device is configured to measure the average queue overflow (drop) rate, and the computing module will pass the average queue overflow or drop rate from the queue measurement device as the drop probability, para. 0044.
De Schepper does not explicitly disclose wherein the one or more policies include a tail drop policy applicable to a first queue when a first queue delay measure calculated for the first queue exceeds a tail drop threshold; wherein the packet-switching logic is further configured to, while the tail drop policy is applied to the first queue, discard all data units assigned to the first queue before the data units assigned to the first queue can be enqueued by the queuing logic.
Li discloses WRED packet drop probability, if the average queue size such as the average number of packets in the queue exceeds the maximum threshold, then all incoming packets to the queue are dropped, para. 0064. Before the filing of the invention it would have been obvious to modify De Schepper to include Li’s packet dropping. One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to do so for differential queuing and QoS control, para. 0066.
Regarding claim 3, The apparatus of claim 1 wherein the one or more policies include a congestion notification policy for a first queue; wherein the policy management logic is further configured to select a first frequency with which the packet-switching logic is to mark data units assigned to the first queue based on a first delay measure calculated for the first queue; wherein the packet-switching logic is further configured to, when first data units are dequeued from the first queue, mark the first data units with a congestion notification, the first data units selected based on the first frequency.
Li discloses WRED implementation where it drops the packets according to a probability of a packet drop that is calculated based on an average size of the queue, the probability of dropping a packet is determined by three configurable parameters: the minimum threshold (also known as minimum queue depth threshold), maximum threshold (also known as maximum queue depth threshold), and a mark probability, para. 0064. Li discloses a streaming video queue, Figure 9, element 904-2, is provisioned to store packets with I frames, streaming video queue, Figure 9, element 904-3, is provisioned to store packets with P frames, and streaming video queue, element 904-4, is provisioned to store packets with B frames, each of the provisioned queues is associated with corresponding QoS characteristics such as respective minimum transmission rate, average transmission rate, maximum transmission rate, minimum threshold, maximum threshold, and mark probability, para. 0067-0068. Li discloses video server cyclically marks a field, for example, a DSCP field in the header of each packet, the DSCP field in packet 1200-1 is marked with an “a,” in packet 1200-2 is marked with a “b,” and in packet 1200-3 is marked with a “c.”, the video server then again cycles to mark the DSCP field in the next IP packet, para. 0073 and packets are stored in respective queues or dropped based on the markers in the packets and the mark probability, minimum threshold, and maximum threshold associated with the queues, para. 0070. Before the filing of the invention it would have been obvious to modify De Schepper to include Li’s packet dropping. One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to do so for differential queuing and QoS control, para. 0066.
Regarding claim 8, The apparatus of Claim 1, wherein the policy management logic is further configured to determine a given policy to apply to a given data unit at least partially based on a particular attribute associated with the given data unit in addition to a given queue delay calculated for a given queue to which the given data unit was assigned (queue measurement devices, element 307a-b, can extract parameters from the traffic going through their respective queue, element 305a-b, the parameters can be instantaneous queue length, average queue length, packet sojourn time, incoming traffic rate, outgoing traffic rate, instantaneous packet queue overflow, average queue overflow rate, para. 0052, drop/mark controllers, element 306a-b, operate on the respective buffer queues, element 305a-b, to drop or mark packets in accordance with the corresponding marking or dropping probability, para. 0050, computing modules, element 303a-b are configured for calculating the marking or dropping probability for their respective classes, based on one or more measured parameters provided by their respective queue measurement device, para. 0051).
Claims 11, 13, 16 and 18 are rejected under the same rationale.
Claim(s) 2, 12, 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over De Schepper in view of Li in view of Perla et al. US 8797877.
Regarding claim 2, The apparatus of claim 1, De Schepper and Li disclose the one or more policies include a weighted-random early detection ("WRED") policy for a first queue and first delay measure calculated for the first queue and wherein the packet-switching logic is further configured to discard first data units assigned to the first queue before the first data units can be enqueued by the queuing logic.
De Schepper and Li do not disclose wherein the policy management logic is further configured to select a first frequency with which the packet-switching logic is to discard data units assigned to the first queue based on a WRED curve; the first data units selected based on the first frequency.
Perla discloses a network device comprises a plurality of forwarding units each comprising a packet forwarding engine and an interface, the network device also comprises a switch fabric connecting the plurality of forwarding units, wherein an ingress forwarding unit for a packet flow internally forwards packets of the packet flow to an egress one of the forwarding units for the packet flow by the switch fabric, also comprises an output queue of the egress forwarding unit, wherein the output queue is associated with the interface of the egress forwarding unit, Abstract, Figure 3. Perla discloses rate information also includes a drop precedence profile, drop precedence profile may be an identifier that specifies one or more operations to process a network packet using congestion avoidance techniques such that a drop precedence profile may specify one or more congestion avoidance techniques that include Weighted Random Early Detection (WRED), Random Early Detection (RED), Weighted Tail Drop, etc., Figure 5. Before the filing of the invention it would have been obvious to modify De Schepper and Li to include Perla’s drop precedence profiles. One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to do so since drop congestion techniques provide for handling multiple classes of traffic by selectively discarding lower priority traffic when the network begins to experience congestion, column 2, lines 39-49.
Claim 12 and 17 are rejected under the same rationale.
Claim(s) 5, 15, 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over De Schepper in view of Li in view of Urman et al.
Regarding claim 5, The apparatus of Claim 1, De Schepper and Li do not explicitly disclose wherein the policy management logic is further configured to: calculate a congestion score for a first queue based on a function of at least a first delay measure associated with the first queue and a size of the first queue; and determine a first policy to apply to the first queue based on the congestion score. Urman discloses a shared buffer configured to monitor congestions and send a congestion measure to a packet processor, the congestion measure may be any value respective to the size of the occupied buffer space, e.g., the ratio between occupied buffer space and total buffer space and the congestion measure may comprise a plurality of values, corresponding to the occupied buffer space of portions of the shared buffer, which may be allocated to packet flows, responsive to the congestion measure, and to the quality of service of the packet flow, the packet processor may drop an incoming packet, para. 0047-0048. Before the filing of the invention it would have been obvious to modify De Schepper and Li to include Urman’s congestion measure determination and subsequent packet action. One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to do so to mitigate the congestion in the data packets while retaining uninterrupted processing of the data packets, Abstract.
Claim 15 and 20 are rejected under the same rationale.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4, 6, 7, 9-10, 14-15, 19 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
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
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/MELANIE JAGANNATHAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2468