DETAILED ACTION
This communication is in response to Application No. 18/379,016 filed on 10/11/2023. The amendment presented on 1/2/2026, which amends claims 1, 6-7, and 13 and adds new claims 19-20, is hereby acknowledged. Claims 1-20 have been examined.
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 1/2/2026 is being considered by the examiner.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1-20 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 specifically challenged in the argument.
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.
Claims 1, 7, and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gao et al. (hereinafter Gao)(US 2021/0385163) in view of Harvey et al. (hereinafter Harvey)(US 2004/0148439), and further in view of Pasdar (US 2014/0112171).
Regarding claims 1, 7, and 13, Gao teaches as follows:
A system (interpreted as the packet processing system) comprising one or more computers and one or more storage devices (a storage module 705, configured to store, in the ECMP routing information, the first routing information obtained by the obtaining module 704, see, ¶ [0146] and figure 8) on which are stored instructions that are operable, when executed by the one or more computers (a packet processing system includes a first network device, a second network device, and a VNF device, see, ¶ [0051] and figure 2)(The embodiments of this application provide a packet processing method, a packet forwarding apparatus, and a packet processing apparatus, to precisely send a service packet to a VNF device corresponding to a destination IP address, thereby avoiding a three-layer traffic loop, see, ¶ [0048]) to cause the one or more computers to perform operations comprising:
receiving one or more information packets from a first private network (after generating the corresponding VXLAN packet, the second network device may send the VXLAN packet to the first network device, so that the first network device may obtain the path identifier and the service packet that are included in the VXLAN packet., see, ¶ [0063] and figure 3);
determining, based on information included in the one or more information packets, one or more routes to deliver the one or more information packets to a second private network, wherein the one or more routes are determined based on routing criteria associated with routing information packets between the first and second private networks (Because the service packet includes the destination IP address, after receiving the VXLAN packet, the first network device may learn, by querying a local routing table, a virtualized network function device corresponding to the destination IP address. The first network device determines, based on a path identifier, first routing information included in the equal-cost multipath ECMP routing information, see, ¶ [0064]-[0065] and 304 in figure 3); and
dispatching the one or more information packets to be routed through at least one of the determined routes (After obtaining the first routing information from the ECMP routing information through matching based on the path identifier, the first network device may precisely send the service packet to the VNF device via the IPU based on the first routing information and the destination IP address that are included in the service packet, see, ¶ [0091] and 305 in figure 3).
Gao teaches all limitations as presented above except for interconnecting two private networks.
Harvey teaches as follows:
A system and method for creating a peer to peer network by interconnecting private networks via publicly addressable residential gateways. A tunnel between a gateway of a first private network and a gateway of a second private network is established and the address of a device in one of the private networks is mapped into the other private network for enabling the device in one of the private networks to communicate with the other private network (see, Abstract and ¶ [0014]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Gao with Harvey to include interconnecting two private networks types as taught by Harvey in order to securely connect private networks through a public network.
Gao in view of Harvey teaches all limitations as presented above except for the routing criteria specifying a communication method type.
Pasdar teaches as follows:
The present system may use a plurality of criteria to determine a "best path," including reliability, latency, throughput, destination, origination, type of communication, user, user category, level of service, and geographical location (see, ¶ [0027]); and
the present system may provide a path selection based on a type of communication, if the type of communication is a specific protocol or application such as SIP for VOIP communications or iSCSI used for storage the system may leverage pre-existing reliability or latency settings that apply to the specific protocols (see, ¶ [0065]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Gao in view of Harvey with Pasdar to include the path selection criteria of type of communication as taught by Pasdar in order to optimize a path or route based on required communication type.
Claims 2-4, 6, 8-10, 12, 14-16, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gao et al. (hereinafter Gao)(US 2021/0385163) in view of Harvey et al. (hereinafter Harvey)(US 2004/0148439) and Pasdar (US 2014/0112171), and further in view of Kim (US 2017/0063699).
Regarding claims 2-4, 8-10, and 14-16, Gao in view of Harvey and Pasdar teaches all limitations as presented above except for the routing criteria.
Kim teaches as follows:
The control unit 110 of the path controller 100 selects the transmission path so as to satisfy a transmission delay (RTT1)(equivalent to applicant’s latency) of a predetermined service level agreement (SLA) value or less (RTT1<=SLA) and stores the selected transmission path in a multi-path management table of the multi-path DB 140 (S12), by referring to the network path information and the segment routing information of the network path DB 130, the quality of service (QoS) information of the network path of the traffic engineering database (TED) 150, and the like and transmits a path response message including the corresponding transmission path information to the host (S20), with respect to the path request message of the first sub flow of the host received through the communication unit 120 (S11)(see, ¶ [0056] and figure 7).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Gao in view of Harvey and Pasdar with Kim to include the well-known routing criteria s taught by Kim in order to efficiently select a path from multiple paths satisfying predefined routing criteria.
Regarding claims 6, 12, and 18, Gao teaches as follows:
The equal-cost multipath (ECMP) routing is an initial routing policy that is for calculating a routing weight and that is generated when a plurality of optimal paths (equivalent to applicant’s list of potential routes) are in parallel when the VXLAN packet is transferred to a single destination, so that a plurality of equal-cost paths may be simultaneously used when the VXLAN packet reaches network environments of a same destination address. Therefore, bandwidth can be increased to a large extent when the plurality of paths have traffic with a balanced load. Therefore, the second network device may determine, based on the ECMP routing information, a path that forward the service packet to the VNF device via the IPU, that is, select and determine a forwarding path of the service packet from the plurality of equal-cost paths (see, ¶ [0058]).
Kim teaches the routing criteria as presented above (see, ¶ [0056]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Gao in view of Harvey, Pasdar, and Kim to include accessing the plurality of optimal paths in order to efficiently determine a path from the plurality of optimal paths.
Claims 5, 11, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gao et al. (hereinafter Gao)(US 2021/0385163) in view of Harvey et al. (hereinafter Harvey)(US 2004/0148439) and Pasdar (US 2014/0112171), and further in view of Lin (US 2023/0269180).
Regarding claims 5, 11, and 17, Gao in view of Harvey and Pasdar teaches all limitations as presented above except for creating a blacklist to avoid certain nodes being used in routing.
Lin teaches as follows:
The black/white list rule is stored in a form of a blacklist and/or a whitelist. The blacklist and the whitelist are generated by the routing module according to an input configuration instruction. The blacklist records port IPs and network links that are not allowed to bear iscsi traffic. The whitelist records port IPs and network links that are allowed to bear iscsi traffic (see, ¶ [0011]-[0012]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Gao in view of Harvey and Pasdar with Lin to include the well-known blacklist as taught by Lin in order to efficiently prevent predetermined nodes being used in the routing decision.
Claims 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gao et al. (hereinafter Gao)(US 2021/0385163) in view of Harvey et al. (hereinafter Harvey)(US 2004/0148439) and Pasdar (US 2014/0112171), and further in view of Higman et al. (hereinafter Higman)(US 2022/0385791).
Regarding claims 19-20, Gao in view of Harvey and Pasdar teaches all limitations as presented above except for the communication method type comprising fiber, wireless, and satellite.
Higman teaches as follows:
The plurality of communication paths 112 may comprise a broadband connection. The broadband connection may be one of a fiber optic connection, a wireless connection, a digital subscriber line (DSL) connection, a cable connection, a satellite connection, a long-term evolution (LTE) connection, a cell tower connection, a microwave downlink connection, a Wi-Fi connection, a terrestrial radio connection, and a MANET radio connection (see, ¶ [0036] and figure 3).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Gao in view of Harvey and Pasdar with Higman to include the well-known communication method type as taught by Higman in order to efficiently provide a best route based on required communication method type.
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 Jeong S Park whose telephone number is (571)270-1597. The examiner can normally be reached Monday through Friday 8:00-4:30 ET.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Glenton B Burgess can be reached at 571-272-3949. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/JEONG S PARK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2454
April 22, 2026
Prosecution Insights