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 .
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 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.
DETAILED ACTION
1. The application of Rajamanickam et al. for the "ACCELERATED TRACEROUTE USING HEADER FIELD AND METADATA" filed 12/28/2023 has been examined. This application is a Continuation of 18/532,266, filed 12/07/2023, now abandoned. Claims 1-20 are pending in the present application.
2. The applicant should use this period for response to thoroughly and very closely proof read and review the whole of the application for correct correlation between reference numerals in the textual portion of the Specification and Drawings along with any minor spelling errors, general typographical errors, accuracy, assurance of proper use for Trademarks TM, and other legal symbols @, where required, and clarity of meaning in the Specification, Drawings, and specifically the claims (i.e., provide proper antecedent basis for “the'' and “said'' within each
claim). Minor typographical errors could render a Patent unenforceable and so the applicant is
strongly encouraged to aid in this endeavor.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
3. 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.
4. This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims under 35 U.S.C. 103, the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned at the time any inventions covered therein were made absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and invention dates of each claim that was not commonly owned at the time a later invention was made in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 103 and potential 35 U.S.C. 102(e), (f) or (g) prior art under 35 U.S.C. 103.
5. Claims 1-6, 8-13, 15-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Monier et al. (US#11,621,905) in view of Hedayat et al. (US#7,840,670).
Regarding claim 8, the references disclose a system and method for accelerated traceroute using unique headers and metadata, according to the essential features of the claim. Monier et al. (US#11,621,905) discloses a system comprising: a processor; and a non-transitory memory storing computer-executable instructions thereon (see Fig. 3 for the device includes processors 308 and memory 310), wherein the computer-executable instructions, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising: sending, from a head-end, a packet towards a reserved port at a tail-end, the packet having a header and a time-to-live (TTL) parameter (Fig. 5; Col. 13, lines 30-40: traceroute communications on a routing tunnel of an IP network. At 502, a traceroute application executing on the probe source device 102 may send a first probe request to the probe destination device 114); receiving, at the head-end, an error packet identifying a hop limit, wherein the hop limit is a number of hops to reach the tail-end from the head-end; sending, from the head-end towards the tail-end, a set of packets to be traced (Fig. 5; Col. 14, lines 35-59: At 512, the tunnel entrance device 104 may receive the error message described in block 510. In some instances, an application/daemon executing on the tunnel entrance device 104 may detect the error message, generate a new ICMPv6 Hop Limit Exceeded error message, and send the error message to the probe source device 102, rather than ignoring the error message), receiving, at the head-end, corresponding error packets identifying a number of hops to reach a corresponding node based on the varying TTL parameters (Fig. 6; Col. 4, lines 39-48 & Col. 19, lines 44-59: hop limit is referred to as time to live (TTL). In examples, hop limit and/or TTL may be associated with a value that limits the lifespan of data in a computer or network. Each time the packet traverses a router the TTL count is decremented by one count); and generating, based on the corresponding error packets and the corresponding headers, a route that the packet traverses from the head-end to the tail-end (Fig. 7; Col. : The traceroute application executing on the probe source device stores routing path and transit delay time data associated with the error message and send a new probe request to the probe destination device with an increased hop limit value).
However, Monier reference does not disclose expressly wherein the set of packets have varying TTL parameters and corresponding headers with unique header lengths for each packet in the set of packets. In the same field of endeavor, Hedayat et al. (US#7,840,670) teaches in Figs. 1A-E diagrams illustrated a packet communication that employs diagnostic system, in which each diagnostic packet may include in its header a time to live (TTL) value that generates an error response packet from a router along the path. By varying the TTL value, such error response packets may be elicited from each router along the path. By transmitting diagnostic packets that elicit a plurality of responses from an individual router, the system may compute the jitter attributable to a particular "hop" or router. Latency, loss, and jitter may also be measured by the return (or lack of return) of elicited packets (Col. 2, lines 56-67 & Col. 5, lines 8-22: by varying the TTL value of the probe packets, device 200 can obtain trace information from the different hops along the path of interest).
One skilled in the art would have recognized the need for effectively and efficiently accelerated traceroute using unique headers and metadata, and would have applied Hedayat’s using diagnostic packets with varied TTL value into Monier’s techniques for traceroute communications on a tunneled segment of an IP network. Therefore, It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply Hedayat’s apparatus and method for passively analyzing a data packet delivery path into Monier’s traceroute method to identify devices in tunneled segment of routing path with the motivation being to provide a method and system for accelerated traceroute using header field and metadata.
Regarding claim 9, the reference further teaches wherein the varying TTL parameters are between 1 and the number of hops to reach the tail-end (Hedayat et al.: Col. 3, lines 15-17: the number of "hops" n+1, where n is the number of routers along a path between the source and destination).
Regarding claim 10, the reference further teaches wherein a number of the packets in the set of packets is the number of hops to reach the tail-end (Hedayat et al.: Fig.6, Col. 7, lines 21-24: diagnostic system determines the number of routers, or "hops", between the source and destination).
Regarding claim 11, the reference further teaches wherein determining, based on the corresponding error packets and the unique header lengths, an order for each of the corresponding nodes, and wherein generating the route from the head-end to the tail-end is further based on the order for each of the corresponding nodes (Monier et al.: Fig. 5; Col. 15, line 45 to Col. 16, line 2: the traceroute application and/or the probe source device 102 may log the IP address corresponding to the tunneled intermediate device 110(2) contained in the error message and/or the roundtrip time for the exchange for performing network diagnostics, creating routing tables, etc).
Regarding claim 12, the reference further teaches wherein the packet is a user datagram protocol (UDP) packet and the error packet is an internet control message protocol (ICMP) error packet (Monier et al.: Figs. 6, 8; Col. 20, lines 18-32: the error message may be an ICMPv6 Hop Limit Exceeded in Transit packet. Further, the error message may comprise a source address corresponding to a downstream device, and a destination address corresponding to the tunnel entrance device 104).
Regarding claim 13, the reference further teaches wherein the set of packets are sent without waiting for receipt of any of the corresponding error packets (Monier et al.: Fig. 4; Col. 11, lines 47-51: At 410, after receiving the error message from the tunnel entrance device 104, the traceroute application executing on the probe source device 102 may send a second probe to the probe destination device 114 with a hop limit value of two HL=2).
Regarding claims 1-6, they are method claims corresponding to the apparatus claims 8-13 examined above. Therefore, claims 1-6 are analyzed and rejected as previously discussed in paragraph above with respect to claims 8-13.
Regarding claims 15-20, these claims differ from claims Monier et al. (US#11,621,905) in view of Hedayat et al. (US#7,840,670) in that the claims recited a computer program product for performing the same basis of steps and apparatus of the prior arts as discussed in the rejection of claims 8-13 above. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to implement a computer program product in Monier in view of Hedayat for performing the steps and apparatus as recited in the claims with the motivation being to provide the efficient enhancement for providing accelerated traceroute using unique headers and metadata, and easy to maintenance, upgrade.
Allowable Subject Matter
6. Claims 7, 14 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claims, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
7. The following is an examiner's statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The closest prior art of record fails to disclose or suggest wherein determining, at the head-end, that the TTL parameter has not been exceeded; sending, from the head-end, at least one subsequent packet, wherein each of the at least one subsequent packet includes a subsequent TTL parameter higher than the TTL parameter; and receiving, at the head-end, at least one subsequent error packet identifying a hop limit of the at least one subsequent packet, and wherein the hop limit is based on the at least one subsequent error packet, as specifically recited in the claims.
Conclusion
8. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
The Monier et al. (US#11,206,204) is cited to show traceroute method to identify devices in tunneled segment of routing path.
The Zhang et al. (US#12,476,909) shows information processing method, and devices and storage medium.
The Chadha (US#12,160,362) shows traceroute for multi-path routing.
The Kompela (US#8,117,301) determining connectivity status for unnumbered interfaces of a target network device.
The Shi et al. (US#11,558,341) shows method, device, and system for obtaining SRV6 tunnel information.
The Xiao et al. (US#9,553,803) periodical generation of network measurement data.
The Vobbilisetty et al. (US#8,634,308) shows path detection in TRILL networks.
The Scholl (US#9,385,925) shows anycast route detection.
The Bristow (US#11,102,096) shows traceroutes for discovering the network path of inbound packets transmitted from a specified network node.
The Parimi (US#11,290,365) shows optimizing how test packet are sent during continuous network monitoring.
The Balaiah et al. (US#11,949,577) determining the path of UDP traceroute probes.
9. Applicant's future amendments need to comply with the requirements of MPEP § 714.02, MPEP § 2163.04 and MPEP § 2163.06.
"with respect to newly added or amended claims, applicant should show support in the original disclosure for the new or amended claims." See MPEP § 714.02 and § 2163.06 ("Applicant should * * * specifically point out the support for any amendments made to the disclosure."); and MPEP § 2163.04 ("If applicant amends the claims and points out where and/or how the originally filed disclosure supports the amendment(s), and the examiner finds that the disclosure does not reasonably convey that the inventor had possession of the subject matter of the amendment at the time of the filing of the application, the examiner has the initial burden of presenting evidence or reasoning to explain why persons skilled in the art would not recognize in the disclosure a description of the invention defined by the claims."). See In re Smith, 458 F.2d 1389, 1395, 173 USPQ 679, 683 (CCPA 1972) In re Wertheim, 541 F.2d at 262,191 USPQ at 96 (emphasis added). "The use of a confusing variety of terms for the same thing should not be permitted.
New claims and amendments to the claims already in the application should be scrutinized not only for new matter but also for new terminology. While an applicant is not limited to the nomenclature used in the application as filed, he or she should make appropriate amendment of the specification whenever this nomenclature is departed from by amendment of the claims so as to have clear support or antecedent basis in the specification for the new terms appearing in the claims. This is necessary in order to insure certainty in construing the claims in the light of the specification." Ex parte Kotler, 1901 C.D. 62, 95 O.G. 2684 (Comm'r Pat. 1901). See 37 CFR 1.75, MPEP § 608.01 (i) and § 1302.01.
Note that examiners should ensure that the terms and phrases used in claims presented late in prosecution of the application (including claims amended via an examiner's amendment) find clear support or antecedent basis in the description so that the meaning of the terms in the claims may be ascertainable by reference to the description, see 37 CFR 1,75(d)(1 ). If the examiner determines that the claims presented late in prosecution do not comply with 37 CFR 1.75(d)(1), applicant will be required to make appropriate amendment to the description to provide clear support or antecedent basis for the terms appearing in the claims provided no new matter is introduced."
"USPTO personnel are to give claims their broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the supporting disclosure." In re Morris, 127 F.3d 1048, 1054-55, 44 USPQ2d 1023,1027-28 (Fed. Cir. 1997). MPEP § 2106. "
10. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to M. Phan whose telephone number is (571) 272-3149. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon - Fri from 6:00 to 3:00.
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, Chirag Shah, can be reached on (571) 272-3144. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300.
Any inquiry of a general nature or relating to the status of this application or proceeding should be directed to the receptionist whose telephone number is (571) 272-2600.
11. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have any questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at toll free 1-866-217-9197.
Mphan
12/15/2025
/MAN U PHAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2477