Detailed Action
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
The Office Action is in response to claims filed on 2/9/2026 where claims 1-20 are pending and ready for examination.
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.
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-20 have been considered but are moot based on a new grounds of rejections comprising Cohn (US 2019/0312914).
The Examiner has reviewed the Applicant’s arguments submitted on 2/9/2026 in their entirety (Pages 6-12). Applicant’s newly amended claims are explicitly contemplated by Cohn as detailed in the prior art rejection below. Cohn provides for:
Return path functionality
Supplies gateway performance metrics, gateway comparison, and symmetric/asymmetric return paths.
C
laim 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, 3, 8, 11, 17, and 19 are rejected under 35 USC 103 as being anticipated by Huawei, “NE20E-S V800R022C00SPC600 Configuration Guide, December 20, 2022 in view of Cohn (US 2019/0312914)
Regarding claim 1, Huawei discloses a method comprising:
receiving a gateway preference order associated with a route advertised by a network node of a first network, the gateway preference order indicating a preferred gateway node that is to be used for the route(Huawei; Huawei discloses that each VRRP enable router in a first network is assigned a priority value and that the device with the highest priority becomes the Master gateway, thereby associating a gateway preference order and identifying a preferred gateway node. Huawei further teaches that the Master and Backup statuses determine the cost associated with their direct routes to the virtual IP network segment. Additionally Huawei’s “permanent Advertisement of Static Routers” feature shows that those routes are advertised by the network node . Accordingly, Huawei discloses or inherently includes all element s of this limitation.
Evidence:
Example for Associating a VRRF Group with an NQA Test Instance
“You can associate VRRP with an NQA test instance to track a gateway router's uplink (cross-device). If the uplink fails, NQA instructs VRRP to reduce the gateway router's priority by a specified value so that another gateway router in the VRRP group becomes the master and takes over, which ensures communication continuity between hosts on a LAN and an external network. After the uplink recovers, NQA instructs VRRP to restore the gateway router's priority.”)
Associating Direct Routes with a VRRF Group
“After the command is run, the cost of direct routes is adjusted based on the VRRP group status, with details as follows:
If the VRRP group status is Master, 0 (the highest priority) is used as the cost of the direct routes.
If the VRRP group status is Backup or Initialize, the cost-value (greater than 0) specified in the command is used as the cost of the direct routes”
IPv4 Static Route Conditions
. Permanent advertisement of static routes
Determine which feature to use based on the actual network conditions:
■BFD for static routes enables a static route to be bound to a BFD session. The BFD session detects the link status of the static route and determines whether to activate the static route.
■ Deploying NQA for static routes uses NQA test instances to detect the status of the link where the static route resides and determines whether to activate the static route based on the NQA test results. NQA for static routes can be deployed in special scenarios, for example, when BFD is not applicable to links between different ISPs or a link segment does not support BFD.
■ After EFM is associated with static routes, the system responds to the EFM Up/Down event of a specified interface and determines whether to activate static routes. This controls route advertisement and directs remote traffic.
■Permanent advertisement of static routes can be deployed if the customer wants to determine the forwarding path of service traffic so that traffic is not switched to another path even if a link fault occurs.
converting the gateway preference order into a metric associated with an Internet Protocol (IP) routing protocol that is in use in a second network (Huawei; Huawei expressly teaches that the gateway preference order (VRRP Master = highest priority, Backup = Lowest priority, is converted into a numerical cost value. That cost is then associated with an IP routing protocol (e.g. OSPF, IS-IS, or BGP) through the command import route direct and the inheritance of that cost as the routing metric.
Evidence
Associating Direct Routes with a VRRF Group
“After the command is run, the cost of direct routes is adjusted based on the VRRP group status, with details as follows:
If the VRRP group status is Master, 0 (the highest priority) is used as the cost of the direct routes.
If the VRRP group status is Backup or Initialize, the cost-value (greater than 0) specified in the command is used as the cost of the direct routes”
Basic IP Routing Configuration
Configuring a Dynamic Routing Protocol to Import Direct Routes
After you associate direct routes with a Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP) group, configure a dynamic routing protocol to import the direct routes so that the path selection by the dynamic routing protocol can be controlled.
Context
After direct routes are associated with a VRRP group, VRRP-enabled devices modify the cost of each direct route to the virtual IP network segment based on the VRRP status. To control the path by a dynamic routing protocol, enable the dynamic routing protocol to import direct routes and inherit the costs from the imported direct routes.
Currently, dynamic routing protocols include the Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP) and Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). If an IGP is configured to import direct routes, routing information protocol (RIP) cannot inherit costs from the imported direct routes. This section describes how to configure Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), Intermediate System to Intermediate System (IS-IS), and BGP to import direct routes);
and distributing the metric to the second network to indicate the preferred gateway node for the route(Huawei; Huawei teaches once a cost metric exists within the OSPF inputting domain (second network), OSPF propagates routing information using that cost. Routers in the domain then preferentially select the interface or gateway with the smaller cost, thereby identifying the preferred gateway node for the route.
Adjusting OSPF Route Selection
By adjusting OSPF route selection, you can enable OSPF to meet the requirements of complex networks.
Usage Scenario
In real world situations, you can configure an OSPF route selection rule by setting OSPF route attributes to meet the requirements of complex networks.
Set the cost of an interface. The link connected to the interface with a smaller cost value preferentially transmits routing information.
Configure equal-cost routes to implement load balancing.
Configure a stub router during the maintenance operations such as upgrade to ensure stable data transmission through key routes.
Suppress interfaces from sending or receiving packets to help select the optimal route.
Configuring an OSPF interface to automatically adjust the link cost based on link quality that facilitates route selection control and improves network reliability.
Pre-configuration Tasks
Before adjusting OSPF route selection, complete the following tasks:
Configure IP addresses for interfaces to ensure that neighboring nodes are reachable at the network layer.
Configure basic OSPF functions.
Setting the Interface Cost
You can adjust and optimize route selection by setting the OSPF interface cost.
Context
After the OSPF interface costs are set, the interface with a smaller cost value preferentially transmits routing information. This helps select the optimal route.
The OSPF interface cost can be set or calculated based on the interface bandwidth.
External factors may affect the physical bandwidth of links and change the physical bandwidth of interfaces, which in turn affects network performance. To address this problem, you can run the bandwidth command in the interface view to set configuration bandwidth for the interface, and then run the bandwidth-config enable command to enable the device to calculate the cost for the OSPF interface based on the configuration bandwidth of the interface.
Huawei strongly suggests but does not expressly disclose:
distributing the metric to the second network to indicate the preferred gateway node for return traffic of the route
However in analogous art Cohn discloses:
return traffic (Cohn; Cohn teaches determining, based on a comparison of respective values of a gateway performance metric for a plurality of egress gateways, that a first egress gateway performs better than a second egress gateway, and selecting the first egress gateway for transmitting packets out of the AS (see e.g. Claims 1-3 and 5). Cohn further teaches return-path operation by disclosing selection of an egress gateway to ensure an asymmetric return path ([0109]), forcing a symmetric return path using a particular edge gateway ([0132]), selecting an asymmetric return path using a different gateway ([0132]), selecting an asymmetric return path using a different gateway ([0147]), and using a gateway for egress in a manner that results in an asymmetric return path ([0151])
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Cohn’s scheme. The motivation being the combined solution provides for incorporating a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic.
Huawei in view of Cohn disclose:
distributing the metric to the second network to indicate the preferred gateway node for return traffic of the route (It would have been obvious to integrate Cohn’s return path gateway metric functionality into the gateway preference of Huawei because Cohn shows that gateway performance metrics are used to compare gateways and that gateway selection affects symmetric or asymmetric return paths. Thus, Huawei already receives gateway preference information, converts that preference into a routing metric, and distributes the metric. Cohn provides direct evidence that gateway metrics and gateway preference decisions are relevant to return path routing. The combined solution would therefore use the distributed metric to indicate the preferred gateway node for return traffic of the route)
Regarding claim 3, Huawei in view of Cohn discloses The method of claim 1, wherein the IP routing protocol that is in use in the second network comprises at least one of External Border Gateway Protocol (EBGP), Internal Border Gateway Protocol (IBGP), or Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) (Huawei, Per independent claim 1, OSPF is supported in the technological environment
Configuring an OSPF interface to automatically adjust the link cost based on link quality that facilitates route selection control and improves network reliability.)
Regarding claim 8, claim 8 comprises the same and/or similar subject matter as claim 1 and is rejected based on the same rationale.
Regarding claim 11, claim 11 comprises the same and/or similar subject matter as claim 3 and is rejected based on the same rationale.
Regarding claim 17, claim 17 comprises the same and/or similar subject matter as claim 1 and is rejected based on the same rationale.
Regarding claim 19, claim 19 comprises
es the same and/or similar subject matter as claim 3 and is rejected based on the same rationale.
Claims 2.10, and 18 are rejected under 35 USC 103 as being unpatentable over Huawei in view of Cohn and in further view of Naravanan (US 2018/0278517)
Regarding claim 2, Huwei in view of Cohn discloses the method of claim 1,Huawei does not expressly di8sclsoe further comprising storing an indication of the preferred gateway node for the route, the indication stored as a protocol-independent cost metric in a routing information base (RIB).
However in analogous art Naravanan discloses:
storing an indication , the indication stored as a protocol-independent cost metric in a routing information base (RIB) (Naravana, Naravanan teaches a RIB which is inherently protocol independent that stores various indications including cost metrics
see eg. [0041] “ The routing information encompassed in the RNHI (306) may include, but is not limited to, an Internet Protocol (IP) address associated with the next hop, a cost or metric for using the path or route associated with the RIB entry (302A-302N), quality of service (QoS) indicators characterizing a current performance of the path or route, etc.”
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Naravan’s technique. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of controlling network traffic.
Huawei in view of Cohn and in further view of Naravanan disclose:
further comprising storing an indication of the preferred gateway node for the route, the indication stored as a protocol-independent cost metric in a routing information base (RIB).(The combined solution provides for RIB protocol independent storage of cost metrics associated with Huawei’s gateways)
Regarding claim 10, claim 10 comprises the same and/or similar subject matter as claim 2 and is rejected based on the same rationale.
Regarding claim 18, claim 18 comprises the same and/or similar subject matter as claim 2 and is rejected based on the same rationale.
Claim 4-5, 12-13, and 20 are rejected under 35 USC 103 as being unpatentable over Huawei in view of Cohn and in further view of Olson (US 2009/0307522)
Regarding claim 4. Huawei in view of Cohn discloses The method of claim 1, Huawei does not expressly disclose further comprising:
determining a preference number associated with the preferred gateway node; and determining that the preferred gateway node is a more preferred gateway than another
However in analogous art Olson discloses:
determining a preference number associated with the preferred gateway node (Olson; see e.g. [0079]
This ranking may be based on logic of ranking the preferred or default gateways and then any other routes to the server. )
Therefore it would have been prima facie to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Olson’s ranking scheme. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing and controlling network traffic.
Huawei in view of Cohn and in further view of Olson disclose:
determining that the preferred gateway node is a more preferred gateway than another (The combined solution per Olson provides for using the ranking of the preferred gateways to make any comparing analysis to determine a more preferred gateway node)
Regarding claim 5, Huawei in view of Cohn and in further view of Olson disclose the method of claim 4, wherein determining that the preferred gateway node is the more preferred gateway comprises determining that the preference number ranks higher in the gateway preference order than another preference number associated with the other gateway node (The combined solution per Olson provides for one of ordinary skill in the art .to actually use the ranking of preferred gateways to make a comparative analysis between preferred gateway nodes)
Regarding claim 12, claim 12 comprises the same and/or similar subject matter as claim 4 and is rejected based on the same rationale.
Regarding claim 13, claim 13 comprises the same and/or similar subject matter as claim 5 and is rejected based on the same rationale.
Regarding claim 20, claim 20 comprises the same and/or similar subject matter as claim 4 and is rejected based on the same rationale.
Claims 6 and 14 are rejected under 35 USC 103 as being unpatentable over Huawei in view of Cohn and in further view of Kurmala (US 11,108,851)
Regarding claim 6, Huawei in view of Cohn discloses the method of claim 1,Huawei strongly suggests but does not explicitly disclose wherein the first network is a wide area network (WAN) and the second network is a local area network (LAN).
However in analogous art Kurmala discloses :
wherein the first network is a wide area network (WAN) and the second network is a local area network (LAN) (Kurmala;
see e.g. Column 10, Lines 9 - 25
(60) Branch gateways are network infrastructure devices that are placed at the edge of a branch LAN. Often branch gateways are routers that interface between the LAN and a wider network, whether it be directly to other LANs of the WAN via dedicated network links (e.g. MPLS) or to the other LANs of the WAN via the Internet through links provided by an Internet Service Provider connection. Many branch gateways can establish multiple uplinks to the WAN, both to multiple other LAN sites, and also redundant uplinks to a single other LAN site. Branch gateways also often include network controllers for the branch LAN. In such examples, a branch gateway in use in a SD-WAN may include a network controller that is logically partitioned from an included router. The network controller may control infrastructure devices of the branch LAN, and may receive routing commands from a network orchestrator)
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Kurmala’s network topology. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing and controlling network traffic.
Regarding claim 14, claim 14 comprises the same and/or similar subject matter as claim 6 and is rejected based on the same rationale.
Claim 7 and 15 are rejected under 35 USC 103 as being unpatentable over Huawei in view of Cohn and in further view of Holt (US 2022/0066915)
Regarding claim 7, Huawei in view of Cohn discloses the method of claim 1, Huawei strongly suggests but does not expressly discloses wherein the first network is associated with an access region and the second network is associated with a core region.
However in analogous art Holt discloses:
wherein the first network is associated with an access region and the second network is associated with a core region (Holt;
[0007] In a hierarchical telecommunications network, the backhaul portion of the network comprises the intermediate links between the core network, or backbone network, and the small subnetworks at the edge of the network
The examiner notes the access region is equivalent to the edge networks while the core network or backbone network is equivalent to a core region)
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Holt’s topology. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing and controlling network traffic.
Regarding claim 15, claim 15 comprises the same and/or similar subject matter as claim 7 and is rejected based on the same rationale.
Claim 8 and 16 are rejected under 35 USC 103 as being unpatentable over Huawei in view of Cohn and in further view of Li et al., “Multidomain SDN-Based Gateways and Border Gateway Protocol”
Regarding claim 8 , Huawei in view of Cohn disclose. the method of claim 1, Hawei strongly suggests but does not expressly disclose wherein:
the preferred gateway node is a border router,
the first network is associated with a first region of a software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN), and
the second network is associated with a second region of the SD-WAN.
However in analogous art Li discloses:
the preferred gateway node is a border router (Li teaches the use of border gateway protocol and border routers within the context of enterprise networks which can be used in tandem with the preferred gateways taught by Huawei, see e.g. Section 6)
the first network is associated with a first region of a software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN)(Li, see e.g. Section 6; Li teaches SD WAN with distributed enterprise networks which are geographically distributed (i.e. first region)), and
the second network is associated with a second region of the SD-WAN)(Li, see e.g. Section 6; Li teaches SD WAN with distributed enterprise networks which are geographically distributed (i.e. second region
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Li’s network topology and scheme. The motivation being the combined solution provides for incorporating a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing and controlling network traffic.
Regarding claim 16, claim 16 comprises the same and/or similar subject matter as claim 8 and is rejected based on the same rationale.
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Claims 1, 9, and 17 are rejected under 35 USC 103 as being anticipated by Huawei, “NE20E-S V800R022C00SPC600 Configuration Guide, December 20, 2022 in view of Venaas (20200076767)
Regarding claim 1, Huawei discloses a method comprising:
receiving a gateway preference order associated with a route advertised by a network node of a first network, the gateway preference order indicating a preferred gateway node that is to be used for the route (Huawei; Huawei discloses that each VRRP enable router in a first network is assigned a priority value and that the device with the highest priority becomes the Master gateway, thereby associating a gateway preference order and identifying a preferred gateway node. Huawei further teaches that the Master and Backup statuses determine the cost associated with their direct routes to the virtual IP network segment. Additionally Huawei’s “permanent Advertisement of Static Routers” feature shows that those routes are advertised by the network node . Accordingly, Huawei discloses or inherently includes all element s of this limitation.
Evidence:
Example for Associating a VRRF Group with an NQA Test Instance
“You can associate VRRP with an NQA test instance to track a gateway router's uplink (cross-device). If the uplink fails, NQA instructs VRRP to reduce the gateway router's priority by a specified value so that another gateway router in the VRRP group becomes the master and takes over, which ensures communication continuity between hosts on a LAN and an external network. After the uplink recovers, NQA instructs VRRP to restore the gateway router's priority.”)
Associating Direct Routes with a VRRF Group
“After the command is run, the cost of direct routes is adjusted based on the VRRP group status, with details as follows:
If the VRRP group status is Master, 0 (the highest priority) is used as the cost of the direct routes.
If the VRRP group status is Backup or Initialize, the cost-value (greater than 0) specified in the command is used as the cost of the direct routes”
IPv4 Static Route Conditions
. Permanent advertisement of static routes
Determine which feature to use based on the actual network conditions:
■BFD for static routes enables a static route to be bound to a BFD session. The BFD session detects the link status of the static route and determines whether to activate the static route.
■ Deploying NQA for static routes uses NQA test instances to detect the status of the link where the static route resides and determines whether to activate the static route based on the NQA test results. NQA for static routes can be deployed in special scenarios, for example, when BFD is not applicable to links between different ISPs or a link segment does not support BFD.
■ After EFM is associated with static routes, the system responds to the EFM Up/Down event of a specified interface and determines whether to activate static routes. This controls route advertisement and directs remote traffic.
■Permanent advertisement of static routes can be deployed if the customer wants to determine the forwarding path of service traffic so that traffic is not switched to another path even if a link fault occurs.
converting the gateway preference order into a metric associated with an Internet Protocol (IP) routing protocol that is in use in a second network (Huawei; Huawei expressly teaches that the gateway preference order (VRRP Master = highest priority, Backup = Lowest priority, is converted into a numerical cost value. That cost is then associated with an IP routing protocol (e.g. OSPF, IS-IS, or BGP) through the command import route direct and the inheritance of that cost as the routing metric.
Evidence
Associating Direct Routes with a VRRF Group
“After the command is run, the cost of direct routes is adjusted based on the VRRP group status, with details as follows:
If the VRRP group status is Master, 0 (the highest priority) is used as the cost of the direct routes.
If the VRRP group status is Backup or Initialize, the cost-value (greater than 0) specified in the command is used as the cost of the direct routes”
Basic IP Routing Configuration
Configuring a Dynamic Routing Protocol to Import Direct Routes
After you associate direct routes with a Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol (VRRP) group, configure a dynamic routing protocol to import the direct routes so that the path selection by the dynamic routing protocol can be controlled.
Context
After direct routes are associated with a VRRP group, VRRP-enabled devices modify the cost of each direct route to the virtual IP network segment based on the VRRP status. To control the path by a dynamic routing protocol, enable the dynamic routing protocol to import direct routes and inherit the costs from the imported direct routes.
Currently, dynamic routing protocols include the Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP) and Border Gateway Protocol (BGP). If an IGP is configured to import direct routes, routing information protocol (RIP) cannot inherit costs from the imported direct routes. This section describes how to configure Open Shortest Path First (OSPF), Intermediate System to Intermediate System (IS-IS), and BGP to import direct routes);
and distributing the metric to the second network to indicate the preferred gateway node for the route(Huawei; Huawei teaches once a cost metric exists within the OSPF inputting domain (second network), OSPF propagates routing information using that cost. Routers in the domain then preferentially select the interface or gateway with the smaller cost, thereby identifying the preferred gateway node for the route.
Adjusting OSPF Route Selection
By adjusting OSPF route selection, you can enable OSPF to meet the requirements of complex networks.
Usage Scenario
In real world situations, you can configure an OSPF route selection rule by setting OSPF route attributes to meet the requirements of complex networks.
Set the cost of an interface. The link connected to the interface with a smaller cost value preferentially transmits routing information.
Configure equal-cost routes to implement load balancing.
Configure a stub router during the maintenance operations such as upgrade to ensure stable data transmission through key routes.
Suppress interfaces from sending or receiving packets to help select the optimal route.
Configuring an OSPF interface to automatically adjust the link cost based on link quality that facilitates route selection control and improves network reliability.
Pre-configuration Tasks
Before adjusting OSPF route selection, complete the following tasks:
Configure IP addresses for interfaces to ensure that neighboring nodes are reachable at the network layer.
Configure basic OSPF functions.
Setting the Interface Cost
You can adjust and optimize route selection by setting the OSPF interface cost.
Context
After the OSPF interface costs are set, the interface with a smaller cost value preferentially transmits routing information. This helps select the optimal route.
The OSPF interface cost can be set or calculated based on the interface bandwidth.
External factors may affect the physical bandwidth of links and change the physical bandwidth of interfaces, which in turn affects network performance. To address this problem, you can run the bandwidth command in the interface view to set configuration bandwidth for the interface, and then run the bandwidth-config enable command to enable the device to calculate the cost for the OSPF interface based on the configuration bandwidth of the interface.
Huawei strongly suggests but does not expressly disclose:
distributing the metric to the second network to indicate the preferred gateway node for return traffic of the route
However in analogous art Venaas discloses:
return traffic (Venaas; Venaas teaches the use of a metric in connection with a reverse path, Specifically, the Venaas compares metrics associated with candidate border routers and selects the border router having the smallest metric as the PIM reverse path forwarding (RPF address). Thus Venaas teaches that reverse path routing decisions may be based upon evaluated metrics;
see e.g. [0034] “... Based on the value of metric 1 and metric 3, the second BIER router 210-2 selects the border router with the smallest metric as the PIM Reverse Path Forwarding (RPF) address and sends PIM join/prunes for the multicast represented by (S1, G1) to that proxy address.”
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Venaas’ metric scheme. The motivation being the combined solution provides for incorporating a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic.
Huawei in view of Venaas disclose:
distributing the metric to the second network to indicate the preferred gateway node for return traffic of the route (It would have been obvious ton incorporate the reverse-path metric considerations into the gateway preference framework of Huawei because both references are directed to selecting among alternative routing paths based on network information. Incorporating the reverse-path metric evaluation of Venaas into Huawei would have predicably allowed gateway preferences to account for return-path routing considerations)
Regarding claim 9, claim 9 comprises the same and/or similar subject matter as claim 1 and is considered an obvious variation; therefore it is rejected under the same rationale.
Regarding claim 17, claim 17 comprises the same and/or similar subject matter as claim 1 and is considered an obvious variation; therefore it is rejected under the same rationale.
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 TODD L. BARKER whose telephone number is (571) 270 0257. The Examiner can normally be reached on Monday through Friday, 7:30am to 5:00pm.
If attempts to reach the Examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the Examiner's supervisor Vivek Srivastava can be reached on (571) 272 7304.
/TODD L BARKER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2449
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