Response to Amendment
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 .
The response/remark dated 12/17/25 has been received and made of record.
Applicant’s remark regarding the cited reference “U.S. Pub. No. 2020/0125662 by Zhu et al. ("Zhu" I) and U.S. Publication No. 20210336922 by Zhu et al ("Zhu II")” was commonly owned has been reviewed and considered and found persuasive. Thus, the rejection of the claims under Zhu I and Zhu II has been withdrawn. However upon further review of the claims and newly cited reference “Ang” a new nonfinal office action has been issued.
For example, Ang discloses a system for state sharing among network adaptors categorized based on dynamic state information including identifying a failover or failback event for the plurality of network adaptors(see par. 0054-0056); and performing failover or failback on each of the nodes using the sorted list of the plurality of network adaptors(see par. 0054-0056). Thus providing robust failure protection, a such, the smart NICs share this connection tracking state information with each other so that failover between the smart NICs can be handled seamlessly. So that these connections are not reset if one of the smart NICs fails.
Claims 7 and 14 and 22 and 23-24 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.
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.
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.
Claims 1-6, 8-13, and 15-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sing et al. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2024/0291631[hereinafter Sing] in view of Ang et al. U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/0195675 [hereinafter Ang].
As per claim 1, 8 and 15 Sing discloses a computer-implemented method, comprising:
identifying a system having multiple nodes(106), wherein each of the multiple nodes comprises a plurality of network adaptors(1260) (see fig. 4 and par. 0082;
maintaining a sorted list (404, 602)of the plurality of network adaptors on each of the multiple nodes(see fig, 1, 4 and par. 0082 and fig, 7, par. 0090-0091, 0093); and (see FIG. 6, each NIC 124 of the nodes 106 may store two lists as depicted in FIG. 6. FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a NIC 124 including a sorted neighbor list 602).
Sing does not explicitly disclose identifying a failover or failback event for the plurality of network adaptors; and performing failover or failback on each of the nodes using the sorted list of the plurality of network adaptors.
Ang discloses a system for state sharing among network adaptors categorized based on dynamic state information including identifying a failover or failback event for the plurality of network adaptors(see par. 0054-0056); and performing failover or failback on each of the nodes using the sorted list of the plurality of network adaptors(see par. 0054-0056). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art prior to effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of Ang into the system of Sing thus providing robust failure protection, a such, the smart NICs share this connection tracking state information with each other so that failover between the smart NICs can be handled seamlessly. So that these connections are not reset if one of the smart NICs fails.
As per claim 2, Sing discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the plurality of network adaptors comprises network interface cards (NICs), and the sorted list comprises a sorted list of the NICs( see FIG. 6, each NIC 124 of the nodes 106 may store two lists as depicted in FIG. 6. FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a NIC 124 including a sorted neighbor list 602).
As per claim 3-4, Sing discloses The method of claim 1, wherein the sorted list is formed as sorted pair lists, wherein an entry in the pair list comprises a tuple having an interface identifier and a subnet value(see par. 0030, where it includes interface identifier a new link to be added to the sorted neighbor list, where the link may include a route to the time server and a first cost value of the route).
As per claim 5,Sing discloses the method of claim 1, wherein failover or the failback is performed in an ascending or descending order within the sorted list(see fig. 4, and pars. 0082-0083).
As per claim 6, Ang discloses the method of claim 1, wherein a load level is considered when selecting a target or source for the failover or failback(see par.0055, 0071).
Dependent claims 9-13 and 16-22 are similar with dependent claims 2-7 and are rejected same rational as claims 2-6.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ABDULLAHI ELMI SALAD whose telephone number is (571)272-4009. The examiner can normally be reached 9:30AM-6:PM.
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/ABDULLAHI E SALAD/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2466
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