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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 8/5/2026 has been entered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Regarding claim 1, the claims recites, “the preferred metric being selected..” However, the claim is silent regarding who or which device is selecting the “preferred metric” from “a plurality of metric”. Claims are read as best understood by the examiner for purpose of examination.
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) 1-2, 4, 7-9, 11, 14-17, 20, is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over SINGH et al (US 2017/0288948) in view of DONG (US 2018/0316645) further in view of RFC 9350( IGP Flexible Algorithm (February 2023))
Regarding claim 1, 8, 15, SINGH et al (US 2017/0288948) discloses router comprising circuitry configured to:
receive an Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP) update with anycast group information therein (SINGH: ¶27, PEs 6 belong to an anycast group; ¶28, the CE (router) received IGP metrics update in IGP advertisement messages), wherein the IGP update is received (SINGH: ¶27, PEs 6 belong to an anycast group; ¶28, the CE (router) received IGP metrics update in IGP advertisement messages); the circuitry is configured to perform computation of the route at the router based on the preferred metric (SINGH: ¶36, compute, at the CE router, the forwarding path from the PE based on a preferred metric which is a lower IGP metric),
compute, at the router, a route for the anycast group based on a preferred metric associated with the anycast group information (SINGH: ¶36, compute, at the CE router, the forwarding path from the PE based on a preferred metric which is a lower IGP metric), wherein the preferred metric is used by the router to select, among a plurality of nodes associated with the anycast group, a node for forwarding based on the preferred metric (SINGH: ¶36, compute, at the CE router, the forwarding path from the PE based on a preferred metric selecting the new active DF PE e.g. PE 6b), and
install the computed route (SINGH: ¶35, the newly elected DF PE 6B is used to perform the forwarding by the CE (equivalent to installing the new route));
SINGH remains silent, however, DONG (US 2018/0316645) discloses creating or updating a record for an anycast group with the anycast group information (DONG: ¶81-82, the base station being a routing entity, creates and updates records of the anycast group information based on the received anycast group information)
A person of ordinary skill in the art working with the invention of SINGH would have been motivated to use the teachings of DONG as it reduces overall latency by minimizing the hops of the required information (¶106) Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify invention of SINGH with teachings of DONG in order to reduces latency in selecting an anycast device from the anycast group (¶106).
SINGH modified by DONG remains silent regarding, however RFC9350 discloses the IGP update being an Extended Internet Protocol (IP) Reachability Type-Length-Value (TLV) having a sub-TLV therein specifying a preferred metric (RFC9350: Page 18-19, TLV 135 (Extended IP Reachability TLV) is used to advertise IGP update with a metric), the preferred metric being selected from a plurality of metric types available for path computation (RFC9350: Pages 6-7, the metric is a metric of type selected from 0, 1, or 2 i.e. IIGP, TE default metric or link delay metric)
A person of ordinary skill in the art working with the invention of SINGH modified by DONG would have been motivated to use the teachings of RFC9350 as it allows IGPs themselves to compute constraint-based paths over the network (Page 1). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify invention of SINGH modified by DONG with teachings of RFC9350 in order to allow IGPs themselves to compute constraint-based paths over the network (Page 1).
Regarding claim 2, 9, 16, SINGH modified by DONG modified by RFC9350 discloses router of claim 1, wherein the preferred metric is specifically defined in the anycast group information, and wherein the circuitry is configured to use the preferred metric from the anycast group information in performing the computation of the route at the router (SINGH: ¶35, the IGP link metric is specifically defined in the received information for the anycast IP address).
Regarding claim 4, 11, 17, SINGH modified by DONG modified by RFC9350 discloses router of claim 1/8/15, wherein the preferred metric is another metric besides an IGP metric based on which path is computer (RFC9350: Pages 6-7, the metric is a metric of type selected from 0, 1, or 2 i.e. IIGP, TE default metric or link delay metric)
Regarding claim 7, 14, 20, SINGH modified by DONG modified by RFC9350 discloses router of claim 1, wherein the anycast group information includes one of (1) border nodes sharing a same anycast prefix segment, and (2) planes of a plurality of nodes sharing a same anycast prefix segment (SINGH: ¶27, the anycast IP address is the same which includes the prefix).
Claim(s) 3, 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over SINGH modified by DONG modified by RFC9350 as applied to claim 1/8/15 above, further in view of DUNBAR et al (US 2023/0262112)
Regarding claim 3, 10 SINGH modified by DONG modified by RFC9350 discloses router of claim 2. SINGH modified by DONG modified by RFC9350 remains silent regarding, however, DUNBAR discloses the preferred metric is specifically defined in the anycast group information in a sub-Type-Length-Value (TLV) (DUNBAR: ¶75, ¶79, sub-TLV contains anycast routing cost metric).
A person of ordinary skill in the art working with the invention of SINGH modified by DONG modified by RFC9350 would have been motivated to use the teachings of DUNBAR as it provides a standard OSPFv3 field improving compatibility. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify invention of SINGH modified by DONG modified by RFC9350 with teachings of DUNBAR in order to improve compatibility with standard protocol.
Claim(s) 4, 6, 11, 13, 17, 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over SINGH modified by DONG modified by RFC9350 modified by XU as applied to claim 1/8/15 above, further in view of BERZIN et al (US 2021/0297891)
Regarding claim 6, 13, 19, SINGH modified by DONG modified by RFC9350 discloses router of claim 1/8/15, wherein the preferred metric is specified in the IGP update, the metric being a delay metric for the route for the anycast group (SINGH: ¶35-37, IGP update messages with the metric and is for anycast group; RFC9350: Page 18-19: delay metric); the metric being a delay
SINGH modified by DONG modified by RFC9350 remains silent regarding, however, BERZIN discloses and wherein the circuitry is further configured to perform a delay measurement to obtain delay metrics (BERZIN: ¶47, ¶66, the metric includes latency/delay and it is measure for the route).
A person of ordinary skill in the art working with the invention of LU modified by DONG modified by RFC9350 would have been motivated to use the teachings of BERZIN as it provides computational liberty to the computational algorithm. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify invention of LU modified by DONG modified by RFC9350 with teachings of BERZIN in order to improve failure handling by adding flexibility of metrics.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 8/5/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicants argue,
“
PNG
media_image1.png
686
712
media_image1.png
Greyscale
”
Examiner respectfully disagrees with the above argument. Applicants take a position that SINGH uses a default metric and does not use any other metric type and also does not have a router that computes path “using a preferred metric of the preferred metric type specified in the sub-TLV rather than a default IGP metric”.
SINGH, in ¶32 states:
[0028] In accordance with the techniques described herein, because PEs 6 are configured in active-standby redundancy for EVPN 23 and, more particularly, for Ethernet segment 13A, PEs 6 advertise different underlay IGP metrics (hereinafter, “metrics”) to cause CE device 8A to send traffic destined for customer equipment of remote customer network 7B to the active PE 6 that is also the DF with respect to EVPN 23. Upon election as DF for EVPN 23, PE 6A uses the local IGP routing protocol to advertise a lower IGP metric into network 15A for the common anycast IP address for VXLAN 14A. Further, as a non-DF, PE 6B usings the local IGP routing protocol of network 15A to advertise a relatively higher IGP metric into network 15A for the common anycast IP address. As such, PEs 6A, 6B influence the forwarding of outbound traffic within local network 15A based on DF status of the PEs with respect to EVPN 23 of intermediate wide area network 3.
…
[0032] Because PE 6A is initially the active DF in this example and advertises a relatively lower IGP metric to itself from CE device 8A than that advertised by standby non-DF PE 6B, CE device 8A computes an IGP shortest path to the common anycast IP address to PE 6A. That is, CE device 8A determines the IGP link advertised by PE 6A with the relatively lower metric is a link in the shortest path to the common anycast IP address. CE device 8A therefore initially forwards L2 traffic 24 that is destined to MAC M4 on the VXLAN 14A via an outbound interface to PE 6A.
As claim is silent regarding the feature being argues, essentially, path computation only requires metric type and not a value, the above portions are reasonably interpreted as teaching, “…receive an Interior Gateway Protocol (IGP) update with anycast group information therein,
compute, at the router, a route for the anycast group based on a preferred metric associated with the anycast group information, wherein the preferred metric is used by the router to select, among a plurality of nodes associated with the anycast group, a node for forwarding based on the preferred metric…”
DONG (US 2018/0316645) discloses creating or updating a record for an anycast group with the anycast group information (DONG: ¶81-82, the base station being a routing entity, creates and updates records of the anycast group information based on the received anycast group information)
[0082] FIG. 7 illustrates a base station management of an anycast group when receiving information from a newly attached MTC device. When a new MTC device 360 attaches to the network, the associated base station 330 (FIG. 3) receives information (e.g., type, major location, specific area) from the MTC device 360 at 702. Based on the received information, the base station 330 determines whether an existing and matching anycast group has been previously recorded (e.g., recorded in an entry of a table stored in memory) at 704. For example, table 800 illustrates a table that stores MTC device member of a particular anycast group, as described further below. If the base station 330 determines that a matching record exists (e.g., information or attributes of the newly attached MTC device match the information or attributes of the exiting anycast group), the newly attached MTC device 360 is added as a member to the existing anycast group at 708. Otherwise, if the base station 330 determines that the newly attached MTC device 360 is not part of an existing anycast group, then a new anycast group may be created at 710 (or alternatively the information may be discarded). In one embodiment, the anycast name of the newly created anycast group is formulated from the information sent from the MTC device 360 to the base station 330.
A person of ordinary skill in the art working with the invention of SINGH would have been motivated to use the teachings of DONG as it reduces overall latency by minimizing the hops of the required information (¶106) Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify invention of SINGH with teachings of DONG in order to reduces latency in selecting an anycast device from the anycast group (¶106).
SINGH modified by DONG remains silent regarding, however newly cited reference RFC9350 discloses the IGP update being an Extended Internet Protocol (IP) Reachability Type-Length-Value (TLV) having a sub-TLV therein specifying a preferred metric (RFC9350: Page 18-19, TLV 135 (Extended IP Reachability TLV) is used to advertise IGP update with a metric), the preferred metric being selected from a plurality of metric types available for path computation (RFC9350: Pages 6-7, the metric is a metric of type selected from 0, 1, or 2 i.e. IIGP, TE default metric or link delay metric)
A person of ordinary skill in the art working with the invention of SINGH modified by DONG would have been motivated to use the teachings of RFC9350 as it allows IGPs themselves to compute constraint-based paths over the network (Page 1). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify invention of SINGH modified by DONG with teachings of RFC9350 in order to allow IGPs themselves to compute constraint-based paths over the network (Page 1).
Furthermore, arguments regarding XU are moot as it is not relied upon for teachings any claim limitations.
All remaining arguments are based the argued limitations above and are fully addressed as above.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to OMER S MIAN whose telephone number is (571)270-7524. The examiner can normally be reached M,T,W,Th: 10a-7p, Fri, 9a-12p.
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, Huy D Vu can be reached at 571-272-3155. 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.
OMER S. MIAN
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2461
/OMER S MIAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2461
Prosecution Insights