DETAILED ACTION
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
2. This action is in response to the following communication: Amendment to application No. 18/511,105 filed on 11/14/2025.
3. Claims 2 and 18 are cancelled.
Claims 1, 3-17 and 20 have been amended.
Claims 21 and 22 have been added, and are pending.
Claims 1, 3-17, and 19-22 now remain pending.
Claims 1, 17 and 20 are independent claims.
Claim Objections
4: Claim 10 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 10, line 1, references “the apparatus of claim 2”, however claim 2 has been cancelled.
Examiner treats as --The apparatus of claim 1--.
Appropriate correction is required.
Specification Objection
5. The previous objection in regards to acronyms has been withdrawn.
6. The disclosure is objected to under 37 CFR 1.71, as being so incomprehensible as to preclude a reasonable search of the prior art by the examiner. For example, the following items are not understood: Claims 1, 3 and 5 recites “first parameter value”. The Applicant’s disclosure does not set forth any written description of such a “first parameter value”.
Appropriate correction is required. Applicant is required to submit an amendment which clarifies the disclosure so that the examiner may make a proper comparison of the invention with the prior art.
Appropriate correction is required. The specification should be revised carefully in order to comply with 35 U.S.C. 112(a). 35 U.S.C. 132(a) states that no amendment shall introduce new matter into the disclosure of the invention. Any amendment to the disclosure must be supported by the disclosure as originally filed.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
7. The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
8. Claims 1, 3-16 and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claims contain subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor had possession of the claimed invention at the time the application was filed.
Claims 1, 3 and 5 recites “first parameter value”. Applicant’s disclosure does not set forth any written description and is devoid of such “first parameter value” hence its meaning is unclear and undefined. The specification doesn’t indicate such a “first parameter value”.
Claims 4, 6-16 and 21 are also rejected for being dependent on rejected base claims.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
9. 35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
10. Claims 20 and 22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory and/or abstract subject matter
Claim 20 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter because claim 20 recites a “computer program product …” that has been reasonably interpreted as a computer program, software, listing per se (see paragraph [00221] of the specification). Claim 20 recite the “computer program product…” which does not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter recited in 35 U.S.C 101 (process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter), e.g., since the claim is directed to software. Therefore, claim 20 is rejected as non-statutory – see MPEP 7.05.01.
Claims 22 do not remedy the deficiencies of claim 20, and is also rejected as non-statutory.
Response to Arguments
11. Applicant’s arguments with respect to newly amended independent claims 1, 17 and 20 and claims 3-16, 19 and 21-22 on pages 8-15 of the response have been fully considered but they are not persuasive and are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection - see McCollom (Art newly made of record) and Zhang (Art newly made of record) as applied below, as they further teach such use.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
12. 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 of this title, 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.
13. Claims 17 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lin et al., U.S. Patent No. 6,272,136 (hereinafter Lin) in view of Zhang et al., CN 1688136 (hereinafter Zhang) or in view of McCollom et al., US 2003/0120769 (hereinafter McCollom).
In regards to claim 17, Lin teaches:
A method, comprising: reading configuration data, wherein the configuration data is related to a function of a controller and comprises a parameter value of a target signal and a storage address of the target signal in the controller (column 7, lines 24-36, see the shared memory 34 further includes a routing table 62, a configuration table 64, and a connection table 66. The routing table 62 is a database that contains the current network topology, and is accessed by the switching processor 44 in determining routing information for the received data packets. Specifically, the routing table 62 defines the addresses and interconnection pathways between the load balancing and packet switching device 10 and the networks connected thereto. A routing daemon 58 within the control processor 42 is a program that executes in the background to retrieve the information stored in the routing table 62 and maintains the status of the routing table 62 as changes are made to the configuration) and (column 8, lines 39-67, see the packet filter module 74 accesses the connection table 66 in the shared memory 34 to determine whether a received packet is part of an existing connection or a new connection. Then, the packet filter module 74 accesses the configuration table 64 to determine the proper routing of the received data packet based on current load conditions and other factors. The switching processor 44 may further include specialized APIs that handle communication between these software modules) (emphasis added). Such routing information and of interconnection pathways is very much the same as such parameter value.
performing, based on the configuration data, an operation corresponding to the configuration data (column 8, lines 39-67, see the packet filter module 74 accesses the connection table 66 in the shared memory 34 to determine whether a received packet is part of an existing connection or a new connection. Then, the packet filter module 74 accesses the configuration table 64 to determine the proper routing of the received data packet based on current load conditions and other factors. The switching processor 44 may further include specialized APIs that handle communication between these software modules).
Lin doesn’t explicitly teach:
the parameter value comprises a collection periodicity value indicating a number of different periodic intervals for sampling the target signal.
However, Zhang teaches such use: (p. 2, last para., see the invention is characterized in that it is on a monitoring machine, a tester main board and the tested device are orderly connected system, parallel flow scheduling method at one time step is composed of the following steps: 1: the 10G network performance testing system generating the flow sequence, the monitoring computer software according to the attribute of the transmitted stream configured by the user to be generated into a stream sequence composed of a plurality of streams composed of, type, number of flow of each flow plate comprises a tester main board to be orderly sending and the number of the IP message to be sent at a time) (emphasis added).
Lin and Zhang are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor, controller software.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, having the teaching of Lin and Zhang before him or her, to modify the system of Lin to include the teachings of Zhang, as a system testing network performance, and accordingly it would enhance the system of Lin, which is focused on an interface between control and switching modules, because that would provide Lin with the ability to provide a high speed port tester for easy real-time scheduling of network performance testing, as suggested by Zhang (p. 2, last para., p. 1, last para.).
Lin doesn’t explicitly teach:
a channel number of the target signal, or a collection mode of sampling the target signal (emphasis added).
However, McCollom teaches such use: (p. 3, [0026], see at step 202, the correlation node N C 116 determines the routing information base (e.g., BGP table) that corresponds to both of: 1) a particular router where a data flow was observed; and 2) a sampling interval when the data flow was observed. At step 204, a data flow destination address obtained from the data flow collection node N F 112 is matched to a prefix in the routing information base determined at step 202. Step 204 is preferably performed by collecting a list of all prefixes in the routing information base determined at step 202, ordering the list in ascending IP address order and descending netmask order, and determining which prefix matches a given IP address. To determine which prefix matches the given IP address, a search of the routing information base for a prefix that most closely matches the given IP address is performed).
Lin and McCollom are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor, controller software.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, having the teaching of Lin and McCollom before him or her, to modify the system of Lin to include the teachings of McCollom, as a system for determining transit volumes, and accordingly it would enhance the system of Lin, which is focused on an interface between control and switching modules, because that would provide Lin with the ability to determine which network operators carry the most of their data traffic, as suggested by McCollom (p. 3, [0026], p. 6, [0091]).
In regards to claim 20, Lin teaches:
A computer program product comprising instructions that are stored on a computer-readable medium and that, upon execution by a processor, cause an apparatus to: reading configuration data, wherein the configuration data is related to a function of a controller and comprises a parameter value of a target signal and a storage address of the target signal in the controller (column 7, lines 24-36, see the shared memory 34 further includes a routing table 62, a configuration table 64, and a connection table 66. The routing table 62 is a database that contains the current network topology, and is accessed by the switching processor 44 in determining routing information for the received data packets. Specifically, the routing table 62 defines the addresses and interconnection pathways between the load balancing and packet switching device 10 and the networks connected thereto. A routing daemon 58 within the control processor 42 is a program that executes in the background to retrieve the information stored in the routing table 62 and maintains the status of the routing table 62 as changes are made to the configuration) and (column 8, lines 39-67, see the packet filter module 74 accesses the connection table 66 in the shared memory 34 to determine whether a received packet is part of an existing connection or a new connection. Then, the packet filter module 74 accesses the configuration table 64 to determine the proper routing of the received data packet based on current load conditions and other factors. The switching processor 44 may further include specialized APIs that handle communication between these software modules) (emphasis added). Such routing information and of interconnection pathways is very much the same as such parameter value.
perform, based on the configuration data, an operation corresponding to the configuration data (column 8, lines 39-67, see the packet filter module 74 accesses the connection table 66 in the shared memory 34 to determine whether a received packet is part of an existing connection or a new connection. Then, the packet filter module 74 accesses the configuration table 64 to determine the proper routing of the received data packet based on current load conditions and other factors. The switching processor 44 may further include specialized APIs that handle communication between these software modules).
Lin doesn’t explicitly teach:
the parameter value comprises a collection periodicity value indicating a number of different periodic intervals for sampling the target signal.
However, Zhang teaches such use: (p. 2, last para., see the invention is characterized in that it is on a monitoring machine, a tester main board and the tested device are orderly connected system, parallel flow scheduling method at one time step is composed of the following steps: 1: the 10G network performance testing system generating the flow sequence, the monitoring computer software according to the attribute of the transmitted stream configured by the user to be generated into a stream sequence composed of a plurality of streams composed of, type, number of flow of each flow plate comprises a tester main board to be orderly sending and the number of the IP message to be sent at a time) (emphasis added).
Lin and Zhang are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor, controller software.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, having the teaching of Lin and Zhang before him or her, to modify the system of Lin to include the teachings of Zhang, as a system testing network performance, and accordingly it would enhance the system of Lin, which is focused on an interface between control and switching modules, because that would provide Lin with the ability to provide a high speed port tester for easy real-time scheduling of network performance testing, as suggested by Zhang (p. 2, last para., p. 1, last para.).
Lin doesn’t explicitly teach:
a channel number of the target signal, or a collection mode of sampling the target signal (emphasis added).
However, McCollom teaches such use: (p. 3, [0026], see at step 202, the correlation node N C 116 determines the routing information base (e.g., BGP table) that corresponds to both of: 1) a particular router where a data flow was observed; and 2) a sampling interval when the data flow was observed. At step 204, a data flow destination address obtained from the data flow collection node N F 112 is matched to a prefix in the routing information base determined at step 202. Step 204 is preferably performed by collecting a list of all prefixes in the routing information base determined at step 202, ordering the list in ascending IP address order and descending netmask order, and determining which prefix matches a given IP address. To determine which prefix matches the given IP address, a search of the routing information base for a prefix that most closely matches the given IP address is performed).
Lin and McCollom are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor, controller software.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, having the teaching of Lin and McCollom before him or her, to modify the system of Lin to include the teachings of McCollom, as a system for determining transit volumes, and accordingly it would enhance the system of Lin, which is focused on an interface between control and switching modules, because that would provide Lin with the ability to determine which network operators carry the most of their data traffic, as suggested by McCollom (p. 3, [0026], p. 6, [0091]).
14. Claims 19 and 22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lin et al., U.S. Patent No. 6,272,136 (hereinafter Lin) in view of Zhang or in view of McCollom in view of Kaizu et al., US 2008/0258758.
In regards to claims 17 and 20 the rejections above are incorporated respectively.
In regards to claim 19, Lin, Zhang and McCollom, in particular Lin doesn’t explicitly teach:
reading the configuration data comprises reading the configuration data when the controller is started or restarted.
However, Kaizu teaches such use: (p. 3, [0083], see the embedded system 100 reads configuration data from the flash memory whose current system flag is ON during boot-up to incorporate the configuration data into the FPGA 140 and also reads a boot up program and a control program from the flash memory to execute startup) and (p. 6, [0169], see after the configuration of the FPGA 430 is completed, the microprocessor 400 starts to operate).
Lin, Zhang or McCollom and Kaizu are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor, controller software.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, having the teaching of Lin, Zhang or McCollom and Kaizu before him or her, to modify the system of Lin, Zhang or McCollom, in particular Lin, to include the teachings of Kaizu, as a system for embedded control, and accordingly it would enhance the system of Lin, which is focused on an interface between control and switching modules, because that would provide Lin with the ability to enable continuation of operations by sidestepping errors, as suggested by Kaizu (p. 3, [0083], p. 7, [0189]).
In regards to claim 22, Lin, Zhang and McCollom, in particular Lin doesn’t explicitly teach:
read the configuration data by reading the configuration data when the controller is started or restarted.
However, Kaizu teaches such use: (p. 3, [0083], see the embedded system 100 reads configuration data from the flash memory whose current system flag is ON during boot-up to incorporate the configuration data into the FPGA 140 and also reads a boot up program and a control program from the flash memory to execute startup) and (p. 6, [0169], see after the configuration of the FPGA 430 is completed, the microprocessor 400 starts to operate).
Lin, Zhang or McCollom and Kaizu are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor, controller software.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, having the teaching of Lin, Zhang or McCollom and Kaizu before him or her, to modify the system of Lin, Zhang or McCollom, in particular Lin, to include the teachings of Kaizu, as a system for embedded control, and accordingly it would enhance the system of Lin, which is focused on an interface between control and switching modules, because that would provide Lin with the ability to enable continuation of operations by sidestepping errors, as suggested by Kaizu (p. 3, [0083], p. 7, [0189]).
Allowable Subject Matter
15. Claims 1, 3-16 and 21, wherein the cited prior art taken alone or in combination fail to teach, in combination with the other claimed limitations, an apparatus, comprising: a driver layer; an application layer; a global buffer; and an interface layer configured to: exchange configuration data with the application layer through the global buffer; exchange the configuration data with the driver layer through the global buffer, perform a first target operation based on a first parameter value of a first target signal, wherein the first parameter value comprises a collection periodicity value indicating a number of different periodic intervals for sampling the first target signal, a channel number of the first target signal, or a collection mode of sampling the first target signal; and buffer a first result of the first target operation into the global buffer based on a first storage address of the first target signal in the global buffer, wherein the application layer is configured to obtain the first result of the first target operation. The art of record does not expressly disclose such features.
Conclusion
16. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US Patent Application Publications
Li US 20120226820 teaches a peering relationship among two or more network appliances is established through an exchange of control messages among the network appliances. The peering relationship defines a cluster of peered network appliances, and at each network appliance of the cluster traffic flow state information for all the network appliances of the cluster is maintained. Network traffic associated with traffic flows of the network appliances of the cluster is managed according to the state information for the traffic flows. This managing of the network traffic may include forwarding among the network appliances of the cluster (i.e., to those of the appliances handling the respective flows) at least some of the network traffic associated with one or more of the traffic flows according to the state information for the one or more traffic flows. The traffic flows may be TCP connections or UDP flows.
Wang US 20250310247 teaches A software agent generates packet sessions and hands off the task of generating and routing the packets to a programmable hardware logic block, such as a packet processor. The software agent provides entries in one or more tables that are subsequently used by the packet processor to generate and route the packets. During a first stage, the packets are generated at an ingress pipeline. The packets are then transferred to an egress pipeline from which pipeline the packets are reinjected back into the ingress pipeline. During the second stage and at the ingress pipeline, routing information, representative of a network layer or a tunnel, to which the packets are to be routed, are added to the packets. The packets are then forwarded to the egress pipeline and subsequently routed to a next hop or tunnel leading to the packets' respective destination addresses.
17. Examiner, in light of the above submission maintains the previous rejections, and any new ground(s) of rejection is necessitated by Applicant’s amendment. 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).
18. 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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
Correspondence Information
19. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Evral Bodden whose telephone number is 571-272-3455. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Chat Do, can be reached at telephone number 571-272-3721. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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) Form at https://www.uspto.gov/patents/uspto-automatedinterview-request-air-form.
/EVRAL E BODDEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2193