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 .
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.
Claim Objections
Claim 7 and 15 objected to because of the following informalities:
A series of singular dependent claims is permissible in which a dependent claim refers to a preceding claim which, in turn, refers to another preceding claim.
A claim which depends from a dependent claim should not be separated by any claim which does not also depend from said dependent claim (e.g., 7 depends from claim 2 which depends from claim 1 and claim 6 depends from claim 1, similar issues are present in the dependency of claim 15). It should be kept in mind that a dependent claim may refer to any preceding independent claim. In general, applicant's sequence will not be changed. See MPEP § 608.01(n).
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
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.
Claims 1-7 and 9-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Claim 1 recites a method comprising, “computing…at least one path for network traffic based on a segment routing policy; determining a uniqueness of the at least one path, when the at least one path is unique, storing a unique path in a path database, wherein the path database includes a plurality of unique paths available to [a] segment routing system; and computing a best path from the plurality of unique paths for the network traffic based on a predicted performance metric of the unique path and at least one predicted performance metric associated with each of the plurality of unique paths.
With respect to the feature, “computing…at least one path for network traffic based on a segment routing policy” is achieved through the use of well-known routing protocols such as Open Shortest Path First (OSPF) which determine paths based on a topology of a network. One of ordinary skill in the art is capable of constructing a simple topology in their mind of two network devices directly connected resulting in “at least one path for network traffic in a manner that is consistent with such known protocols.
With respect to the feature, “determining a uniqueness of the at least one path, when the at least one path is unique, storing a unique path in a path database”, one of ordinary skill having visualized this direct link has inherently determined it to be unique and held it in their mind. For in this topology there is only one path. Further, one of ordinary skill could imagine another path, in addition to this first path which connects these two network devices via third network device. In this case, there is another path between the original two network devices that is also unique.
Keeping those features in mind is, in effect, a step of, “when the at least one path is unique, storing a unique path in a path database, wherein the path database includes a plurality of unique paths available to [a] segment routing system.”
With respect to the feature, “computing a best path from the plurality of unique paths for the network traffic based on a predicted performance metric of the unique path and at least one predicted performance metric associated with each of the plurality of unique paths,” as is well-known by one of ordinary skill in the art with respect to the disclosed routing policy OSPF, one of ordinary skill in the art could imagine a cost associated with each link (e.g., predicted performance metric) and compute a best path using the OSPF routing protocol as the policy (i.e., the path with the lowest total cost).
These limitations, as drafted, are a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of the limitation in the mind or on paper; thus, the claim recites a mental process.
The claim recites, by a segment routing system which is disclosed by applicant as a generic processor and memory configured to perform the method; thus, the claims merely apply a general purpose processor to perform the technique which does not amount to significantly more than the abstract concept itself. Independent claim 9 recites an apparatus (e.g., system) which applies a generic processor and memory configured to perform the method; and independent claim 16 recites an article of manufacture (e.g., non-transitory computer-readable medium) executable by a computing system to perform the method, neither of which amount to significantly more than the abstract concept for the same reason. Namely, generic computing approaches to implement a mental process does not remove the capability of the process being performed in the human mind.
With respect to the features in claims 2, 10 and 17, one of ordinary skill in the art cold imagine the costs of the paths remaining the same or changing for a period of time (e.g., monitoring a measured metric) without any exceptional effort in the same way OSPF would capture changes via link state advertisements. Further, determining the cost, as outlined above, from these metrics, even if one imagined a change to the cost of any particular link would be the total cost of the path (e.g., determining the measured performance metric). One of ordinary skill could make a prediction of a second metric based on the total cost, for example the higher the cost, the greater the latency or higher the congestion of the link, and the like.
With respect to the features of claims 3, 11 and 18, a generic database does not comprise anything meaningful beyond ordinary computer functions and a human can easily hold the second predicted performance metric in the mind in association with the imagined paths.
With respect to the features of claims 4, 12 and 19, one of ordinary skill in the art, using the predicted latency determine a path as the best path (e.g., the lowest cost/lowest latency path).
With respect to claims 5, 15 and 20, as discussed above, a human can easily imagine the costs changing along each path and use that information to update the cost associated with each path much in the same way the OSPF protocol would use changed values in link state advertisements to recompute the available paths and their associated costs.
With regards to claims 6 and 14, the feature in claim 6 “when the unique path is not unique” is interpreted as, “when the at least one path is not unique” as it is recited in claim 14 (see 112 rejection below) which is disclosed by applicant as the path is not a newly discovered path, but rather an already known path. As touched on above, in the well-known OSPF protocol network devices provide information regarding their current state in link state advertisements which are advertised when the state of a network device changes. Further, a human can imagine that known paths would be once again detected based on the protocol with perhaps a changed cost and in the same manner as discussed above, a human can imagine a change in the cost of the paths and once again compute a cost for each path and predict a latency from these values without significant effort in the mind. This imagined change would satisfy the acts of claims 7 and 20 of, “detecting a change in the measured performance metric and updating the second predicted performance metric without any additional effort.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the claims do not practically apply the result of the process (i.e., best route) in any meaningful manner to effect a change of a particular thing. Therefore, the independent claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. Accordingly, claims 1-7 and 9-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
It is noted that claim 8 practically applies the result of the mental process (i.e. “best path”) by forwarding a packet to a destination using the best path. Inclusion of said feature in the independent claims would effectively overcome this grounds of rejection.
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.
Claim 6 is 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.
Claim 1 recites the condition, “determining a uniqueness of the at least one path; when the at least one path is unique…”. On the other hand, claim 6 recites, “when the unique path is not unique”. It is unclear how a path can be both unique and not unique. It would appear that this is a typographical error intended to recite, as in claim 14, “when the at least one path is not unique” (e.g., the opposite condition to the condition satisfied by claim 1). Claim 6 will be examined under this interpretation and amending the claim to match the language of claim 14 will effectively overcome this rejection.
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.
Claim(s) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shrivastava (US 2021/0385150 A1) in view of Vasseur et al. (US 2015/0333953 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Shrivastava discloses a method for measuring unique path decisions, the method comprising:
computing, by a segment routing system, at least one path for network traffic based on a segment routing policy ([0035]-[0036] disclosing advertising a segment routing policy specifying a policy associated with one or more paths; [0036] disclosing the BGP message may specify one or more candidate paths associated with the segment routing policy; see also [0023], [0027]-[0029] disclosing segment routing using advertisements of prefix segments indicating paths);
determining a uniqueness of the at least one path ([0037] disclosing candidate paths learned from the BGP message (e.g., a learned path is unique as in new compared to one already known); [0027]-[0028] disclosing determining whether the path is represented in the database or not; [0020], [0049] it is noted that the Link State Databases and routing tables in routing protocols disclosed by Shrivastava such as OSPF do not create duplicate paths/routes (i.e., each path/route is unique in the database));
when the at least one path is unique, storing a unique path in a path database ([0037] disclosing storing candidate paths learned from the BGP message in a main routing table (e.g., BGP table) that stores all routes learned via BGP; [0027]-[0028] new best path updates data table, equal cost to the best route, if the advertisement is not already represented in the link state database are all seen as unique paths added to a database),
wherein the path database includes a plurality of unique paths available to the segment routing system ([0037] disclosing a main routing table (e.g., BGP table) that stores all routes learned via BGP; [0027]-[0028] as discussed above; [0020], [0049] disclosing OSPF which is used in the art to create a representation of the unique paths in the network); and
computing a best path from the plurality of unique paths for the network traffic based on a performance metric of the unique path and at least one performance metric associated with each of the plurality of unique paths ([0038] disclosing selecting path from the candidate paths based on, for example, shortest IGP path to BGP next hop (i.e. OSPF) and based on the color table, the router may install an active route to steer packets along the selected colored path (i.e., active route) of the segment routing policy; [0032] disclosing colored paths with colors representing metrics such as latency, packet drop rate, bandwidth, for example blue representing low latency links or nodes; [0033] disclosing one or more segment routing policies each associated with one or more candidate path for implementing a segment routing policy with a specific intent (e.g., optimization objective) for steering traffic along a path selected from the candidate paths).
Shrivastava does not expressly disclose the following; however, Vasseur suggest use of a predicted performance metric ([0071]-[0072] disclosing identifying one or more paths as well as predictive performance metrics such as predicted delays associated with each path to make routing decisions to satisfy a reliability service level agreement (SLA)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the techniques of Shrivastava to use the features disclosed by Vasseur because the motivation is found in Vasseur to allow for high network reliability to be maintained proactively for critical applications.
Regarding claim 2, Shrivastava does not disclose the following; however, Vasseur discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising:
monitoring a measured performance metric of the unique path, ([0056] disclosing continually tracking feature data 450, see [0050]-[0055] for various feature data such as delay, bandwidth, jitter, packet loss, routing information) ;
based on the monitoring, determining the measured performance metric ([0050]-[0055]);
storing the measured performance metric of the unique path in the path database (Fig. 4A Feature Data 450; Fig. 2, Memory 240, [0028]-[0029]); and
based at least in part on the measured performance metric, predicting a second predicted performance metric of the unique path ([0071]-[0072] disclosing use of the network conditions to predict, for example a path failure representing a future performance of a given network path to make routing decisions).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the techniques of Shrivastava to use the features disclosed by Vasseur because the motivation is found in Vasseur to allow for high network reliability to be maintained proactively for critical applications.
Regarding claim 3, Shrivastava does not disclose the following; however, Vasseur discloses the method of claim 2, further comprising:
storing the second predicted performance metric in the path database Fig. 2, Memory 240, [0028]-[0029]; and
associating the second predicted performance metric with the unique path ([0072]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the techniques of Shrivastava to use the features disclosed by Vasseur because the motivation is found in Vasseur to allow for high network reliability to be maintained proactively for critical applications.
Regarding claim 4, Shrivastava does not disclose the following; however, Vasseur discloses the method of claim 2 further comprising:
computing a best path from the plurality of unique paths for the network traffic based on the second predicted performance metric of the unique path and the at least one predicted performance metric associated with each of the plurality of unique paths ([0072] disclosing combinations of predictive network metrics can be used to represent future performance of a given path to make routing decisions).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the techniques of Shrivastava to use the features disclosed by Vasseur because the motivation is found in Vasseur to allow for high network reliability to be maintained proactively for critical applications.
Regarding claim 5, Shrivastava does not disclose the following; however, Vasseur discloses the method of claim 2, wherein the second predicted performance metric is a health score associated with the unique path ([0072] path failure).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the techniques of Shrivastava to use the features disclosed by Vasseur because the motivation is found in Vasseur to allow for high network reliability to be maintained proactively for critical applications.
Regarding claim 6, Shrivastava appears to disclose the method of claim 1, further comprising:
when the unique path (i.e., at least one path) is not unique, determining that the at least one path is a first unique path from the plurality of unique paths in the path database ([0027]-[0028], [0037] disclosing when new path information is determined, then the database is updated; the contrapositive must also be true, e.g., when the database is not updated, then new path information has not been determined; [0038] disclosing selecting path from the candidate paths based on, for example, shortest IGP path to BGP next hop (i.e. OSPF) and based on the color table); and
computing the best path for network traffic for the first unique path based on a first performance metric stored in the path database and associated with the first unique path ([0038] disclosing selecting path from the candidate paths based on, for example, shortest IGP path to BGP next hop (i.e. OSPF) and based on the color table).
Shrivastava does not expressly disclose the following; however, Vasseur suggest use of a predicted performance metric ([0071]-[0072] disclosing identifying one or more paths as well as predictive performance metrics such as predicted delays packet losses, bandwidth, etc. associated with each path to make routing decisions to satisfy a reliability service level agreement (SLA)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the techniques of Shrivastava to use the features disclosed by Vasseur because the motivation is found in Vasseur to allow for high network reliability to be maintained proactively for critical applications.
Regarding claim 7, Shrivastava does not expressly disclose the following; however, Vasseur discloses the method of claim 2, further comprising:
detecting a change in the measured performance metric of the unique path ([0056] disclosing continually tracking feature data 450); and
updating the second predicted performance metric of the unique path based on the change in the measured performance metric ([0056] and use the feature data to predict future network performance metrics).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the techniques of Shrivastava to use the features disclosed by Vasseur because the motivation is found in Vasseur to allow for high network reliability to be maintained proactively for critical applications.
Regarding claim 8, Shrivastava discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising: forwarding a packet to a destination using the best path ([0034], [0038] disclosing the router installs the selected route (i.e., active route) and steers traffic onto the selected path of the candidate paths).
Regarding claims 9 and 11-15, the claims are directed towards a system comprising: at least one processor; and at least one computer readable medium storing instructions, wherein when executed by the at least one processor, the instructions are effective cause the system to perform the method of claims 1 and 3-7. Shrivastava discloses such implementations ([0077]); accordingly, claims 9 and 11-15 are rejected on the grounds presented above for claims 1 and 3-7.
Regarding claim 10 , the claim is directed towards the system of claim 9, wherein the instructions further cause the system to perform the method of claim 2 with the additional features disclosed by Shrivastava distribute path metrics and link attributes to the segment routing system using a border gateway protocol ([0023] advertise using BGP; [0020], [0049] OSPF advertises cost; [0035] BGP updates to advertise segment routing policies such as a link color associated with candidate paths).
Shrivastava does not disclose the following; however, Vasseur teaches the measured performance metric ([0050]-[0056]) and the predicted performance metric ([0056]) and it would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to add such information to the advertisements of Shrivastava because one of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized the predictable result of applying this information to make routing decisions in the invention of Shrivastava based on the evidence of the knowledge of one of ordinary skill in the art fond in the prior art and doing so would permit each device in the autonomous system of Shrivastava to effectuate the routing decisions.
Regarding claims 16-20, the claims are directed towards a non-transitory computer readable medium comprising instructions, the instructions, when executed by a computing system, cause the computing system to perform the method of claims 1-4 and 7. Shrivastava discloses such implementations ([0077]); accordingly, claims 1-4 and 7 are rejected on the grounds presented above for claims 1-4 and 7.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Moy, “OSPF Version 2”, Network Working Group, Request for Comments: 2328, April 1998.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Joseph A Bednash whose telephone number is (571)270-7500. The examiner can normally be reached 7 AM - 4:30 PM M-F.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Huy 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.
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/JOSEPH A BEDNASH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2461
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