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 .
The amendment filed on 04/03/2026 has been entered. Applicant amended claims 1-12, 14-16, and 18-20 in the amendment. Claims 13 and 17 are cancelled.
Claims 1-12, 14-16, and 18-20 remain pending.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1-12, 14-16, and 18-20 filed on 04/03/2026 have been considered but they are deemed to be moot in view of new grounds of rejection.
Further, applicant argued Wei, Honda, and Akashi fail to disclose “sending the received initial packet in accordance with the first forwarding state for one or more of a plurality of instances of the service function.”
In response to applicant's argument that the references fail to show certain features of the invention, it is noted that the features upon which applicant relies (i.e., sending the received initial packet in accordance with the first forwarding state for one or more of a plurality of instances of the service function) are not recited in the rejected claim(s). Although the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are not read into the claims. See In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 26 USPQ2d 1057 (Fed. Cir. 1993).
Claim Objections
Claims 5 and 18 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 5, line 6, “a respective local instances” should read “a respective local instance”;
Claim 18, line 3, “establishing a first forward state one or more of a plurality of instances of a service function” should read “establishing a first forwarding state for one or more of a plurality of instances of a service function”;
Appropriate correction is required.
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 1-9, and 11-12 are 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, claim limitation recites “the flow of packets” in line 13, which renders the claim vague and indefinite. It is unclear whether “the flow of packets” is referring to “a flow of packets” recited in claim 1, line 1, or “a flow of packets” recited in claim 1, line 8, or to a different/distinct flow of packets. Same rejection applies to claim 11.
Regarding claim 1, claim limitation recites “the flow of packets” in line 20, which renders the claim vague and indefinite. It is unclear whether “the flow of packets” is referring to “a flow of packets” recited in claim 1, line 1, or “a flow of packets” recited in claim 1, line 8, or to a different/distinct flow of packets. Same rejection applies to claim 11.
Regarding claim 5, claim limitation recites “the flow of packets” in line 2, which renders the claim vague and indefinite. It is unclear whether “the flow of packets” is referring to “a flow of packets” recited in claim 1, line 1, or “a flow of packets” recited in claim 1, line 8, or to a different/distinct flow of packets.
Claim 5 recites the limitation "the particular one of the respective local instance" in line 14. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Regarding claim 6, claim limitation recites “the flow of packets” in line 2 which renders the claim vague and indefinite. It is unclear whether “the flow of packets” is referring to “a flow of packets” recited in claim 1, line 1, or “a flow of packets” recited in claim 1, line 8, or to a different/distinct flow of packets.
Regarding claim 7, claim limitation recites “the flow of packets” in line 2, which renders the claim vague and indefinite. It is unclear whether “the flow of packets” is referring to “a flow of packets” recited in claim 1, line 1, or “a flow of packets” recited in claim 1, line 8, or to a different/distinct flow of packets.
Regarding claim 8, claim limitation recites “the flow of packets” in line 2, which renders the claim vague and indefinite. It is unclear whether “the flow of packets” is referring to “a flow of packets” recited in claim 1, line 1, or “a flow of packets” recited in claim 1, line 8, or to a different/distinct flow of packets.
Claim 8 recites the limitation "the forwarding information of the header" in line 9. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claim 8 recites the limitation "the identifier of the particular one of the one or more of the plurality of instances of the service function" in lines 9-10. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Regarding claim 9, claim limitation recites “the packet” in line 5, which renders the claim vague and indefinite. It is unclear whether “the packet” is referring to “initial packet” in claim 1, line 8, or to “subsequent packet” in claim 1, line 20, or to a different/distinct packet.
Claim 12 recites the limitation "the one or more instances of the plurality of instances" in line 7. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
All dependent claims are rejected as having the same deficiencies as the claims they depend from.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 4, 7, 10, 11, and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wei (US 2017/0099194 A1) in view of Honda (US 2020/0285509 A1), in view of Akashi (US 2017/0041223 A1), and further in view of You et al. (US 2019/0179797 A1), hereinafter You.
Regarding claim 1, Wei discloses
A routing device for routing a flow of packets to a service function, the routing device comprising:
a controller ([0004]: an SFC controller) comprising processing circuitry configured to:
establish a first forwarding state for one or more of a plurality of instances of the service function ([0097]: selecting, according to load information of each network service function instance, a network service function instance whose load meets a preset condition as the SFP element corresponding to the stateful SF, where the preset condition may be that load is less than a threshold, or may be that load meets a service requirement, and may be flexibly set according to a requirement herein, and in a preferred manner, a network service function instance having minimum load may be selected; & [0127]: S404: the SFC controller configures a service forwarding table in each SFF according to the new generated SFP and an SFP ID corresponding to the SFP); and
receive an initial packet of a flow of packets, the initial packet comprising a semantic identifier identifying the service function ([0145]: after an SFFO receives the packet of the service flow carrying the SFP ID from the classifier, a first hop of an SFP acquired according to the SFP ID is an sf11, so that the service flow is forwarded to a location of an sf11; in this case, a locator of the sf11 is an IP address of an SFF-A).
Wei does not explicitly disclose
the first forwarding state comprising unique indices of a normalized capacity of processing units of the one or more of the plurality of instances of the service function.
However, Honda discloses
the first forwarding state comprising unique indices of a normalized capacity of processing units of the one or more of the plurality of instances of the service function ([0022] The performance index may include at least one of strength of a received signal, CPU performance, memory capacity, or a packet Internet groper (ping) time, and the stability index may include at least one of a service on time, remaining battery capacity, or a transaction consensus participation history).
It would have been obvious to a person with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate feature of Honda to Wei because Wei discloses processing service flow (abstract) and Honda further suggests processing information (abstract).
One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to utilize the teaching of Honda in the Wei system in order to keep updated resources information.
Wei and Honda do not explicitly disclose
perform, based on the receiving the initial packet:
establishing a second forwarding state for the flow of packets to a particular one of the one or more of the plurality of instances of the service function,
preparing to send the received initial packet to a next hop towards the particular one of the one or more of the plurality of instances of the service function in accordance with the first forwarding state, and
sending the received initial packet to the next hop in accordance with the first forwarding state;
receive a subsequent packet of the flow of packets, the subsequent packet comprising the semantic identifier identifying the service function; and
perform, based on receiving the subsequent packet:
preparing to send the received subsequent packet to the next hop towards the particular one of the one or more of the plurality of instances of the service function in accordance with the second forwarding state; and
sending the received subsequent packet to the next hop in accordance with the second forwarding state.
However, Akashi discloses
perform, based on the receiving the initial packet:
preparing to send the received initial packet to a next hop towards the particular one of the one or more of the plurality of instances of the service function in accordance with the first forwarding state ([0105]: the transfer unit 141 searches the routing table based on header information of the encapsulated packet, and acquires an IP address of a next hop corresponding to a destination IP address included in the header information of the encapsulated packet and a port identifier), and
sending the received initial packet to the next hop in accordance with the first forwarding state ([0106]: the transfer unit 141 transmits, through the port 146 indicated by the port identifier acquired in step S507, the packet in which the header information has been updated (S510), and terminates the transfer processing of the packet);
perform, based on the receiving the subsequent packet,
preparing to send the received subsequent packet to the next hop towards the particular one of the one or more of the plurality of instances of the service function in accordance with the second forwarding state ([0105]: the transfer unit 141 searches the routing table based on header information of the encapsulated packet, and acquires an IP address of a next hop corresponding to a destination IP address included in the header information of the encapsulated packet and a port identifier); and
sending the received subsequent packet to the next hop in accordance with the second forwarding state ([0106]: the transfer unit 141 transmits, through the port 146 indicated by the port identifier acquired in step S507, the packet in which the header information has been updated (S510), and terminates the transfer processing of the packet).
It would have been obvious to a person with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate feature of Akashi to Wei and Honda because Wei and Honda disclose using a service forwarding table to forward a packet (Wei: [0128]) and Akashi further suggests search routing table based on header information to transmit packet ([0105-0106]).
One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to utilize the teaching of Akashi in the Wei and Honda system in order to provide efficient and reliable data delivery.
Wei, Honda, and Akashi do not explicitly disclose
perform, based on the receiving the initial packet:
establishing a second forwarding state for the flow of packets to a particular one of the one or more of the plurality of instances of the service function.
However, You discloses
perform, based on the receiving the initial packet:
establishing a second forwarding state for the flow of packets to a particular one of the one or more of the plurality of instances of the service function ([0031]: when receiving a packet of a new data stream, the processor of the network device establishes a forwarding entry for the data stream, and enables the FPGA of the network device to store, in an address table, a storage address obtained based on an index number of the forwarding entry; when receiving a subsequent packet of the data stream, the processor may obtain an index number corresponding to the forwarding entry using the address table in the FPGA, search for the forwarding entry based on the index number, and then forward the subsequent packet based on the forwarding entry).
It would have been obvious to a person with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate feature of You to Wei, Honda, and Akashi, because Wei, Honda, and Akashi disclose using a service forwarding table to forward a packet (Wei: [0128]) and You further suggests when receiving a packet of a new data stream, establishes a forwarding entry for data stream ([0031]).
One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to utilize the teaching of You in the Wei, Honda, and Akashi system in order to improve forwarding efficiency as suggested by You ([0031]),
Regarding claim 4, Wei, Honda, Akashi, and You disclose the routing device as described in claim 1. Wei, Honda, Akashi, and You further disclose
receiving the next hop from an instance table in dependence on the received semantic identifier of the service function and forwarding information of a header of the received subsequent packet as an identifier of the particular one of the one or more of the plurality of instances of the service function (Akashi: [0105]: the transfer unit 141 searches the routing table based on header information of the encapsulated packet, and acquires an IP address of a next hop corresponding to a destination IP address included in the header information of the encapsulated packet and a port identifier). Therefore, the limitations of claim 4 are rejected in the analysis of claim 1 above, and the claim is rejected on that basis.
Regarding claim 7, Wei, Honda, Akashi, and You disclose the routing device as described in claim 1. Wei further discloses
retrieving an instance iterator associated with the semantic identifier of the service function from the received initial packet ([0146]: after receiving the packet of the service flow, the SFF-A determines, according to the SFP ID and the index value in the packet of the service flow, that the packet of the service flow needs to be forwarded to the sf11 for processing).
Regarding claims 10-11 and 20, the limitations of claims 10-11 and 20 are rejected in the analysis of claim 1 above and these claims are rejected on that basis.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 14-16, and 18-19 are allowed.
Claim 12 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action.
Claims 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, and 9 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 2nd paragraph, set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Piecuch (US 2017/0346687 A1). Stores 5-tuple information from the received lead packet as the Return Association (RA) for Session X.
Dutta (US 11,792,044 B2). Assign a first tuple to a first VPN, the first tuple includes the first label block identifier and a first label index that indicates a location of a first label of the first VPN within the first block of labels.
Venkatesan et al. (US 9,608,938 B2). Emulating forwarding packets associated with flow by the switch chip using a tuple associated with the flow, the tuple comprises a source Internet Protocol (IP), a source port, a destination IP, a destination port, and a protocol.
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 KAYLEE J HUANG whose telephone number is (571)272-0080. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9AM-5PM.
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, Joon H Hwang can be reached at 571-272-4036. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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Kaylee Huang
07/04/2026
/KAYLEE J HUANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2447
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