CTNF 18/601,617 CTNF 89689 Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status 07-03-aia AIA 15-10-aia The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA. DETAILED ACTION Claims 1-12, 14, 16-22 are pending. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103 07-20-aia AIA 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. 07-20-02-aia AIA 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. 07-06 AIA 15-10-15 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 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. 07-21-aia AIA Claim 1, 6, 7, 12, 14, 20 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang et al. (US 2020/0021523) in view of Bandekar et al. (US 2022/0321448) . For claim 1, Wang teaches: A designated forwarder (DF) election method, wherein the method is performed by a first network device (see at least fig. 4, 12, NVE devices may comprise processor/memory for communications) , and the method comprises: receiving an Ethernet virtual private network (EVPN) Ethernet segment (ES) route advertised by a second network device, wherein the EVPN ES route comprises an Ethernet segment identifier (ESI) (see at least 0134-0136, a first NVE device may receive an Ethernet Auto-Discovery (A-D) per Ethernet segment (ES) route from a second NVE device, which may carry an ESI label) , the ESI identifies an Ethernet segment, and the Ethernet segment comprises a first link and a second link (see at least 0136, fig. 4, “After receiving the Ethernet A-D per ES route, the first NVE device may determine, based on an ESI included in the Ethernet A-D per ES route, that the second CE device is not only connected to the first NVE device, but also connected to the second NVE device.” See fig. 4, multiple links are shown) , wherein the first network device and the second network device each are configured with a first broadcast domain (see at least 0077, 0079, NVE devices may be in a same BD) , a first gateway accesses the first broadcast domain of the first network device through the first link (see at least fig. 4, a second CE device (first gateway) may connect to the first NVE device through an ES 2 link) , the first network device and the second network device each configure the ESI in the first broadcast domain (see at least 0079, 0136, multiple NVE devices may share the same BD, thus configured ESI routes for the NVE devices may be in the BD) , and the first gateway and the second gateway access a same EVPN site (see at least fig. 4, the CE devices may connect to the same NVE device site/set of NVE devices) ; and performing designated forwarder (DF) election based on the EVPN ES route, to determine that the first network device is a non-DF in the first broadcast domain (see at least 0197, 0121, fig. 4, the first NVE device may be determined as a DF or NDF based on the ES routes. See fig. 4, first NVE device may be NDF) . Wang does not explicitly teach: … a second gateway accesses the first broadcast domain of the second network device through the second link . Bandekar from an analogous art teaches (see at least 0017, fig. 1a, ES links from multiple CE devices may be considered as a single ES 126, with a same ESI label) . Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate Bandekar to the system of Wang, so the Ethernet segment comprises links from multiple CE devices e.g. both first and second CE devices, including a link from the first CE device (second gateway) to the second NVE device (second network device), as suggested by Bandekar. The motivation would have been to enhance communication by implementing link aggregation for multiple CE devices (Bandekar 0015-0017) . For claim 6, Wang, Bandekar teach claim 1, Wang further teaches: further comprising: receiving broadcast, unknown unicast, and multicast (BUM) traffic from the first broadcast domain, wherein the BUM traffic is discarded based on the first network device being the non-DF in the first broadcast domain (see at least 0123-0124, 0079, BUM traffic may be received by NVE devices in the BD. See at least 0125, when an NVE device determines its ES link to a CE device is in an NDF state, the NVE device does not forward BUM traffic on that ES link to that CE device) . Claim 7 recites an apparatus substantially similar to the method of claim 1 and is rejected under similar reasoning. Claim 12 recites an apparatus substantially similar to the method of claim 6 and is rejected under similar reasoning. Claim 14 recites a non-transitory computer readable storage medium substantially similar to the method of claim 1 and is rejected under similar reasoning. Claim 20 recites a non-transitory computer readable storage medium substantially similar to the method of claim 6 and is rejected under similar reasoning . 07-21-aia AIA Claim 2, 8, 16 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang et al. (US 2020/0021523) in view of Bandekar et al. (US 2022/0321448) in view of Chalapathy et al. (US 2017/0141963) . For claim 2, Wang, Bandekar teach claim 1, but not explicitly: wherein the ESI configured by the first network device is associated with a first priority, and the ESI configured by the second network device is associated with a second priority; and the EVPN ES route further comprises the second priority; and wherein the performing the designated forwarder (DF) election based on the EVPN ES route comprises: performing the DF election based on the first priority and the second priority . Chalapathy from an analogous art teaches (see at least 0010, “The DF election module determines a set of priorities for links between the network device and the plurality of PE devices. Each PE device in the plurality of PE devices has one active link to the network device with a highest priority, and remaining links to the network device have decreasing priority without overlap between the PE devices in the plurality of PE devices. The DF election module determines an active link minimum based on a total number of links to be active in the Ethernet segment, and reassigns active links between the network device and the PE devices according to the set of priorities for the links thereby identifying a new DF, in response to a change in connection of PE devices to the Ethernet segment”) . Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate Chalapathy to the system of claim 1, so the first and second network devices configure ESI links with varying priorities e.g. higher and lower, and a DF elected based on the link priorities, as suggested by Chalapathy. The motivation would have been to enhance communication by choosing appropriate priority links when determining DF (Chalapathy 0010) . Claim 8 recites an apparatus substantially similar to the method of claim 2 and is rejected under similar reasoning. Claim 16 recites a non-transitory computer readable storage medium substantially similar to the method of claim 2 and is rejected under similar reasoning . 07-21-aia AIA Claim 4, 10, 18 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang et al. (US 2020/0021523) in view of Bandekar et al. (US 2022/0321448) in view of Shukla et al. (US Patent 9,391,885) . For claim 4, Wang, Bandekar teach claim 1, but not explicitly: further comprising: receiving a route withdrawal message that is advertised by the second network device and that is used for withdrawing the EVPN ES route, wherein the route withdrawal message comprises the ESI; and re-performing the DF election in response to receiving the route withdrawal message . Shukla from an analogous art teaches (see at least col. 16 line 26-32, a PE router may send AD route withdrawal message comprising ESI; col. 16 line 60-62, a new PE router may then be elected as new DF) . Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate Shukla to the system of claim 1, so an AD route withdrawal may be received from the second network device comprising ESI, and a new DF elected accordingly, as suggested by Shukla. The motivation would have been to enhance communication by reselecting the DF when link failure occurs at a network device (Shukla col. 16 lines 60-62) . Claim 10 recites an apparatus substantially similar to the method of claim 4 and is rejected under similar reasoning. Claim 18 recites a non-transitory computer readable storage medium substantially similar to the method of claim 4 and is rejected under similar reasoning . 07-21-aia AIA Claim 5, 11, 19 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang et al. (US 2020/0021523) in view of Bandekar et al. (US 2022/0321448) in view of Rampalli et al. (US 2022/0158899) . For claim 5, Wang, Bandekar teach claim 1, but not explicitly: wherein the first gateway and the second gateway are broadband network gateways (BNGs) . Rampalli from an analogous art teaches (see at least 0021, fig. 1, “In one implementation, the BNG 124 may be connected to a provider edge (PE) device 126 to receive and provide communications and other data to the connected networks 104, 106. The PE 126 may, in some implementations, provide an interface for several BNG 124 of the network 102, which in turn may provide an interface for several residential gateways (RGs) 114, 120.”) . Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate Rampalli to the system of claim 1, so the first and second gateways may comprise BNG devices, as suggested by Rampalli. The motivation would have been to enhance communication by implementing BNG functionality in an IP network (Rampalli 0021) . Claim 11 recites an apparatus substantially similar to the method of claim 5 and is rejected under similar reasoning. Claim 19 recites a non-transitory computer readable storage medium substantially similar to the method of claim 5 and is rejected under similar reasoning . 07-21-aia AIA Claim 22 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang et al. (US 2020/0021523) in view of Bandekar et al. (US 2022/0321448) in view of Chalapathy et al. (US 2017/0141963) in view of Shukla et al. (US Patent 9,391,885) . For claim 22, Wang, Bandekar, Chalapathy teaches claim 2, but not explicitly: further comprising: receiving a route withdrawal message that is advertised by the second network device and that is used for withdrawing the EVPN ES route, wherein the route withdrawal message comprises the ESI; and re- performing the DF election in response to receiving the route withdrawal message . Shukla from an analogous art teaches (see at least col. 16 line 26-32, a PE router may send AD route withdrawal message comprising ESI; col. 16 line 60-62, a new PE router may then be elected as new DF) . Thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate Shukla to the system of claim 2, so an AD route withdrawal may be received from the second network device comprising ESI, and a new DF elected accordingly, as suggested by Shukla. The motivation would have been to enhance communication by reselecting the DF when link failure occurs at a network device (Shukla col. 16 lines 60-62) . Allowable Subject Matter 12-151-08 AIA 07-43 12-51-08 Claim 3, 9, 17, 21 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. For claim 3, 9, 17, 21 the prior art fails to teach/suggest: wherein the EVPN ES route further comprises an internet protocol (IP) address of the second network device and an identifier of the first broadcast domain; and wherein the performing the designated forwarder (DF) election based on the EVPN ES route comprises: performing the DF election based on an IP address of the first network device, the IP address of the second network device, and the identifier of the first broadcast domain . The closest prior art Wang et al. (US 2020/0021523) discloses EVPN ES route transmitted between devices in a same BD (0134-0136, 0077, 0079) but not the limitations of the claim. Conclusion 07-96 AIA The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Boutros et al. (US 2015/0006757) discloses virtual private wire services using E-VPN . 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Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /Siren Wei/ Patent Examiner Art Unit 2467 Application/Control Number: 18/601,617 Page 2 Art Unit: 2467 Application/Control Number: 18/601,617 Page 4 Art Unit: 2467 Application/Control Number: 18/601,617 Page 5 Art Unit: 2467 Application/Control Number: 18/601,617 Page 6 Art Unit: 2467 Application/Control Number: 18/601,617 Page 8 Art Unit: 2467 Application/Control Number: 18/601,617 Page 9 Art Unit: 2467
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