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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This action is in response to an application filed March 18, 2024. Claims 1-20 are pending in this application.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Deval et al. (US 2020/0314011 A1).
With respect to claim 1, Deval discloses a network interface controller or card (NIC) (Abstract and [0001], NIC), comprising:
memory storing a flow table (Abstract, host memory match action tables); and
a pipeline comprising circuitry configured to:
retrieve an identification (ID) from a packet received at the NIC ([0033], identify a profile associated with a packet and inspected by processing pipeline),
identify a plurality of sub-entries in the flow table using the ID ([0033], profile lookup may determine whether packet belongs to flow for which a match-action entry exists),
generate a key using multiple data fields in the packet ([0034], generate a match key to identify a corresponding match-action entry), and
iterate through the plurality of sub-entries to determine whether one of the plurality of sub-entries comprises a unique ID matching the unique ID, wherein a match indicates that the packet is part of a network flow assigned to one of the plurality of sub-entries ([0034] and [0055], unique match key is used to identify packet flows).
With respect to claim 2, Deval discloses the NIC of claim 1, wherein the pipeline is further configured to:
upon determining there is no match with the plurality of sub-entries, identify a free sub-entry in the plurality of sub-entries; claim the free sub-entry for a network flow containing the packet (Abstract, if no match, a new entry is added to table); and
store the key for the packet as the unique ID for the network flow containing the packet (Abstract and [0034]).
With respect to claim 3, Deval discloses the NIC of claim 1, wherein the pipeline is further configured to:
upon determining there is no match with the plurality of sub-entries, identify a first sub-entry in the plurality of sub-entries with an expired timestamp ([0040]);
claim the first sub-entry for a network flow containing the packet ([0033]); and
store the key for the packet as the unique ID for the network flow containing the packet (Abstract and [0034]).
With respect to claim 4, Deval discloses the NIC of claim 1, wherein the pipeline is further configured to:
upon determining there is a match with one of the plurality of sub-entries, store the packet as part of the network flow assigned to the one of the plurality of sub-entries ([0033]).
With respect to claim 5, Deval discloses the NIC of claim 4, wherein the pipeline is further configured to:
reset a timestamp stored in the one of the plurality of sub-entries ([0039]).
With respect to claim 6, Deval discloses the NIC of claim 1, wherein different IDs in packets received at the NIC map to different, non-overlapping pluralities of sub-entries in the flow table ([0055]).
With respect to claim 7, Deval discloses the NIC of claim 6, wherein the different, non-overlapping pluralities of sub-entries correspond to different rows in the flow table ([0055]).
With respect to claim 8, Deval discloses the NIC of claim 1, further comprising:
a plurality of flow tables, wherein the ID is used to identify a plurality of sub- entries in each of the plurality of flow tables in parallel ([0055]).
With respect to claim(s) 9-20, the integrated circuit and method of claim(s) 9-20 does/do not limit or further define over the network interface controller or card of claim(s) 1-4. The limitations of claim(s) 9-20 is/are essentially similar to the limitations of claim(s) 1-4. Therefore, claim(s) 9-20 is/are rejected for the same reasons as claim(s) 1-4. Please see rejection above.
Conclusion
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/ESTHER B. HENDERSON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2458 December 17, 2025