Detailed Action
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
The Office Action is in response to claims filed on 5/20/2024 where claims 1-20 are pending and ready for examination
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 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.
Claims 1 and7 are rejected under 35 USC 102)a)(1) as being anticipated by Crossland (US 20230224213)
Regarding claim 1. Crossland discloses a processor comprising:
one or more processing circuits to (Crossland;
see e.g. [0026] “... processor 118 ...”
The Examiner notes a processor inherently comprises processing circuitry implanted in to realize functionality ):
determine a change in a port state for a network connection (Crossland; Crossland teaches whether or note policy changes should occur after a port state change which inherently requires determining that a port state change has occurred in order to subsequently perform the policy evaluation
see e.g. [0027] “ ... or whether a different, default policy should be applied to the port after a change in the port state ...” );
update one or more rules, associated with a datapath, for traffic associated with the network connection, based on the change (Crossland; Crossland teaches the modification and/or updating policies (i.e. rules) based on the change; The Examiner notes polices are equivalent to rules and impact the datapath of traffic.
see e.g. [0027] “ ... Policy and configuration data 124 may include policies or settings that may be applied to the ports 114a-114h to configure the network switch 102. A policy may generally include a port behavior and parameters. Port behavior is generally how a port handles traffic, such as whether the port is a single-endpoint port bridged onto a VLAN or a multi-endpoint trunked port. Parameters may include a VLAN parameter (e.g., which VLAN the port is bridged onto) ... or whether a different, default policy should be applied to the port after a change in the port state ...”); and
cause the traffic to be transmitted based on the updated one or more rules (Crossland; Per the policy in [0027] network traffic is transmitted based on the change of policy and/or rules
“... Policy and configuration data 124 may include policies or settings that may be applied to the ports 114a-114h to configure the network switch 102. A policy may generally include a port behavior and parameters. Port behavior is generally how a port handles traffic, such as whether the port is a single-endpoint port bridged onto a VLAN or a multi-endpoint trunked port ...”).
Regarding claim 7, Crossland discloses the processor of claim1, wherein the one or more processing circuits are associated with a network resource or a network interface controller (Crossland ([0027]); teaches configuration data applied to the switch ports, which are network resources used to control traffic flow)
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 2 is rejected under 35 USC 103 as being unpatentable over Crossland in view of Ran (US 9906401)
Regarding claim 2, Crossland discloses the processor of claim 1, Crossland does not expressly disclose wherein the one or more processing circuits are further to:
clone the one or more rules, where the update to the one or more rules is applied to the cloned one or more rules.
The Examiner has interpreted cloning as duplication
However in analogous art Ran discloses:
clone the one or more rules, where the update to the one or more rules is applied to the cloned one or more rules (Ran; Ran teaches within the context of SDN a de-duplication traffic rules within a software defined network (SDN) framework. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to implement a complementary duplication (or cloning policy) within the same SDN policy structure, since duplication and de-duplication are inverse configurations of a shared rule management mechanism, and both yield predictable control of rule redundancy and synchronization, consistent with MPEP 2144.04)
claim 13. The method of claim 8, wherein the traffic policy includes a filtering policy, a slicing policy, a masking policy, a de-duplication policy, a compression policy, or a combination thereof.
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Ran’s policies. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic.)
Claims 3 - 5 are rejected under 35 USC 103 as being unpatentable over Crossland in view of Veeraiyan (US 9736211) _ in view of Otani US 20210320885 A1
Regarding claim 3, Crossland discloses The processor of claim 1 wherein the one or more processing circuits are further to:
determine the change in the port state is associated with a first port failure (Veeraiyan; Veeraiyan discloses monitoring traffic and thresholds on virtual switch ports ([0022]) . When utilization ona sport falls below a threshold the load balancer module instructs the NIC to de-allocate the receive queue for that port – functionally indicting the port is no longer active or has failed. Thus Veeraiyan contemplates a change in port t state that corresponds to a failure condition);
select a second port (Veeraiyan teaches reallocating receive queues to other ports once a port’s utilization drops below the threshold, thereby selecting another port to handle subsequent traffic. The reallocation inherently corresponds to selecting a second port wen the first port is inactive); and
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate Veeraiyan’s scheme. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic.
Veeraiyan strongly suggest but no does not expressly disclose:
cause a port selector to change a physical connection from the first port to the second port
However in analogous art Otani discloses:
cause a port selector to change a physical connection from the first port to the second port (Otani (see e.g. [0005], [0114] discloses multiple physical NIC ports and a controllers that applies threshold based policies to govern port selection. The controller use of these thresholds to reallocate traffic between the NIC port satisfies the limitation of causing port selector to change a physical connection from a first port to a second port)
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Otani’s scheme. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of monitoring network traffic.
Regarding claim 4, Crossland in view of Veeraiyan and in further view Otani i disclose The processor of claim 3, wherein the one or more processing circuits are further to: receive a confirmation the network connection associated with the second port is active (The combined solution per Veeraiyan ([0022]).teaches that the controller monitors port level traffic and issues allocation commands only after detecting active traffic flow on a ort, thereby confirming that the network connection associated with the second port is active.)
Regarding claim 5, Crossland in view of Veeraiyan and in further view of Otani disclose the processor of claim 4, wherein the one or more rules are updated after the confirmation is received (Crossland; Crossland([0027] shows that new polices or rules are supplied following detection of a communication event that changes port state, thus the rules are updated after the communication is received).
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 USC 103 as being unpatentable over Crossland in view of Casado (US 2024/0259265)
Regarding claim 6, Crossland discloses the processor of claim 1, Crossland strongly suggests but does not expressly disclose wherein the one or more processing circuits are further to:
update a connection table associated with the datapath after the traffic is transmitted based on the updated one or more rules.
However in analogous art Casado discloses:
update a connection table associated with the datapath after the traffic is transmitted based on the updated one or more rules (Casado ([0332]) describes updating output (connection tables) that define datapath flow entries in response to network or port changes. This directly contemplates updating a connection table associated with the Datapath after traffic forwarding conditions have changed.)
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Casado’s scheme. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic.
Claims 8 and 10-15 are rejected under 35 USC 103 as being unpatentable over Veeraiyan (US 9736211) _ in view of Otani US 20210320885 A1
Regarding claim 8. Veeraiyan discloses a network system, comprising:
a network interface controller (NIC) having two or more ports (Veeraiyan; Veeraiyan teadches PNIC 322 serves as the network interface controller as it manages multiple ports and corresponding receive queues;
see e.g. Column 5, Lines 34-51” In the example illustrated in FIG. 3, host 102 includes a PNIC 322. Within virtualization software 104 are a load balancer module 328, a virtual switch 326, and VXLAN module 106. PNIC 322 facilitates a number of receive queues 324. In general, load balancer module 328 monitors the traffic on the ports on virtual switch 326 that are coupled to VMs ... if the traffic on a port on virtual switch 326 falls below the threshold, load balancer module 328 can instruct PNIC 322 to de-allocate the corresponding receive queue. Note for packets whose MAC DA/VLAN tag combination does not match any receive queue, PNIC 322 provides a default queue to store such packets. “); and
a controller including one or more processing circuits, to: determine a first status of a first port of the two or more ports has a threshold value (Veeraiyan; Veeraiyan teaches the monitoring of traffic statistics on each port of the virtual switch and determines when the measured value cross a threshold triggering allocation or deallocation of recive queues , this show the controller determines the port’s status relative to a threshold value;
Column 5, Lines 34-51” In the example illustrated in FIG. 3, host 102 includes a PNIC 322. Within virtualization software 104 are a load balancer module 328, a virtual switch 326, and VXLAN module 106. PNIC 322 facilitates a number of receive queues 324. In general, load balancer module 328 monitors the traffic on the ports on virtual switch 326 that are coupled to VMs ... if the traffic on a port on virtual switch 326 falls below the threshold, load balancer module 328 can instruct PNIC 322 to de-allocate the corresponding receive queue. Note for packets whose MAC DA/VLAN tag combination does not match any receive queue, PNIC 322 provides a default queue to store such packets. “;
establish a connection to a network using a second port of the two or more ports (Veeraiyan; Veeraiyan teaches when the controller detects that traffic on a monitored port falls below a threshold, the load balancer reallocates or deallocates the corresponding qeues and directs subsequent traffic through another available port on the virtual switch. This operation effectively establishes a network connection using a second port of the two or more ports managed by the network interface controller;
see e.g. Column 5, Lines 34-51);
Veeraiyan does not expressly disclose:
update one or more rules for traffic associated with the NIC to transmit data using the second port.
However in analogous art Otani discloses:
update one or more rules for traffic associated with the NIC to transmit data using the second port.(Otani; Otani teaches a threshold table which links performance thresholds with policy values (i.e. rules), showing tha when a threshold condition changes, the controller updates the applied policy or rule governing traffic transmission through the corresponding port)
[0114] In the threshold value table 77, a value “50 Gbps” is associated with an attribute “performance threshold value” (to be described below) as a policy, a value of “0.5” is associated with an attribute “first suitability threshold value” (to be described below), and a value “0.5” is associated with an attribute “second suitability threshold value” (to be described below), as illustrated in FIG. 12.
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Otani’s policy/rule elements. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic.
Regarding claim 10. Veeraiyan in view of Otani disclose the network system of claim 8, wherein the controller is associated with firmware of the NIC (.Veeraiyan shows the controller executing port management functions directly through the PNIC hardware that facilitates receive queues ;these operations occur at the hardware control layer, indicating the controller is implemented as firmware of the network interface controller)
Regarding claim 11, Veeraiyan in view of Otani disclose the network system of claim 8, wherein the one or more processing circuits are further to: receive confirmation that a second status of the second port of the two or more ports has a second threshold value (in Veeraiyan, the controller monitors traffic statistics for each port and allocates or reallocates receive queues when the measured values cross a threshold, thereby determining and validating the ports current state. Each port is evaluated against its own threshold condition, thus when control transitions to a second port, the controller measures and confirms that the second port’s traffic metrics satisfy a second a second independent threshold value. Otani teaches associating specific numeric thresholds with policy or performance attributes. Together these efferences show that once the second port’s monitored metrics meet a defined threshold condition, the controller receives confirmation that the port satisfies a second threshold value .
Regarding claim 12. Veeraiyan in view of Otani disclose the network system of claim 8, wherein the one or more processing circuits are further to:
select the second port based on one or more connection parameters.(In Veeraiyan, the load balancer monitors connection characteristics such as traffic volume and queue utilization for each port and when thresholds are met, directs subsequent connections through another available port. This demonstrates that the processing circuits select the second port based on connection parameters(
Regarding claim 13, Veeraiyan in view of Otani disclose The network system of claim 8, wherein the one or more processing circuits are further to:
select a third port of the two or more ports before the second port (Veeraiyan teaches that the controller monitors multiple ports managed by the PNIC and attempts to allocate or direct traffic through an available port based on traffic and threshold conditions; this demonstrates selecting a third port of the two or more ports before the second port);
determine the connection to the network, using the third port, is unsuccessful; and select the second port (Veeraiyan taches reallocating or deallocating queues when a port’s traffic falls below a threshold or the connection fails, thereby determining that the connection using the third port is unsuccessful and selecting another available port – namely the second port – to continue transmission. Otani reinforces this behavior by linking threshold evaluations with policy based port reassignment decisions)
Regarding claim 14, Veeraiyan in view of Otani disclose the network system of claim 8, wherein the one or more processing circuits are further to: determine a subset of the one or more rules includes an identifier associated with the first port(In Veeraiyan, each port of the virtual switch is managed by the controller, and each queue entry is indexed to tis corresponding port. When reallocating or modifying queues, the controller references the affected rules by that port index, thereby determining a subset of the rules that include an identifier associated with the irst port).
Regarding claim 15, Veeraiyan in view of Otani disclose the network system of claim 8, wherein the one or more processing circuits are further to:
determine a priority for a first rule of the one or more rule associated with the traffic(Veeraiyan teaches that the controller changes multiple receive queues associated with different ports and distributes packets among them based on measured traffic conditions, this operation requires the controller to determine a priority for each rule governing the traffic flow so that packets are not randomly assigned); and
responsive to the first status having the threshold value, assign a lower priority to the first rule (When the monitored status of the first port satisfies the threshold value indicating reduced utilization, the controller adjusts traffic distribution by assigning a lower priority to the first rule associated with that port, thereby directing traffic toward other ports with higher active priority).
Claim 9 us rejected under 35 USC 103 as being unpatentable over Veeraiyan in view of Otani and in further view of Mizrahi et al. “Tme4:Time for SDN:, February 2016
Regarding claim 9, Veeraiyan in view of Otani disclose The network system of claim 8, Veeraiyan does not expressly disclose wherein the one or more rules are updated faster than a threshold period of time corresponding to a link breakup time for the network.
However in analogous art Mizrahi discloses:
wherein the one or more rules are updated faster than a threshold period of time corresponding to a link breakup time for the network.(Mizrahi; Mizrahi teaches that for voice and video traffic, a frame loss ration limits service interruption to no more than approximately six milliseconds per minute. It further states that path reconfiguration in an SDN environment must occur within this short interval to prevent disruption. Accordingly the controller updates the network rules within a period of a few milliseconds which is faster than the threshold period of time corresponding to the link break up or service interruption time,
see e.g. Section B, Page 1, Column 2, Page 2, Column 1)
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Mizrahi’s network attributes. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of provisioning services.
Claims 16 -18 and 20 are rejected under 35 USC 103 as being unpatentable over Madalika (US 11,671,429 B1) in view of Casado (US 2024/0259265)
Regarding claim 16, Madalika discloses a computer-implemented method, comprising:
determining a network connection to a target port is established (Mandalika; Mandalika teaches determining whether connection ports (i.e. target port(s)) are active or available and selects appropriate interconnections through a switch fabric;
see e.g. Column 7,Lines 12 - 17 “...In one example, portal 3 determines that a connection point (e.g., a port) to customer network 6A and connection point (e.g., a port) to customer network 6B is not in use or reserved and is thus available to satisfy interconnection order 11...” );
The Examiner notes the technological framework presented above may be executed within an environment supported by Software Defined Networking (see e.g. Column 8, Lines 6 11)
Although Mandalika discloses the determination of connection port status and Software Defined Networking (SDN) which provides for polices and/or rules for the configuration of network element attributes (e.g. ports), Mandalika does not expressly teach the conventional steps of:
identifying, within a software defined datapath, one or more rules associated with a prior port; generating,
for the software defined datapath, one or more updated rules replacing the prior port with the target port; and
causing transmission along the network connection according to the one or more updated rules.
However in analogous art Casado discloses:
identifying, within a software defined datapath, one or more rules associated with a prior port (Casado; Canada within the context of Software Defined Networking (i..e supports software defined datapath_ teaches a rules engine reads the input tables that identify port-specific information to populate flow entries; Thus it identifies within a software defined datapath, the rules associated with each (prior) port;
see e.g. [0332]) “The rules engine 3115 is similar to the rules engine 1925 described above by reference to FIG. 19. The rules engine 3115 of different embodiments performs different combinations of database operations on different sets of RE input tables to populate and/or modify different sets of output tables 3120. For instance, the rules engine 3115 modifies logical datapaths specified in the output table 3140 when the input table 3135 is changed to indicate that a port of a logical switch is enabled for port security. The output table 3140 includes flow entries and/or logical datapaths that specify the actions for the logical switch to perform on the network data sent from one port to another of the logical switch. The output table 3140 may be a result of several table joins and selects performed by the rules engine 3115 on a set of input tables as well as functions and constants. In addition to the input table 3135, the rules engine 3115 may use other input tables as well as functions and constants in order to modify the output table 3140. Other input tables may include tables that store the data link layer addresses (e.g., MAC addresses, etc.) of the ports of the logical switch and tables that store the network layer addresses (e.g., IP addresses, etc.) of the ports. Other input tables may also include tables that store VIF addresses and tables that store PIF addresses of the ports”
see e.g.[0003] “In response, there is a growing movement, driven by both industry and academia, towards a new network control paradigm called Software-Defined Networking (SDN). In the SDN paradigm, a network controller, running on one or more servers in a network, controls, maintains, and implements control logic that governs the forwarding behavior of shared network switching elements on a per user basis. Making network management decisions often requires knowledge of the network state. To facilitate management decision making, the network controller creates and maintains a view of the network state and provides an application programming interface upon which management applications may access a view of the network state”)
generating, for the software defined datapath, one or more updated rules replacing the prior port with the target port (Casado; Casado teaches when a port entry in the input table is changed, the rules engine modifies the corresponding logical datapaths and flow entries, thereby generating updated rules in the software defined datapath that replace the prior port reference with the new target port reference;
see e.g. [0332]); and
causing transmission along the network connection according to the one or more updated rules (Casado; Casado teaches the updated flow entries define how traffic is forwarded between ports, thus the controller causes transmission of network data along the connection in accordance with the updated tables;
see e.g. [0332]
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Casado’s SDN scheme. The motivation being the combed solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased efficiencies of managing network traffic.
The examiner notes the scenario described above represents only one example use case within software defined networking, and a person of ordinary skill in the art would readily recognize that any network element attributes , including those of a prior or target ort could be modified in the same manner. Such functionality reflects the ordinary and expected flexibility of software defined networking architectures , which inherently permit dynamic modification of flow-table or port attributes by design; therefore , the claimed subject matter does not amount to anything more than the predictable use of known SDN principles to chive their expected result.
Regarding claim 17, Mandalika in view of Casado discloses the computer-implemented method of claim 16, wherein the generating the one yr more updated rules is a firmware operation associated with a network interface controller(Because the controller executes these modifications at the hardware control layer that governs port behavior, a person of ordinary skill in the art would understand that the rule generation logic is implemented in firmware instructions executed by the network controller’s processing circuitry—functionally equivalent to firmware in a network interface controller that programs forwarding rules and port mappings. Thus, generating the updated rules a firmware operation associated with the network interface controller;
See e.g. [0332]
See e.g. [0377] In this specification, the term “software” is meant to include firmware residing in read-only memory or applications stored in magnetic storage, which can be read into memory for processing by a processor. Also, in some embodiments, multiple software inventions can be implemented as sub-parts of a larger program while remaining distinct software inventions. In some embodiments, multiple software inventions can also be implemented as separate programs. Finally, any combination of separate programs that together implement a software invention described here is within the scope of the invention. In some embodiments, the software programs, when installed to operate on one or more electronic systems, define one or more specific machine implementations that execute and perform the operations of the software programs)
Regarding claim 18, Mandalika in view of Casado discloses the computer-implemented method of claim 16, further comprising: deactivating the one or more rules (When the input table is updated, the controller rewrites the output table flow entries – removing or invalidating the prior rules and inserting the modified ones that define the new forwarding actions, A person of ordinary skill would recognize this as deactivating the former rules and activating the updated rules within the software defined datapath
See e.g. [0332]));
and activating the one or more updated rules(When the input table is updated, the controller rewrites the output table flow entries – removing or invalidating the prior rules and inserting the modified ones that define the new forwarding actions, A person of ordinary skill would recognize this as deactivating the former rules and activating the updated rules within the software defined datapath
See e.g. [0332]));
;
Regarding claim 20, Mandalika in view of Casado disclose the computer-implemented method of claim 16, wherein the target port is selected by a port selector (The combined solution per Casado within the context of SDN teaches the controller’s rules engine determines, through its flow entry logic, which output port will forward each packet, this flow entry mapping function as a port selector within the software defined datapath. Accordingly, the target port is selected by the controller’s inherent port selection mechanism defined in the flow table;
See e.g. Casado [0332]))
Claim 19 is rejected under 35 USC 103 as being unpatentable over Mandalika in view of Casado and in further view of Knechtel (US 2019/0034285)_
Regarding claim 19, Mandalika in view of Casado discloses The computer-implemented method of claim 18, Mandalika does not expressly disclose wherein the one or more updated rules are a cloned version of the one or more rules
The examiner notes the term “closed version” has been interpreted as a “sand box” or “isolate” version
However in analogous art Knechtel discloses:
cloned version of the one or more rules (Knechtel;
see e.g. [0032] “... instantiating a “sand box” rule engine ...)
Therefore it would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to implement Knechtel’s sand box rules engine. The motivation being the combined solution provides for implementing a known technique resulting in increased security of the SDN platform.
Mandalika in view of Casado and in further view of Knechtel disclose
wherein the one or more updated rules are a cloned version of the one or more rules (The combined solution provides for implementing the updated rules as detailed in the independent claim with Knechtel’s sand box scheme).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the Examiner should be directed to TODD L. BARKER whose telephone number is (571) 270 0257. The Examiner can normally be reached on Monday through Friday, 7:30am to 5:00pm.
If attempts to reach the Examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the Examiner's supervisor Vivek Srivastava can be reached on (571) 272 7304
/TODD L BARKER/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2449
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