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 .
Claims 1-21 are pending in the application.
Claims 9-21 are withdrawn from consideration.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of Invention I, claims 1-8, in the reply filed on January 22, 2026 is acknowledged.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on January 22, 2026 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97, and accordingly, the IDS has been considered by the examiner.
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 1-2 and 6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Cadieux et al. US Patent No. 7,165,192 (“Cadieux”).
Regarding claim 1, Cadieux teaches a method for diagnosis in a network comprising:
issuing a probe on a subset of devices on the network (col. 8, lines 43-46. probe agent 16 may be configured to probe a subset of the nodes from the static list at a time);
parsing, with the probe, alert information from the subset of the network to identify an anomaly (col. 2, lines 64-65. probes may be used to detect an event or events in any of the nodes. col. 5, lines 47-53. probe may read the status registers. node may include a log file or files into which software on the node may write status (including indications of faults/events as well as, in some cases, indications of correct operation) and the probe may examine the log files. gather any information from a node which may indicate a fault on the node.); and
diagnosing an issue for more devices than just the subset of the network based on the anomaly detected by the probe (col. 7, lines 60-col. 8, line 9. apply fault policies to the probe results to determine if the probe results indicate a fault, table of events and possible root causes. by matching events from the suspect node and its neighbor nodes… finding common root causes. col. 8, lines 54-67. identify the neighbor nodes of the suspect node. probing the nodes in the dynamic probe list)
Regarding claim 2, Cadieux teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the network comprises a plurality of devices and the probe is only issued on one subset of the plurality of the devices on the network (col. 2, lines 40-42. networked system including a plurality of nodes. col. 3, lines 21-26. probe the suspect node and/or one or more neighbor nodes).
Regarding claim 6, Cadieux teaches the method of claim 2, wherein the anomaly is from a neighbor table check, further wherein a neighbor for one device comprises a device adjacent to the device (col. 8, lines 1-4. fault policies may include a table of events and possible root causes of that event. by matching events from the suspect node and its neighbor nodes to the table and finding common root causes).
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 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cadieux in view of Li et al. US Patent Publication No. 2020/0304410 (“Li”).
Regarding claim 3, Cadieux does not teach the method of claim 2, wherein the anomaly is from a route table check, further wherein a route is a connection between at least two of the devices.
Li discloses determining anomaly from a route table check, further wherein a route is a connection between at least two of the devices (para. [0070] network checking device 110 may check a forwarding table of any network node on the network path 120. para. [0071] feedback node that sends the notification message is inconsistent with the network topology information). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Cadieux with Li’s disclosure of determining anomaly from a route table check. One of ordinary of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do so because it would have been beneficial to provide the capability to check and locate incorrect forwarding tables for correct forwarding of packets (para. [0068]).
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cadieux in view of Li, Ruffini et al. US Patent Publication No. 2017/0331575 (“Ruffini”), and Reddy et al. US Patent Publication No. 2019/0260801 (“Reddy”).
Regarding 4, Cadieux does not teach the method of claim 3, further comprising: filtering critical routes; comparing data from the filtering with a baseline; and determining changes to the critical routes based on the comparison.
Ruffini discloses filtering critical routes (para. [0040] identify a set of probing paths necessary to monitor network timing performance by network tomography. para. [0061] analyzing probing packets sent on a plurality of end-to-end paths over links of the network. para. [0068] identify the critical links/paths). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Cadieux with Ruffini’s disclosure of filtering critical routes. Ruffini is similarly directed to using probes for network analysis. One of ordinary of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do so because it would have been beneficial to have further monitored performance of the network links.
Reddy discloses comparing data from routes with a baseline; and determining changes to the routes based on the comparison (para. [0286] detection engine 710 may detect changes by comparing current routes to previous routes or historical routes. detection engine 710 may compare routes on a per packet basis or based on a time interval or based on a session. para. [0294] indication… include information to facilitate determining the severity, how detected, when detected). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Cadieux and Ruffini with Reddy’s disclosure such that Reddy’s performing analysis, including the comparing and determining, is applied for the filtered critical routes. One of ordinary of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do so in order to have similarly identified changes caused by potential attacks.
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cadieux in view of Li, Ruffini, Reddy, and Labovitz et al US Patent Publication No. 2011/0296005 (“Labovitz”).
Regarding claim 5, Cadieux does not specifically teach the method of claim 4, wherein the alert information comprises the determined changes.
Labovitz discloses alert information comprising determined changes (para. [0174] topology state changes that they wish to be notified of when they occur. para. [0175] event notification service is very useful for detecting changes to correct routes, and for being alerted to changes in network connectivity. event notification service is also used, for example, by the anomaly detection engine to notify users about detected anomalies). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Cadieux, Ruffini, and Reddy with Labovitz’s disclosure of providing alert information comprising determined changes. One of ordinary of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do so because Cadieux discloses using probes to collect and convey information to determine faults. It would have been similarly beneficial to provide notifications of topology changes and detected anomalies.
Claims 7-8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cadieux in view of Qian et al. US Patent Publication No. 2010/0085879 (“Qian”).
Regarding claim 7, Cadieux teaches the method of claim 6, further comprising: receiving a neighbor status data. Cadieux does not teach receiving along with baseline data; comparing the neighbor status data with the baseline data; and identifying the anomaly based on the comparing from the neighbor status data.
Qian discloses receiving a neighbor status data along with baseline data; comparing the neighbor status data with the baseline data; and identifying the anomaly based on the comparing from the neighbor status data (para. [0022] diagnoser 215 directs the example data collector 140 to collect new copies of the neighbor tables from the pair of PE routers 115A-D, and compares the pairs of neighbor tables to determine whether an EIGRP configuration problem). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Cadieux with Labovitz’s disclosure. One of ordinary of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do so because Cadieux discloses detecting the state of neighbor nodes and determining faults. It would have been beneficial to compare status data to further diagnose network problems.
Regarding claim 8, Cadieux does not teach the method of claim 7, wherein the alert information is based on the comparison.
Qian discloses alert information based on the comparison (para. [0022] diagnoser 135 assigns the trouble ticket to an appropriate work center 130 for resolution). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified Cadieux with Labovitz’s disclosure such that the alert information of Cadieux is based on the comparison. One of ordinary of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to do so because Cadieux discloses detecting the state of neighbor nodes and determining faults. It would have been beneficial to compare status data to further diagnose network problems.
Examiner’s Note
The following prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure.
Galand et al. US Patent Publication No. 2005/0135369 (para. [0013] receiving a routing table update message. para. [0055] active probe message. para. [0060] active probe message will try to reach the IP prefix addressed. para. [0062] active probe message is sent back to the BGP border router. Probe AS module 33 of router 7 compares in step 47 the AS numbers collected by the active probe message to the AS numbers extracted from AS_Path attribute 17 of the BGP Update message 10. BGP update message is deleted and corrupted AS will be considered suspicious)
Duda US Patent Publication No. 2017/0331711 (para. [0021] if the device receives forwarding information as the state change information, the device can determine if critical paths are reachable by evaluating one or more network asserts associated with these critical paths. para. [0032] network assert, such as sending a notification, gathering data, logging data).
Krishnan et al. US Patent Publication No. 2021/0306249 (para. [0027] RIB, the FIB, and the forwarding tables are consistent when each database and/or table includes the same routing entries. As described below, collector daemon 114 receives consistency information. determine which routing entries are inconsistent)
Conclusion
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/JOSHUA JOO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2445