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 .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see remarks, filed 05/26/2026, with respect to traversal of the restriction requirement have been fully considered and are persuasive. Claims 13-19 are examined herein.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 06/04/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
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.
Claims 13-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US Publication No. 2013/0051250 (“Shaffer et al.”) in view of US Publication No. 2017/0150342 (“Slater et al.”).
Regarding claim 13, Shaffer et al. discloses a method for routing data in a communication network, the method comprising:
determining that reliability of communication is to be improved ([0036] a quality of one or more links of a particular node in a communication network may be determined, and then whether the quality of the one or more links is below a threshold may also be determined);
transmitting, based on the determining that reliability of communication is to be improved, an uplink message from an end node using multicast ([0036] in response to determining that the quality of each of the one or more links is below the threshold, multi-path forwarding over a plurality of links of the particular node may be utilized for communication with the particular node);
receiving the uplink message from the end node over a multicast wireless transmission; forwarding the uplink message towards a destination node over a unicast transmission ([0043] when a node identifies that all of its uplink links ("uplinks") have low quality, the node may utilize multi-path forwarding over a plurality of its links by single-hop multicasting the communication (packet 300) from the particular node over the plurality of uplinks to a plurality of respective receivers); and
wherein the determining that reliability of communication is to be improved and the transmitting an uplink message are performed by the end ([0059] multi path forwarding used when the links are unreliable).
Additionally, in the same field of endeavor, Slater et al. discloses
receiving, after the forwarding of the uplink message, a downlink message over a unicast transmission ([0052-0053] At stage 524, the content server 180 can receive the request and respond with content corresponding to the media channel offering. The content server 180 response can correspond with the multicast server 245 request (e.g., an HTTP unicast response to an HTTP unicast request, etc.). At stage 528, the multicast server 245 can receive the content response from the content server 180 and can send the received content as a multicast response to the multicast client 235);
determining that a recipient of the downlink message is the end node ([0053] sending the multicast response can involve converting an HTTP unicast communication from the content server 180 to a multicast communication corresponding to the carrier and multicast group IDs associated with present multicasting of the requested media channel offering to the requesting client device 120. At stage 532, the multicast response can be received by the multicast client 235); and
transmitting the downlink message over multicast to the end node ([0055] when the multicast client 235 receives the multicast response from the content server 180 via the multicast server 245, the multicast client 235 can communicate a corresponding response with the content to at least the requesting client device 120 at stage 532);
wherein the transmitting the downlink message over multicast is only performed conditional on determining that the recipient of the downlink message is the end node from which the uplink message was received over multicast node ([0051] the multicast request communicated by the multicast client can include appropriate carrier and multicast group identifiers);
and wherein the receiving the uplink message, the forwarding the uplink message, the receiving the downlink message, the determining that the recipient of the downlink message is the end node, and the transmitting the downlink message are performed by a routing node ([0029] communications system 200 includes an illustrative provider-side node 250 (e.g., representing one or more of a number of gateways, core nodes, etc.).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the multi-path forwarding technique of Shaffer et al. in view of the multicast client/server response technique of Slater et al. so that a response to a communication initiated by an originating node could be returned using the multicast context associated with the originating node while maintaining the reliability from the unicast forwarding.
Claim 14 recites a system for routing data in a communication network, the system comprising an end node and a routing node, wherein the end node is configured to perform the method of claim 13. Thus claim 14 is rejected in view of Shaffer et al. and Slater et al. for the same reasons as discussed with respect to claim 13.
Claim 15 recites a non-transitory computer readable medium storing a computer program for routing data in a communication network, the computer program comprising computer program code which, when executed on an end node in the communication network, causes the end node to perform the method of claim 13. Thus claim 15 is rejected in view of Shaffer et al. and Slater et al. for the same reasons as discussed with respect to claim 13.
Claims 16-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US Publication No. 2021/0267014 (“Kakinada et al.”) in view of US Publication No. 2007/0189290 (“Tjahjono et al.”).
Regarding claim 16, Kakinada et al. discloses a method for routing data in a communication network, the method being performed by a gateway, the method comprising:
receiving a first multicast instance of an uplink message ([0033] EN transmits broadcast uplink signals received by one or more gateways (GWs) forwarded to a network node);
determining first radio metrics of the first multicast instance of the uplink message ([0042], [0044] each of the GWs communicate gateway load information and other metrics from the received uplink broadcasts. The gateway load information and other metrics or processed information based on the gateway load information and other metrics are communicated to a network server, e.g., NS 1 218);
receiving a second multicast instance of the uplink message ([0052] same broadcast uplink is received conveying EN3 data);
determining second radio metrics of the second multicast instance of the uplink message ([0064] In step 536 the network server 218 computes a composite weighted metric (CWM) for GW1 210 and a CWM for GW 2 212 for end node 1 (EN 1) 202. In step 538 the network server 218 computes a CWM for GW1 210 and a CWM for GW 2 212 for end node 2 (EN 2) 204); and
selecting a downlink routing path to correspond to one of the first multicast instance and the second multicast instance that is determined to exhibit better radio metrics.
Kakinada et al. discloses putting the selection function in the network server not the gateway. Additionally, it does not specify wherein the first and second radio metrics are based on multiple hops of the uplink message or that the node is a gateway. In a similar field of endeavor, Tjahjono et al. discloses performing decisions locally at a mesh node which can be implemented as a gateway or routing. Thus, implementing the path selection operation at a gateway rather than a centralized network server would have been a known distributed implementation of the routing decision. A distributed arrangement would reduce reliance on one point of processing and a gateway having relevant path and condition information can make a local routing decision.
Additionally, Tjahjono et al. discloses a multi-hop, ad-hoc wireless network in Fig. 1. Conditions are evaluated at each individual hop and metrics are identified. The metrics are used to make forwarding decisions at each node of a multicast path illustrated in Fig. 8 ([0050]). It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to apply the multi-hop multicast routing and hop-by-hop wireless condition evaluation of Tjahjono et al. to the multiple gateway uplink/downlink architecture of Kakinada et al. in order to permit the network to account for the quality of the respective path when selecting the downlink path improving transmission reliability and routing efficiency.
Claim 17 recites a gateway for routing data in a communication network, the gateway comprising: a processor; and a memory storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the gateway to perform the method recited in claim 16. Thus claim 17 is rejected in view of Kakinada et al. in view of Tjahjono et al. for the same reasons discussed with respect to claim 16.
Claim 18 recites a non-transitory computer readable medium storing a computer program for routing data in a communication network, the computer program comprising computer program code which, when executed on a gateway, causes the gateway to perform the method recited in claim 16. Thus claim 18 is rejected in view of Kakinada et al. in view of Tjahjono et al. for the same reasons discussed with respect to claim 16.
Conclusion
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/JIRAPON TULOP/Examiner, Art Unit 2693
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