DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Claims 1-20 are pending.
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, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 14-16, 18 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Goud Gadela et al, U. S. patent no. 11,323,371, hereinafter known as Gadela.
As to claim 1, Gadela dicloses a method, comprising: setting, at a source node of an SRv6 network, one or more bits of a packet to indicate an ingress service identifier associated with an ingress service, where the ingress service is behind a source node; transmitting, by the source node, the packet towards a destination device of the SRv6 network (Gadela, Figure 1, column 3, lines, 32-59, ingress node (source node) adds segment ID (SID) to packet and routes it through a particular path to egress node (destination node); Column 6, lines 44-54, Ingress node processing SRv6 packets); accessing, at the source node and from a network device in communication with the source node, an Internet Control Message Protocol error message that includes a portion of the packet indicating the ingress service identifier (Gadela, Column 12, lines 7-30, ICMP message sent with error from destination node); and identifying, based on the ingress service identifier indicated by the Internet Control Message Protocol error message for the packet, the ingress service associated with the packet (Gadela, column 11, lines 19-65 to column 12, lines 1-21, ICMP message used for error indication where the message includes SID to identify the SRv6 message).
As to claim 4, Gadela discloses further comprising: searching, by the source node, for the ingress service identifier based on the portion of the packet indicating the ingress service identifier present within the Internet Control Message Protocol error message (Gadela, column 11, lines 19-65 to column 12, lines 1-21, ICMP message used for error indication where the message includes SID to identify the SRv6 message).
As to claim 5, Gadela discloses the one or more bits of the packet indicating the ingress service identifier being part of a flow label of the packet (Gadela, Column 7, lines 17-29, SID message with 128-bits).
As to claim 7, Gadela discloses the one or more bits of the packet indicating the ingress service identifier being part of a Segment Routing Header (SRH) Type Length Value (TLV) of the packet (Gadela, column 4, lines 11-24, service identifier as part of the Segment Routing Header as known in the art).
As to claim 8, Gadela discloses the ingress service identifier being associated with a plurality of ingress services and/or a plurality of policies that share a common path (Gadela, Column 4, lines 11-24, column 6, lines 44-54, SRv6 communication with SID associated with a flow and service).
As to claims 12, 14-16, 18, the claims are rejected as applied to claims 1, 3-5 and 8 respectively above by Gadela.
As to claim 20, the claim is rejected as applied to claim 1 above by Gadela.
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.
Claim 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gadela in view of Hirose, Ryota et al, application no. 2007/0076618, hereinafter known as Hirose.
As to claim 3, Gadela discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising. Gadela does not disclose however Hirose discloses transmitting, by the source node and based on the Internet Control Message Protocol error message, a message towards the ingress service that indicates that the packet is too large (Hirose, Figure 7 and 8, [004]-[0047], determining a packet is too large during discovery or other communication attempts, indicating it as an error in the ICMP message and sending it back to source node providing the service).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Gadela to include the limitations of transmitting, by the source node and based on the Internet Control Message Protocol error message, a message towards the ingress service that indicates that the packet is too large as taught by Hirose. Use of error message sent to the source node is well known in the art to enable the source node to adjust communications as needed to mitigate errors.
Claims 10, 11 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gadela in view of Sundar et al, application no. 2016/0234101, hereinafter known as Sundar.
As to claim 10, Gadela discloses the method of claim 1. Gadela does not disclose however Sundar discloses the packet being a Path Maximum Transmission Unit Discovery probe packet (Sundar, Figure 2, [0027], path maximum transmission unit (PMTU) discover packet used for path discovery).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Gadela to include the limitations of the packet being a Path Maximum Transmission Unit Discovery probe packet as taught by Sundar. Use of PMTU message are well known in the art.
As to claim 11, Gadela and Sundar discloses the method of claim 10, further comprising. Gadela does not disclose however Sundar discloses generating the Path Maximum Transmission Unit Discovery probe packet that includes the ingress service identifier for a plurality of ingress services and/or a plurality of policies that share a common path (Sundar, Figure 2, [0027], path maximum transmission unit discover packet used for path discovery, [0030]-[0034], PMTU indicated with bits, used for discovery path among plural nodes and used to route packets with the shared bit indicator on the particular path).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Gadela to include the limitations of generating the Path Maximum Transmission Unit Discovery probe packet that includes the ingress service identifier for a plurality of ingress services and/or a plurality of policies that share a common path as taught by Sundar. Probe or discovery messages are used to determine topology and other metrics of the network so packets can be routed accordingly.
As to claim 19, the claim is rejected as applied to claim 10 above by Gadela in view of Sundar.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2, 6, 9, 13 and 17 are 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.
Conclusion
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/GAUTAM SHARMA/ Examiner, Art Unit 2467
/HASSAN A PHILLIPS/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2467
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