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 Office Action is responsive to the applicants’ Amendment filed on March 16, 2026, in which claims 1-20 are pending.
Response to Amendment
Applicant has amended claims 1-2, 6, 9-11, 15, and 18-19, claims 1- are pending.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
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(s) 1-4, 6-7, 9-13, 15-16, and 18-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gupta et al. (US 20190288946 A1) hereinafter “Gupta”.
As to claim 1, Gupta discloses a system for providing adaptive routing (Gupta, abstract [43-44], discloses adaptive load-balancing/routing), the system comprising one or more circuits to:
route data using a first adaptive routing technique (Gupta [5-6], discloses wherein the packet processors may forward incoming data across the internal switch fabric via the AF link towards a destination packet processor);
detect a ratio of ingress flows to egress flows is below a threshold (Gupta [43-44], discloses wherein the traffic flow rate is below a threshold traffic flow rate); and
in response to detecting the ratio of ingress flows to egress flows is below the threshold, switch from routing the data using the first adaptive routing technique to routing the data using a second adaptive routing technique, wherein the first adaptive routing technique comprises distributing the data across a plurality of ports and the second adaptive routing technique comprises allocating at least one port for routing the data (Gupta [37-38, 41-44], discloses wherein vPE determines/detects the flow is below a certain threshold, wherein multiple ports are configured to communicate with a communication network and a network switch including multiple ports and switching circuitry, and teaches wherein the techniques provide a highly effective alternative to local AR rerouting packets to a different output port of the detecting switch).
As to claim 2, Gupta discloses the system of claim 1, wherein the one or more circuits are further to compare a current bandwidth to a bandwidth threshold (Gupta [6, 28-30], discloses wherein response to determining from this comparison that the bandwidth of the destination packet processor is oversubscribed or is likely to become oversubscribed, the source virtual network node may update its forwarding plane data structures so as to reduce a likelihood of selecting the destination packet processor for forwarding packets).
As to claim 3, Gupta discloses the system of claim 2, wherein detecting the ratio of ingress flows to egress flows is below the threshold is performed in response to determining the current bandwidth is lower than the bandwidth threshold (Gupta [41-43], discloses wherein the total traffic flow rate from vPE 22 is below a threshold bandwidth (e.g., 20%) of the total bandwidth for PPs 24E-24H, the dynamic weight of each of destination PPs 24E-24H in forwarding plane data structure 42A is restored to 1 and forwarding plane data structure 42A is updated to evenly distribute the number of entries).
As to claim 4, Gupta discloses the system of claim 1, wherein routing the data using the first adaptive routing technique comprises forwarding packets across a plurality of active ports and wherein the second adaptive routing technique comprises allocating a single port for each of one or more flows of the data (Gupta [29-31, 50-52], discloses techniques for routing packets across forwarding plane data structures, and wherein the forwarding components 240 receive and send data packets via interfaces of interface cards 222A-222N (“IFCs 222”) each associated with a respective one of forwarding components 240).
As to claim 6, Gupta discloses the system of claim 5, wherein the destination is a switch (Gupta [29-30, 50-51], discloses a switch fabric for processing traffic, wherein the network packets traverse multiple stages of the switch fabric located in distributed forwarding components of the router to travel from an ingress point of the switch fabric to an egress point of the switch fabric).
As to claim 7, Gupta discloses the system of claim 1, wherein after switching to routing the data using the second adaptive routing technique, one or more ports enter a sleep mode (Gupta [50-51], discloses wherein the switch fabric may be implemented such that the switches are arranged as multiple parallel fabric planes that each provide independent forwarding from ingress ports to egress ports through the multiple stages, one or more of which may be treated as a spare/sleep mode fabric plane).
As to claim 9, Gupta discloses the system of claim 1, wherein the ratio of ingress flows to egress flows is associated with a port of the system (Gupta [28], discloses wherein the forwarding components can be an ingress forwarding component with respect to one packet flow and an egress forwarding component with respect to another packet flow associated with interface ports).
Claims 10-13, 15-16, and 18-20 are corresponding apparatus claims that recite similar limitations as of claims 1-4, 6-7 and 9 and do not contain any additional features with respect to novelty and/or inventive steps; therefore, they are rejected under the same rationale.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5, 8, 14 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.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's remarks, see page 8, filed March 16, 2026, with respect to Claim Rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The Rejections to claims 1-20 as set forth in the previous Office Action has been withdrawn.
Applicant's arguments with respect to claims 1-20 have been considered, However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Gupta et. al US 20190288946 A1.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See Form 892.
Conclusion
The rejections are based upon the broadest reasonable interpretation of the claims. Applicant is advised that the specified citations of the relied upon prior art, in the above rejections, are only representative of the teachings of the prior art, and that any other supportive sections within the entirety of the reference (including any figures, incorporation by references, claims and/or priority documents) is implied as being applied to teach the scope of the claims.
Applicant may not introduce any new matter to the claims or to the specification. For any subsequent response that contains new/amended claims, Applicant is required to cite its corresponding support in the specification. (See MPEP chapter 2163.03 section (I.) and chapter 2163.04 section (I.) and chapter 2163.06)
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection; accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any extension fee pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Razu Miah whose telephone number is (571)270-5433. The examiner can normally be reached M-F, 9-5 EST.
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/RAZU A MIAH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2441
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