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 .
Specification
The title of the invention is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed.
Claim Interpretation
Claims 1-13 contain the term “a first type”. However, the specification as originally filed does not explicitly define “a first type” The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is obliged to give claims their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification during proceedings before the USPTO. See In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319 (Fed. Cir. 1989) (during patent examination the pending claims must be interpreted as broadly as their terms reasonably allow). The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim drawn to “a first type” includes any characteristic or attribute associated with a connection in view of the ordinary and customary meaning of connection type, particularly when the specification is absent an explicit definition or is silent. See MPEP 2111.01.
At best, the specification provides exemplary embodiments in paragraphs 0095-0098. These paragraphs are clearly noted as exemplary embodiments by the use of the following phrases “In a possible implementation” and “For example”.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 10-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. Claim 10 sets forth a “computer readable storage medium.” However, the specification as originally filed does not explicitly define a computer readable storage medium. The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is obliged to give claims their broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the specification during proceedings before the USPTO. See In re Zletz, 893 F.2d 319 (Fed. Cir. 1989) (during patent examination the pending claims must be interpreted as broadly as their terms reasonably allow). The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim drawn to a computer readable storage media (also called machine readable medium and other such variations) typically covers forms of non-transitory tangible media and transitory propagating signals per se in view of the ordinary and customary meaning of computer readable media, particularly when the specification is absent an explicit definition or is silent. See MPEP 2111.01. When the broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim covers a signal per se, the claim must be rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as covering non-statutory subject matter. See In re Nuijten, 500 F.3d 1346, 1356-57 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (transitory embodiments are not directed to statutory subject matter) and Interim Examination Instructions for Evaluating Subject Matter Eligibility Under 35 U.S.C. § 101, Aug. 24, 2009; p. 2
Examiner suggests applicants amend the claim 10 to “A non-transitory computer program product comprising instructions that are stored on a computer-readable medium and that, when executed by at least one processor, cause an apparatus to perform operations comprising:”
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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-3, 6-7 and 10-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Wilsey et al. U.S. Patent publication 8,805,982.
Claim 1,
Wilsey discloses
A network system,
comprising a controller, a network device, and a terminal device connected to the network device, (fig 1.- item 150-controller, 106- network device, item 112- terminal device)
wherein the terminal device is configured to:
when accessing a network, send a first packet to the network device connected to the terminal device (A device in a network inherently sends packets to access a network, fig. 3, item 308 indicates item 112 accessing the network);
the network device is configured to:
in response to the first packet sent by the terminal device, mark a connection type of a port connected to the terminal device as a first type (Fig. 3, item 308, Col 7, lines 25-28- element 106 received OAM control packets from elements 112 and 114 containing MAC addresses of elements 112 and 114).; and
in response to a topology query request sent by the controller, send a topology query response to the controller (Col 6, lines 7-14- Element manager 150 may retrieve the information contained in chart 202, or a subset of the information of chart 202, from element 102 by requesting the information via a management interface of element 102 since element manager 150 knows the IP address of element 102. After retrieving the neighbor identification information from element 102, element manager 150 may use the information to communicate with elements 104 and 106.),
wherein the topology query response comprises an identifier or port information of the network device (see fig. 2, item 202); and
the controller is configured to: send the topology query request to the network device; and generate a network topology diagram based on the topology query response (Col 2 , lines 41-50- The element manager is configured to gather the connectivity information from the network elements and create a network topology based on the gathered connectivity information. The network topology describes the network elements, the links, and an arrangement of the links with respect to the network elements. The element manager may be further configured to display the network topology to a user after gathering the connectivity information from a first subset of the network elements and prior to gathering the connectivity information from a second subset of the network elements.).
Claim 2,
wherein the port information comprises a quantity of ports of the network device and a connection type of each of the ports of the network device (Fig. 2- disclose a number of ports and protocol of each).
Claim 3,
Wilsey discloses
wherein the sending of the topology query request to the network device comprises:
sending the topology query request to a first-level network device (Col 6, lines 7-14- Element manager 150 may retrieve the information contained in chart 202, or a subset of the information of chart 202, from element 102 by requesting the information via a management interface of element 102 since element manager 150 knows the IP address of element 102. After retrieving the neighbor identification information from element 102, element manager 150 may use the information to communicate with elements 104 and 106.);
in response to a topology query response sent by an ith-level network device, determining, based on port information in the topology query response, whether a connection type of a port of the ith-level network device is the first type, wherein i is a positive integer. (col 6, lines 38-55- Although chart 202 illustrates neighbor identification information that element 102 may receive via layer-two control packets, element 102 might not extract or arrange the neighbor identification information in a chart like chart 202. Instead, element 102 may provide the neighbor identification information via one or more management information bases (MIBs), CLI command responses, XML command responses, NETCONF command responses, or the like. Furthermore, element 102 may make additional neighbor identification information available to element manager 150 that is not depicted in chart 202. For example, although row 204 depicts information derived from an LLDP packet received from element 134, element 202 may also have information identifying element 134 that is derived from an LACP packet received from element 134 or from another layer-two control packet received from element 134. Also see fig. 2, item 202)
Claims 6 and 10,
Wilsey discloses
A network packet processing method, applied to a controller, wherein the method comprises:
sending a topology query request to a network device (Col 6, lines 7-14- Element manager 150 may retrieve the information contained in chart 202, or a subset of the information of chart 202, from element 102 by requesting the information via a management interface of element 102 since element manager 150 knows the IP address of element 102. After retrieving the neighbor identification information from element 102, element manager 150 may use the information to communicate with elements 104 and 106.); and
generating a network topology diagram based on a topology query response sent by the network device (Col 2 , lines 41-50- The element manager is configured to gather the connectivity information from the network elements and create a network topology based on the gathered connectivity information. The network topology describes the network elements, the links, and an arrangement of the links with respect to the network elements. The element manager may be further configured to display the network topology to a user after gathering the connectivity information from a first subset of the network elements and prior to gathering the connectivity information from a second subset of the network elements.).
Wilsey discloses a computer-readable medium with instructions. (Col 12, lines 8-27)
Claims 7 and 11,
sending the topology query request to a first-level network device (Col 6, lines 7-14- Element manager 150 may retrieve the information contained in chart 202, or a subset of the information of chart 202, from element 102 by requesting the information via a management interface of element 102 since element manager 150 knows the IP address of element 102. After retrieving the neighbor identification information from element 102, element manager 150 may use the information to communicate with elements 104 and 106.); and
in response to a topology query response sent by an ith-level network device, determining, based on port information in the topology query response, whether a connection type of a port of the ith-level network device is a first type, wherein i is a positive integer (col 6, lines 38-55- Although chart 202 illustrates neighbor identification information that element 102 may receive via layer-two control packets, element 102 might not extract or arrange the neighbor identification information in a chart like chart 202. Instead, element 102 may provide the neighbor identification information via one or more management information bases (MIBs), CLI command responses, XML command responses, NETCONF command responses, or the like. Furthermore, element 102 may make additional neighbor identification information available to element manager 150 that is not depicted in chart 202. For example, although row 204 depicts information derived from an LLDP packet received from element 134, element 202 may also have information identifying element 134 that is derived from an LACP packet received from element 134 or from another layer-two control packet received from element 134. Also see fig. 2, item 202).
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.
Claims 4-5, 8-9 and 12-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wilsey et al. U.S. Patent publication 8,805,982 in view of Nehra et al. SLDP: A secure and lightweight link discovery protocol for software defined networking, Computer Networks, Volume 150, 2019.
Claim 4,
Although Wilsey discloses substantial limitations of claimed invention, it fails to disclose
when the connection type of the port is not the first type, sending the topology query request to an (i+1)th-level network device connected to the port.
In an analogous art, Nehra discloses
when the connection type of the port is not the first type, sending the topology query request to an (i+1)th-level network device connected to the port. (pg. 113, last paragraph - SLDP is a lightweight link discovery protocol. The traditional implementation of link discovery generates LLDP/BDDP packets for each port on each switch. Edge switches are connected to host, which infers no need to generate packet reaching to end host. In SLDP, few non-eligible ports are identified and SLDP packet is sent to each port except ineligibles)
One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would find it obvious to combine the teaches of Nedra with the Wilsey to produce the predictable result of sending discovery messages to nodes that are non-terminal devices. One of ordinary skill in the art would be motive to combine Wilsey with Nedra to reduce the quantity of discovery messages and conserve bandwidth and CPU resources.
Claim 5 ,
when the connection type of the port is the first type, skip sending the topology query request. (Nedra pg. 113- In SLDP, few non-eligible ports are identified and SLDP
packet is sent to each port except ineligibles)
Claims 8 and 12,
Although Wilsey discloses substantial limitations of claimed invention, it fails to disclose
when the connection type of the port is not the first type, sending the topology query request to an (i+1)th-level network device connected to the port.
In an analogous art, Nehra discloses
when the connection type of the port is not the first type, sending the topology query request to an (i+1)th-level network device connected to the port. (pg. 113, last paragraph - SLDP is a lightweight link discovery protocol. The traditional implementation of link discovery generates LLDP/BDDP packets for each port on each switch. Edge switches are connected to host, which infers no need to generate packet reaching to end host. In SLDP, few non-eligible ports are identified and SLDP packet is sent to each port except ineligibles)
One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would find it obvious to combine the teaches of Nedra with the Wilsey to produce the predictable result of sending discovery messages to nodes that are non-terminal devices. One of ordinary skill in the art would be motive to combine Wilsey with Nedra to reduce the quantity of discovery messages and conserve bandwidth and CPU resources.
Claims 9 and 13,
when the connection type of the port is the first type, skip sending the topology query request. (Nedra pg. 113- In SLDP, few non-eligible ports are identified and SLDP
packet is sent to each port except ineligibles)
Claim 14,
Although Wilsey discloses substantial limitations of claimed invention, it fails to disclose
wherein the first type indicates that a peer device connected to the port of the network device is the terminal device.
In an analogous art, Nedra discloses
wherein the first type indicates that a peer device connected to the port of the network device is the terminal device. (Nedra pg. 106- discloses tracking the port and link status of each node. [standby, parent, child or pruned])
One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would find it obvious to combine the node status of Nedra with the Wilsey system to produce the predictable result of performing discovery based on the device type at the end of each port. One of ordinary skill in the art would be motive to combine Wilsey with Nedra to reduce the quantity of discovery messages and conserve bandwidth and CPU resources.
Conclusion
Related Prior art:
Nagarajrao et al. U.S. Patent Application publication 2005/0083854- discloses an intelligent discovery of network information from multiple information gathering agents adapted to discover information concerning the network.
Chinthalapati et al. U.S. Patent Application publication 2013/0318243- discloses a software-defined network managed via SNMP traps.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOSEPH M COUSINS whose telephone number is (571)270-7746. The examiner can normally be reached 9:00am -5:00pm EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Tonia Dollinger can be reached at (571) 272-4170. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JMC/Examiner, Art Unit 2459
/TONIA L DOLLINGER/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2459
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