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 non-final office action is responsive to the U.S. patent application no. 18/756,755 filed on June 27, 2024.
Claims 1-20 have been cancelled.
Claims 21-40 are pending.
Claims 21-40 are rejected.
Priority
The application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. 365(a) to the international application PCT/CN2022/143237 filed on December 29, 2022.
The application claims foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d) to foreign applications No. CN202111672776.4 filed on December 31, 2021 and No. CN202210229154.2 filed on March 8, 2022.
A certified copy of the foreign applications submitted under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d) was received on July 19, 2024 and has been placed in the file of record.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on October 4, 2024, May 5, 2025 and September 23, 2025 respectively are compliant with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements have 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)(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 21-22, 29-32, 35-36, 38-40 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being unpatentable over Patel et al. (U.S. 2022/0345984).
Regarding claim 21, Patel disclosed a method, comprising:
obtaining, by a first network device, a first packet (Patel, [0038], “the direct inbound packets may be A-type packets transmitted by the gNodeB 106 to the translation module 208” said direct inbound packets anticipate the “first packet” in the claim and the “translation module 208” anticipates the “first network device” in the claim);
obtaining, by the first network device, a tunnel header based on the first packet (Patel, [0039], “information from the GTP field of an A-type packet may be included in the SRH′ field of the B-type packet obtained from it.” Said “GTP field of an A-type packet” anticipates the “tunnel header” in the claim);
encapsulating, by the first network device, an internet protocol version 6 (IPv6) header in the first packet to obtain a second packet, wherein the IPv6 header carries the tunnel header (Patel, [0039], “The translation module 208 converts the A-type direct inbound packets to B-type packets” Patel then showed in Fig. 2 that the B-type packet is created by encapsulating the original D packet with an IPv6 header); and
sending, by the first network device, the second packet to a second network device (Patel, [0039], “The translation module 208 … transmits the B-type direct inbound packets over the network 210 to the UPF 112 using information included in the outer IP header of the A-type direct inbound packets.”).
Claim 31 lists substantially the same elements as claim 21, in the same method form but from the perspective of a destination device of a packet rather than the source of a packet. Therefore, the rejection rationale for claim 21 applies equally as well to claim 31.
Claim 35 lists substantially the same elements as claim 21, in device form rather than method form. Therefore, the rejection rationale for claim 21 applies equally as well to claim 35.
Claim 38 lists substantially the same elements as claim 21, in device form from the perspective of a destination device of a packet. Neverless the rejection rationale for claim 21 still applied to claim 31.
Regarding claims 22, 32, 36 and 39, Patel disclosed the subject matter according to claims 21, 31, 35 and 38, respectively.
Patel further disclosed wherein the tunnel header comprises a virtual extensible local area network (VXLAN) header, a general packet radio service tunneling protocol (GTP) header, a generic routing encapsulation (GRE) header, an IP-in-IP header, an intra-site automatic tunnel addressing protocol (ISATAP) header, an internet protocol version 4 over internet protocol version 6 (IPv4 over IPv6) header, a network virtualization using generic routing encapsulation (NVGRE) header, a layer 2 tunneling protocol version 3 (L2TPv3), or an MPLS in GRE header (Patel, Figs. 2, 7A-7D, 8 and 9 and Abstract, “The routing module may be programmed to embed GTP information in an SRH header that is used by the first translation module”).
Regarding claims 29 and 40, Patel disclosed the subject matter according to claims 21 and 39, respectively.
Patel further disclosed wherein when the tunnel header comprises the VXLAN header or the GTP header, the IPv6 header is an IPv6 basic header (Patel, Fig. 2, A-type packet, B-type packet and C-type packet).
Regarding claim 30, Patel disclosed the subject matter according to claim 29.
Patel further disclosed wherein the tunnel header is carried in a destination address field of the IPv6 basic header (Patel disclosed in [0117] that “the ingress PE sends out an SRv6 packet whose inner packet is a packet received from an IP network. The destination address of the SRv6 packet may be set to an IP address, such as an IPv6 address (e.g., segment identifier (SID)), that is assigned to the egress PE”).
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 of this title, 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.
Claims 23-28, 33-34, 37-38 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as obvious over Patel et al. (U.S. 2022/0345984), in view of Huang et al. (U.S. 2023/0089240).
Regarding claims 23, 33 and 37, Patel disclosed the subject matter according to claims 22, 31 and 35, respectively.
Patel might not have explicitly disclosed wherein the IPv6 header is an IPv6 extension header, and the IPv6 extension header comprises a destination option header (DOH).
However, in the same field of endeavor, Huang disclosed a data forwarding method that encapsulates a meta-array of a first communication node and an original access control message to obtain a first access control message in response to receiving a user access request so that the first access control message can be forwarded to a second communication node according to a pre-orchestrated path. In particular, Huang disclosed
wherein the IPv6 header is an IPv6 extension header, and the IPv6 extension header comprises a destination option header (DOH) (Huang, [0036], “the original access control message and the hardware meta array to which the original access control message belongs are encapsulated in one of the following manners: the meta array of the first communication node is extended in a destination options extension header of Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) according to a first preset mode; or the meta array of the first communication node is extended in a segment routing header (SRH) of SRv6 according to the first preset mode.”)
One of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention (AIA ), would have been motivated to combine Patel and Huang because both references disclosed the needs for routing/forwarding data packets over cellular/wireless network using IPv6 encapsulation (Patel, Title, Abstract and Fig. 1; Huang, Abstract and Figs. 4-6).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to combine Huang’s teaching with Patel’s as such that the IPv6 header that is used to encapsulate the received IPv6 inner packet may include a destination options header so that the inner packet could be routed according to a pre-specified path, as this adds additional packet forwarding capability to the GTP/SRv6 node 208 in Patel.
Regarding claims 24 and 34, Patel and Huang disclosed the subject matter according to claims 23 and 33, respectively.
Patel might not have explicitly disclosed but Huang disclosed wherein an Options part of the DOH carries the tunnel header (Huang, [0036], “the original access control message and the hardware meta-array to which the original access control message belongs are encapsulated in one of the following manners: the meta array of the first communication node is extended in a destination options extension header of Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) according to a first preset mode…”).
The rationale for combining Patel and Huang is the same as that provided in the rejection of claim 23 above.
Regarding claim 25, Patel and Huang disclosed the method according to claim 23.
Patel further disclosed wherein when the tunnel header comprises the VXLAN header or the GTP header (Patel, [0039], “information from the GTP field of an A-type packet may be included in the SRH′ field of the B-type packet obtained from it.” Said “GTP field of an A-type packet” anticipates the tunnel header in the claim), the IPv6 extension header further comprises a segment routing header (SRH) (Patel disclosed in Fig. 2 that both the B-type and C-type packets comprise a segment routing header (SRH)).
Regarding claim 26, Patel and Huang disclosed the method according to claim 25.
Patel further disclosed wherein the tunnel header is carried in a segment identifier list (SID list) of the SRH (Patel, Abstract, “The routing module may be programmed to embed GTP information in an SRH header that is used by the first translation module”).
Regarding claim 27, Patel and Huang disclosed the method according to claim 26.
Patel further disclosed wherein the tunnel header is carried in a SID corresponding to the second network device in the SID list of the SRH (Patel disclosed in [0086] that “programming 404c may include generating, by the BGP module 324, a special service SID for SRv6 that contains GTP information (e.g., some or all of the GTP information that could be embedded in an SRH′ header of a B-type packet)”).
Regarding claim 28, Patel and Huang disclosed the method according to claim 27.
Patel further disclosed wherein the SID of the second network device indicates the second network device to forward a packet based on the tunnel header carried in the SID (Patel disclosed in [0113] that “the routing/SDN controller 324 receives the local TEP and UE address and generates and distributes a service SID based on this information according to SRv6. In particular, the service SID may be provided to the routing module 216. The service SID advertises a route to the UE 102 over the network 210 by way of the gNodeB 106 referenced by the local TEP.” Said disclosure made it clear that the SID is used to advertise a route to the second network device UE 102).
Related Prior Art
Heron et al. (US 2020/0099610) is directed to a method and system for segment routing (SR) with fast reroute in a container network.
Pignataro et al. (US 2017/0250907) is directed to a method and a system that facilitates data plane signaling of a packet as a candidate for capture at various network nodes within an IPv6 network using IPv6 encapsulation.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHIRLEY X ZHANG whose telephone number is (571)270-5012. The examiner can normally be reached 8:30am - 5:00pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Joon H Hwang can be reached at 571-272-4036. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/SHIRLEY X ZHANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2447