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 to 20 are presented for examination.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 9-3-2026 has been entered.
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for foreign priority based on an application filed in India on 5-3-2024. It is noted, however, that applicant has not filed a certified copy of the IN202441035263 application as required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1 to 17 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 1 recites the phrase “that supports a first network” on line 6. This phrase is not definite claim language and creates a vague and unclear claim limitation.
Claim 20 has a similar problem and is also rejected for the same rationale applied to claim 20.
Dependent claims 2 to 16 are rejected due to their dependency on a rejected base claim.
Dependent claim 17 recites the phrase “support the first network” on line 1, this phrase is not definite and creates a vague and unclear claim language.
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.
Claims 1 to 3, 7 to 8, 12, and 17 to 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang et al. (USPAP 2025/0310248) in view of V et al. (USPAP 2025/0141774).
Claims 1 to 3, 18 and 19:
Wang substantially teaches the claimed invention. Wang teaches a method and an apparatus applying techniques for tracing routes taken by data packets transmitted through an overlay network, the apparatus comprising: a processor (207) coupled to a storage system (memory) that includes trace information (221) (see fig. 2 and par. 0059). Wang teaches that the network environment (100) includes a controller (117) (“network interface controller”) providing a network interface (213) and may initiate a Traceroute session by controlling the network (see fig. 1-2 and par. 0055).
Wang teaches that the source VTEP (137) of the network environment generates and sends a series of probe data packets with increasing tine-to-live (TTL) values for each successive probe data packets to resolve the path of the target dataflow through the underlay network (103) and overlay network (105) (see par. 0057). Wang teaches that in response to a Traceroute request from the controller, the source VTEP generates probe data packets mimicking routing hash information of the target dataflow (see par. 0057). Wang teaches that overlay network and underlay network are connected via an overlay tunnel (141) and the tunnel is a VXLAN tunnel (see par. 0051). Wang teaches that the tunnel protocols are such as, Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE), IP in IP (IPIP (see par. 0051).
Wang teaches a packet encapsulation that is a networking process in which a data packet is wrapped within another packet, adding headers or additional information to the original data packet (see par. 0038). Wang teaches that encapsulation allows the packet to traverse a network through different network layers or domains (see par. 0038). Wang teaches that a packet header includes fields for routing such as source address, destination address, protocol information, packet length, TTL, error checking information and quality of service (QoS) information (see par. 0039).
Wang teaches that constructing a probe data packet for tracing the route of the target dataflow includes determining a routing hash by applying a hashing algorithm to the values of the 5-tuples and generate a unique identifier from the combination of 4-tuple values (see par. 0067). Wang teaches that the outer frame determined for the probe data packet can include the IP address of source VTEP and the source port that equals to the routing hash (see par. 0070). Wang teaches that to resolve the route through the underlay network, includes receiving response messages that can be ICMP error message, and the response message identify the address of the last hop where the underlay TTL expired, and the probe packet was dropped (see par. 0072).
Wang teaches that resolving the route through the underlay network includes determining whether the underlay route of the target dataflow has been resolved, through determining that the IP address of the last hop is the same as the IP address of the destination IP in the outer frame (see par. 0073). Wang teaches that a probe data packet structure comprises encapsulation header (405), an overlay probe header (409) and original header (411) wherein each header includes fields for different IP communication (see par 0078 et seq.). Wang teaches that the destination IP address can indicate a destination VTEP’s overlay address or optionally, another node in the overlay network (see par. 0080). Wang further teaches that the original flow header identifies IP address for source host (113) and IP address for destination host (121) (see par. 0080).
Wang does not specifically teach the limitation of “receive, in response to transmitting the probe request packet, an encoding object that comprises an address of a network device, wherein the network device utilizes a second network protocol that is different from the first network protocol; and obtain the address of the network device from the encoding object.” However, Vet al. in an analogous art teaches a method and an apparatus for efficiently tracing the path of a loop in a network device when receiving probe packets that comprises the steps of encoding in a type-length-value (TLV) field in the probe packet (see par. 0027 et seq.). V et al. teaches that the network device sends and receives the probe packets using various network components and different protocols (see par. 0022). Vet al. teaches that data set of the probe packet structure included in the TLV field an address or port identifier (see par. 0016).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the network tracing packet structure of Wang to include a payload encoding for a TLV field of V et al. because V et al. teaches that in the field of network tracing the payload of the packet structure includes encoding for the TLV field. This modification would have been obvious because a person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to employ a packet structure for efficient network tracing by encoding a TLV field in the payload as taught by V et al. (see par. 0013). As to the other limitations of the claims, V et a. teaches that data set (122) can be retrieved from the probe packet to identify ports of the loop path (see par. 0030 et al.).
As per claims 7 to 8, Wang teaches that the traceroute typically uses Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) probe data packets having time to live (TTL) values (see 0026). Wang teaches that a packet header includes fields for routing such as source address, destination address, protocol information, packet length, TTL, error checking information and quality of service (QoS) information (see par. 0039).
As per claim 12, Wang teaches a network environment that includes an underlay network (103) and an overlay network (105) in communication with a source host and a destination host 9see par. 0050).
As per claim 17, Wang teaches that the network environment includes incrementing or decreasing the TTL value based on the probe packet, which reads on “wherein the device is an edge device that supports the first and the second network protocol (see par. 0083).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4 to 6, 9 to 11 and 13 to 16 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.
Claim 20 is allowed.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: the prior art made of record teaches a method and an apparatus for network tracing as detailed above; however, the prior art made of record, taken alone or in combination fails to teach or fairly suggest or render obvious the combination of elements with the novel element of a method of network tracing, comprising: “wherein the encoding object is a protocol agnostic container in which the extracted address of the first network device is included as data that is readable by a second network device.”
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Filsfils et al. (USPAP 2022/0029916), discloses a packet tracing mechanism.
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/Shelly A Chase/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2112
