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.
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for foreign priority based on an application filed in India on May 3rd, 2024. It is noted, however, that applicant has not filed a certified copy of the 202441035263 application as required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The references listed in the information disclosure statement submitted on 8-8-2024 and 10-28-2025 have been considered by the examiner (see attached PTO-1449).
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 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.
The independent clams (1, 18 and 20) recite an indefinite phrase “that supports” creating unclear and not definite claim language as required by 35 CUS 112(b). The claims language are vague and unclear because the claims lack definite claim language and fails to define how the phrase “that supports” is definite.
Claims 2 to 17 and 19 are rejected due to their dependency on rejected based claims.
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.
Claim 20 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Monier et al. (USPAP 2020/0007425) in view of Devarajan et al. (USP 11,637,766 .
Claim 20:
Monier substantially teaches the claimed invention. Monier teaches a method and an apparatus for communicating messages in an IP network, the method comprising: communicating messages through a probe source device and/or tunnel entrance device wherein the tunnel entrance device (104) may send the tunneled IP message downstream to a device and the device downstream may communicate an error message to the tunnel entrance device (see fig. 6 and par. 0091). Monier teaches that the error message may be an ICMPv6 port unreachable packet and may comprise a source address and a destination address (see par. 0092). Monier teaches that a new error message is generated based on an address spoofing method that sets the source address of the new error message to the source address of the downstream device (see par. 0093). Monier teaches that the tunnel entrance device sends the new error message to the probe source device (see par. 0094).
Monier fails to specifically teach the limitation of a second network device that supports a second network protocol; however, Devarajan in an analogous art teaches that the message communicated between the client and the application may include an a “Type-Length-Value” (TLV) in the ICMP request and reply (see col. 26, lines 10 to 18). 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 invention of Monier to include the limitation of the ICMP request and reply message to include TLV value because Devarajan teaches that techniques for using traceroute with tunnels includes using TLV in the ICMP messages. This modification would have been obvious because a person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to employ techniques for using TLV in ICMP response and reply messages for communicate data over a network as taught by Devarajan.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1 to 19 would be allowable once the 112(b) rejection is overcome.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: the prior art made of record, teaches various methods for communicating messages over a network as detailed above; however, fails to teach or fairly suggest or render obvious the combination of elements with the novel element of the instant invention of: “a memory communicatively coupled to the processor, wherein the memory comprises a network tracing logic that is configured to:” “generate an encoding object that comprises the extracted address and transmit the encoding object to a second device that supports a second network protocol” (claim 1). The prior art made of record fails to teach or fairly suggest or render obvious the combination of elements with the novel element of: “a memory communicatively coupled to the processor, wherein the memory comprises a network tracing logic that is configured to:” “obtain the address of the network device from the encoding object” (claim 18).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Mohan et al. (USPAP 2008/0101241 A1) discloses an Ethernet OAM Frame on a PBT network.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHELLY A CHASE whose telephone number is (571)272-3816. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Thu 8:00-5:30, 2nd Friday 8:00-4:30.
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/Shelly A Chase/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2112