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 . This Office Action is in reply to communication filed on 08/27/2024. Claimed priority is granted from CN202210146324.0, with a priority date of 02/17/2022.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 03/07/2025 and 10/11/2024 was filed after the mailing date of the original application was received after the filing date of the original application filed on 08/14/2024. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being 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 1, 14, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by XIONG et al. (US 20230261995 A1).
1. A method of transmitting network slice information (abstract; par. 0004-0007), the method comprising: receiving, by a first network device, a path computation element protocol (PCEP) packet sent by a controller (par. 0046-0048 and 0093),
wherein the PCEP packet comprises first slice information corresponding to the first network device (0048-0051; the target network slice is the first network device); and
parsing, by the first network device, the PCEP packet to obtain the first slice information (0052-0054), and performing network slice configuration based on the first slice information (0055-0058).
14. An apparatus for network slice information transmission (fig. 7; par. 0004-0007), the apparatus comprising: a non-transitory memory storing instructions; and a processor coupled to the non-transitory memory (par. 0046-0048 and 0093); wherein the instructions, when executed by the processor, cause the apparatus to be configured to: _receive a path computation element protocol (PCEP) packet sent by a controller, wherein the PCEP packet comprises first slice information corresponding to the apparatus; _parse the PCEP packet to obtain the first slice information 0048-0051; the target network slice is the first network device; and _perform network slice configuration based on the first slice information (0055-0058).
20. A computer-readable storage medium, comprising instructions, wherein when the instructions are run on a computer (abstract; par. 0004-0007), the computer is to perform: receiving a path computation element protocol (PCEP) packet sent by a controller (par. 0046-0048 and 0093), wherein the PCEP packet comprises first slice information corresponding to a first network device (0048-0051; the target network slice is the first network device); and parsing the PCEP packet to obtain the first slice information, and performing network slice configuration based on the first slice information (0055-0058).
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 2, 8, and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over XIONG, in view of PENG et al, US 20210083940 A1.
Regarding claim 2, XIONG substantially teaches the claimed invention, but fails to disclose the details of a method according to claim 1, wherein the PCEP packet comprises link state (LS) information, and the LS information comprises the first slice information. This feature is well-known in the art as evidenced PENG. In the same field of endeavor, PING discloses in [0123] “The node R1 may also send the above TE path calculation request to the controller through the PCEP protocol. The calculation operation of the controller is similar as the above, but before the controller performs the TE path calculation, the controller needs to collect (for example, through BGP-LS) the link state database on the network side (which contains the slice-id attribute)”. Additionally, See [PENG, par. 0190 and 0146] for similar teaching.
Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to substitute the LS slice-id attribute information from the database and omit/alter the mapping rule of XIONG to integrate the network slice configuration of PENG because the person would have realized that the remaining element would perform the same functions as before. “Omission of element and its function in combination is obvious expedient if the remaining elements performs the same functions as before.” See In re Karlson (CCPA) 136 USPQ 184, decide Jan 16, 1963, Appl. No. 6857, U.S. Court of Customs and Patent Appeals.
Because LS information is a conventional mechanism for distributing topology and attribute information om control-pane protocols, a person of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that encoding slice information within the LS information in the PCEP packet as taught by PEMG would have been a predictable design choice to organize and distribute slice attributes within the PCEP signaling framework used by XIONG.
Such a modification would have merely involved using a known information structure (LS information) to carry known configuration data (slice information) in the PCEP packet, thereby improving interoperability and consistency with existing link-state distribution mechanisms used in software-defined and traffic-engineering networks. By this rationale, claim 2 is rejected.
Regarding, claims 8 and 15, the combination XIONG-PENG teaches:
8. The method according to claim 1, wherein the PCEP packet comprises object information, and the object information comprises the first slice information (PENG 0058, 0059, 0085).
15. The apparatus according to claim 14 (See rejection of claim 14 above), wherein the PCEP packet comprises link state (LS) information, and the LS information comprises the first slice information [PENG, par. 0123, 0190 and 0146].
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-7, 9-13, 16-18 and 19 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.
CONCLUSION
This action is NON-FINAL. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Jude Jean-Gilles whose telephone number is 571-272-3914. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon-Fri, from 9:00AM-5:00PM.
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/JUDE JEAN GILLES/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2459
March 15, 2026