DETAILED ACTION
This Action is in response to the Amendment for Application Number 18832729 received on 6/09/2026.
Claims 1-20 are presented for examination.
This application is a National Stage entry of PCT/JP2022/004313, International Filing Date: 02/03/2022.
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 .
Claim Objections
Claim 13 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 13 recites in the preamble, “The network information visualization program according to claim 7”. It appears that the preamble may have been inadvertently skipped when amending all claims that are dependent on claim 7. For examining purposes, claim 7 will be interpreted to recite, “The non-transitory computer-readable recording medium according to claim 7”, in order to remain consistent with the amendments made to dependent claims 7 and 14-16.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claim 16 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the enablement requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to enable one skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and/or use the invention.
Claim 16 recites the limitation, “earth alternating current visualization information that is the visualization information obtained by visualizing an earth alternating current between predetermined network devices at a predetermined time".
The broadest reasonable interpretation of claim 16 covers a network visualization device that acquires VPN network information including flow information having statistical information regarding communication, associating the flow information with another network’s information and generates flow information, and generating visualization information including the association between flow information and the other network’s information [claim 7], to which the flow information includes VPN communication setting, identification, device setting and operating state information, and generating, based on the statistical information, “earth alternating current visualization information that is the visualization information obtained by visualizing an earth alternating current between predetermined network devices at a predetermined time" [claim 16].
The specification discloses enough information for one of ordinary skill in the art to make a device to collect such information, and to display visualization information.
However, the specification does not provide direction on what "earth alternating current" represents in a networking environment, or how the "earth alternating current" is generated based on statistical information. For example, Applicant's specification recites, at paragraph [0053], “The visualization unit 14 generates the traffic visualization information 221, the path visualization information 222, the geographic visualization information 223, and the earth alternating current visualization information 224 using the associated fine granularity flow 300.” Applicant's specification additionally recites, at paragraph [0074], and similarly paragraph [0061], "the earth alternating current visualization unit 144 collects the destination PE MPLS label, and IP addresses and MAC addresses of a transmission destination and a transmission source of a packet included in the associated fine granularity flow 300 after the filtering, generates and draws earth alternating current information, thereby providing the earth alternating current visualization information 224 for the user (step S21)". While the specification discloses enough information for one of ordinary skill in the art to make a device to collect certain information and display information, the specification does not explain what "earth alternating current" represents in a networking environment, nor does the specification provide direction on how the "earth alternating current" is generated based on statistical information.
At the time of filing, the state of the art was such that “earth alternating current” represented electric currents via Earth’s surface, having no relation to computer networking environments. For example, See Dinwiddie et al. (US 20220069588) reciting a ground terminal disposed below the surface of the earth to induce an alternating current flow from the ground terminal through the transformer (i.e. Dinwiddie, claim 8). Such does not bear a reasonable correlation to the full scope of the claim, or any networking environment. As there is no reasonable correlation, one skilled in the art would not know how to generate earth alternating current visualization information based on collected networking environment statistical information. As such, one skilled in the art cannot readily anticipate how a networking environment statistic has on earth alternating current with respect to the subject matter to which the claimed invention pertains, and therefore there is lack of predictability in the art.
Taking these factors into account, undue experimentation would be required by one of ordinary skill in the art to practice the full scope of claim 16.
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 1-5, 8, 12, 16, and 18-20 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 16 recites the limitation of “earth alternating current visualization information that is the visualization information obtained by visualizing an earth alternating current between predetermined network devices at a predetermined time", which is found indefinite as to the meaning of "earth alternating current" in a networking environment. Applicant's specification does not appear to define the meaning of "earth alternating current", but rather, just that it is generated and visualized. For examination purposes, the limitation, “earth alternating current” will be interpreted as general statistics/metrics between the devices.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
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(s) 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Burnett et al. (US 20170310638) in view of Nellikar et al. (US 20170078198) and further in view of Arneja (US 20220239575).
Regarding claim 1, Burnett disclosed a network information visualization device comprising:
a processor configured to execute operations (Burnett, [0076])) comprising:
acquiring network information of a predetermined virtual private network (VPN) network (Burnett, [0007]-[0008], Burnett disclosed gathering first network information from one or more network sensors in a trusted (Red) network; See [0023] trusted (Red) network amounts to a VPN network),
the network information including at least flow information having statistical information of communication in the predetermined VPN network (Burnet, [0032], Burnet disclosed a NetFlow probe supplying the network information which includes flow information; [0035] “The types of network information that may be obtained may be any information concerning operational statistics of the network, including the IP address of the network element, the network element position (e.g., relative position to other network elements and/or physical coordinates of the network element, network element link status, amount of traffic at the network element, link bandwidth between network elements, traffic priority, and the like”);
the network information being based on converting data header information as acquired according to one or more protocols (Burnet, [0032], Burnet disclosed network information obtained from an interface with a network element, and provides one example interface to include a NetFlow probe, in which, “Example network information available from a NetFlow probe for a data packet may include the ingress interface (e.g., source IP address of the data flow, destination IP address of the data flow, IP protocol used, source port for other communication protocols, destination port for other communication protocols, and IP types of service)”).
Burnet did not explicitly disclose the network information further comprising Multiprotocol-Border Gateway Protocol (MP-BGP) information of the predetermined VPN network;
creating, based at least on the MP-BGP information of the network information, associated flow information, wherein the associated flow information comprises the flow information and another part of the network information of the predetermined VPN network; and
generating and presenting, based on the associated flow information, visualization information.
Nellikar disclosed the network information further comprising Multiprotocol-Border Gateway Protocol (MP-BGP) information of the predetermined VPN network (Nellikar, [0038] Nellikar disclosed “VSM 502a and each VEM 514a can learn the network address information of each VM 512b and VSM 502b and each VEM 514b can learn the network address information of each VM 512a by implementing Multiprotocol Border Gateway Protocol Ethernet Virtual Private Network (MP-BGP EVPN) 550 as a control plane for VXLAN. MP-BGP EVPN 550 is a control protocol for VXLAN that can be used to exchange VXLAN information and VM network address information, collected through distributive network address information learning by each VSM and the VEMs within its domain, across VSMs”, [0040], “After each VEM has learned the network address information of every VM in a network, packets that pass through the VEM can be inspected or mined for statistics relating to VM-to-VM traffic”; See the rest of [0040] for different types of traffic to which statistics are collected; See [0051], “a distributive learning module 782 and a statistics module 784. Distributive learning module 782 can be used to learn IP addresses and/or other network address information of VMs in a single domain network or a multiple domain network (e.g., MP-BPG EVPN).”);
creating, based at least on the MP-BGP information of the network information, associated flow information, wherein the associated flow information comprises the flow information and another part of the network information of the predetermined VPN network (Nellikar, [0047]-[0049], and [0051], Nellikar disclosed collecting network traffic statistics for the VM-to-VM traffic, and aggregating network traffic statistics that can be input into a dashboard/GUI to monitor traffic patterns between virtualized systems in real-time or substantially real-time. “For instance, the dashboard or GUI can include a physical topology of a data center or network, and the aggregate statistics can be used to represent flows between hosts in the data center or network with various color schemes to indicate health of the flows, hosts, and/or networking gear. A flow/server/network element can be drilled into in order to view more detailed information derived from the aggregate statistics. In an example embodiment, historical baseline network traffic information can be presented with respect to real-time traffic statistics.”; The aggregated statistics include the monitored traffic of the VM-to-VM traffic); and
generating and presenting, based on the associated flow information, visualization information (Nellikar, [0049] “In an example embodiment, the aggregate statistics can be input into a dashboard or other graphical user interface (GUI) for a network administrator to monitor traffic patterns between virtualized systems (e.g., virtualized system 106 of FIG. 1) in real-time or substantially real-time.”).
One of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Burnet and Nellikar as they both involve teachings for monitoring traffic across networks, and as such they are within similar environments.
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to incorporate Nellikar’s teachings within the teachings of Burnet in order to provide network administrators with finer granularity to manage the network,
overcoming difficulties with network troubleshooting, and reduction of operational efficiency of the network (Nellikar, [0014]-[0016]).
While Burnett in view of Nellikar disclosed the network information being based on converting data header information as acquired according to one or more protocols, the combination did not explicitly disclose the one or more protocols including Internet Protocol Flow Information Export (IPFIX).
Arneja disclosed the utilization of IPFIX for collecting network information (Arneja, [0039], Arneja disclosed sampling packets at a rate, and gathering flow information in which, “The disclosure may be implemented using other sampling technology, e.g., Internet Protocol Flow Information Export, may be implemented using other sampling technology, e.g., Internet Protocol Flow Information Export,”).
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the teachings of Burnett in view of Nellikar and Arneja as they all involve teachings regarding monitoring traffic, and as such they are within similar environments.
Additionally, as Burnet explicitly suggests using an interface for collecting the network information, and indicates NetFlow as one example of such (Burnet, [0032]), such would have led one of ordinary skill in the art to apply other ways to collect such network information, such as the techniques disclosed by Arneja.
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to incorporate Arneja’s manner for collecting network information within the combined teachigns of Burnet and Nellikar as such amounts to mere substitution of one well known technique for collecting network information with another well known technique for performing the same, thereby achieving predictable results, and allowing for scalability across different well-known technologies, thereby making the system more desirable to use by its customers.
Claim 6 recites a network information visualization method with limitations that are substantially similar to the limitations of claim 1. Claim 7 recites a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium storing computer executable program instructions that when executed by a processor, cause a computer to execute operations that are substantially similar to the limitation of claim 1.
Claim 8 recites a network information visualization system comprising a network information visualization device wherein the network information device generates visualization of a predetermined VPN network and network information in the predetermined VNP network, the network information visualization device further comprises a processor to execute operations comprising limitations that are substantially similar to the limitations of claim 1.
Burnett, Nellikar, and Arneja disclosed a device comprising a processor and medium performing the limitations as claimed (Burnet, [0076], [0085]) and device generates visualization of a predetermined VPN network and network information in the predetermined VNP network (In addition to the visualization explained in the above mappings, Burnet also disclosed, [0040], “correlating network information for both Red and Black networks so that the relative location, traffic information, and other related network information for network elements in both Red and Black networks may be queried, visualized, and managed in a single comprehensive network management and visualization tool”, and “the techniques of this disclosure allow for the simultaneous visualization and management of network elements in both Red and Black networks”; [0060], “FIG. 5 shows example visualization window 500 that may be displayed by network management system 200 with fused information collected from Black and Red networks (e.g., Red networks 304 and 306, and Black network 310)”; See [0023] trusted (Red) network amounts to a VPN network).
Claims 6-8 are therefore rejected under the same rationale applied above.
Regarding claims 2, 9, 13, and 17, Burnett, Nellikar, and Arneja disclosed the network information visualization device according to claim 1, method of claim 6, medium of claim 7, and system of claim 8, wherein the generating and presenting further comprises generating traffic visualizing a traffic time series of a predetermined communication interface at a predetermined time based on the statistical information (Burnett, [0062], “Network management system 200 may be configured to adjust the width of each line to represent a relative amount of data traffic on the link”, and, “Network management system 200 may continuously (e.g., in near real-time) or periodically update the width of the lines depicted in the visualization to indicate changes in the amount of traffic over links, and the link status, or amount of a specific protocol, or other configurable values”; Burnett therefore disclosed the showing of a traffic visualization over a periodic time series regarding the Red VPN network traffic for predetermined times based on the collected network information).
Regarding claims 3, 10, 14, and 18, Burnett, Nellikar, and Arneja disclosed the network information visualization device according to claim 1, method of claim 6, medium of claim 7, and system of claim 8, wherein the acquiring further comprises acquiring the flow information and a topology, the flow information further including identification information of a plurality of network devices placed in the predetermined VPN network (Burnett, [0032] and [0034]-[0035]), and the topology including the identification information of the network devices and topology information indicating a connection relationship between respective network devices (Burnett, [0045]-[0046]),
the creating the associated flow information further comprises associating the identification information of the plurality of network devices with the topology information (Burnett, [0045]-[0046]), and
the generating and presenting further comprise generating path visualization information that is the visualization information obtained by visualizing a path through which predetermined communication has passed at a predetermined time based on the identification information of the plurality of network devices, the topology information, and the statistical information (Burnett, [0061] Burnett disclosed generating network topology to depict relative locations of network elements, to which, at [0062], “Network management system 200 may be configured to adjust the width of each line to represent a relative amount of data traffic on the link”, and with respect to predetermined times, “Network management system 200 may continuously (e.g., in near real-time) or periodically update the width of the lines depicted in the visualization to indicate changes in the amount of traffic over links, and the link status, or amount of a specific protocol, or other configurable values”; See also Nellikar, [0047]-[0049], and [0051], Nellikar disclosed collecting network traffic statistics for the VM-to-VM traffic, and aggregating network traffic statistics that can be input into a dashboard/GUI to monitor traffic patterns between virtualized systems in real-time or substantially real-time. “For instance, the dashboard or GUI can include a physical topology of a data center or network, and the aggregate statistics can be used to represent flows between hosts in the data center or network with various color schemes to indicate health of the flows, hosts, and/or networking gear. A flow/server/network element can be drilled into in order to view more detailed information derived from the aggregate statistics. In an example embodiment, historical baseline network traffic information can be presented with respect to real-time traffic statistics.”; The aggregated statistics include the monitored traffic of the VM-to-VM traffic).
Regarding claims 4, 11, 15, and 19, Burnett disclosed the network information visualization device according to claim 3, method of claim 6, medium of claim 7, and system of claim 8, wherein the acquiring further comprises acquiring geographic information including the topology information and location information of the respective network devices of the plurality of network devices, the creating further comprises associating the topology information with the location information (Burnett, [0061], “As can be seen in FIG. 5, network management system 200 generates the network topology to depict the relative locations of network elements A-G, as well as the coordinates (e.g., latitude/longitude coordinates) of the network elements”), and the generating and presenting further comprises generating geographic visualization information that is the visualization information obtained by visualizing a geographical distribution of predetermined communication at a predetermined time based on the identification information of the respective network devices of the plurality of network devices, the location information, and the statistical information (Burnett, [0061], “As can be seen in FIG. 5, network management system 200 generates the network topology to depict the relative locations of network elements, [0062], “Network management system 200 may continuously (e.g., in near real-time) or periodically update the width of the lines depicted in the visualization to indicate changes in the amount of traffic over links, and the link status, or amount of a specific protocol, or other configurable values.“).
Regarding claim 5, 12, 16, and 20, Burnett disclosed the network information visualization device according to claim 3, method of claim 6, medium of claim 7, and system of claim 8, wherein acquiring further comprises acquiring the flow information including VPN communication setting information regarding signal transmission and reception in VPNs existing in the predetermined VPN network, VPN information including the VPN communication setting information and VPN identification information for identifying the VPNs (Burnett, [0023], Burnett disclosed embodiments with respect to multiple Red network VPNs; and [0028] sensors in each VPN to collect their respective network information; [0031] Burnett disclosed type of network information to include VPN identification information such as IP addresses of network elements for the Red (VPN) Networks, [0032], Burnett disclosed for both Red and Black Networks, the network information available to include VPN communication setting information such as “ source IP address of the data flow, destination IP address of the data flow, IP protocol used, source port for other communication protocols, destination port for other communication protocols, and IP types of service” [0048], “Red-side” addresses, for example), and
device information including the VPN identification information (Burnett, [0032], Burnett disclosed for both Red and Black Networks, the network information available to include VPN communication setting information such as “ source IP address of the data flow, destination IP address of the data flow, IP protocol used, source port for other communication protocols, destination port for other communication protocols, and IP types of service”, IP address; See also [0048], “Red-side” addresses, for example),
device setting information and operating state information on the respective network devices of the plurality of network devices (Burnett, [0032], operational statistics of the network; [0032], Burnett disclosed for both Red and Black Networks, the network information available to include VPN communication setting information such as “ source IP address of the data flow, destination IP address of the data flow, IP protocol used, source port for other communication protocols, destination port for other communication protocols, and IP types of service”, IP address; [0048], “Red-side” addresses, for example),
the creating further comprises associating the VPN communication setting information with the VPN identification information, and the generating and presenting further comprise generating, based on the statistical information and the device information, peer-to-peer communication visualization information that is the visualization information obtained by visualizing peer-to-peer communication between predetermined network devices at a predetermined time (Burnett, [0061], “network management system 200 generates the network topology to depict the relative locations of network elements A-G, as well as the coordinates (e.g., latitude/longitude coordinates) of the network elements within Minnesota. Network elements A, B and C represent Red networks located behind INEs. For example, each of network elements A, B, and C may represent one or more computing devices within a Red network at a particular location (e.g., a command center, building, school, business, etc.). Network elements D, E, F and G represent routers within an untrusted Black network sitting between each of the Red networks”; [0062], “For example, the wider the line the more data is being carried on the link. Network management system 200 may continuously (e.g., in near real-time) or periodically update the width of the lines depicted in the visualization to indicate changes in the amount of traffic over links, and the link status, or amount of a specific protocol, or other configurable values.” The color/width of the lines present a visualization of the communication between peers within the topology).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed on 6/09/2026 are deemed moot in view of the following new grounds of rejection, necessitated by Applicant’s amendment to the claims which significantly affected the scope thereof (i.e., by incorporating new limitations into the independent claims, which require further search and consideration).
While the arguments are moot, Examiner provides the following detailed analysis with respect to the argued limitation(s).
Claim 1 recites the limitation, “creating, based at least on the MP-BGP information of the network information, associated flow information, wherein the associated flow information comprises the flow information and another part of the network information of the predetermined VPN network”.
Claim 1 defines the recited “flow information” as “having statistical information of communication in the predetermined VPN network”.
Claim 1 does not define the recited “another part”, other than requiring that it is “of the network information of the predetermined VPN network”.
The claim does not in any way require any boundaries as to what may be included in “flow information” vs “another part of the network information”. As one example, the recited “flow information” may reasonably amount to a portion of information involving the statistical information of communication in the predetermined VPN network and “another part of the network information of the predetermined VPN” may reasonably amount to another portion of information involving the statistical information of communication in the predetermined VPN network.
It is the Examiner’s position that Applicant has not yet submitted claims drawn to limitations, which define the operation and apparatus of Applicant’s disclosed invention in manner, which distinguishes over the prior art.
Failure for Applicant to significantly narrow definition/scope of the claims and supply arguments commensurate in scope with the claims implies the Applicant intends broad interpretation be given to the claims. The Examiner has interpreted the claims with scope parallel to the Applicant in the response and reiterates the need for the Applicant to more clearly and distinctly define the claimed invention.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Roy et al. (US 10547521) disclosed techniques for displaying information about a network, virtualization infrastructure, cluster, or other computing environment.
Prieto et al. (US 20180329794) disclosed visualization of mapping between network overlay and underlay.
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JERRY B DENNISON whose telephone number is (571)272-3910. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:30-5:50.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Hadi Armouche can be reached at 571-270-3618. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/JERRY B DENNISON/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2409
Prosecution Insights