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 12 are presented for examination.
Allowable Subject Matter
Prosecution on the merits of this application is reopened on claims 1, 11 and 12 considered unpatentable for the reasons indicated below:
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, 11 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Le Maigat et al. (USPAP 2021/0399965).
Claim 1:
Le Maigat substantially teaches the claimed invention. Le Maigat teaches a method and an apparatus for monitoring a connection between end devices via a communication network, the method comprising: according to one particular characteristic, said at least one condition of activation relates to the data exchanged and belongs to the group comprising: a quantity of data not received by one of the end devices acting as a receiver (“first communication equipment”) is above a first threshold (see par. 0068 to 0069). Le Maigat teaches that a quantity of data retransmitted by one of the end devices acting as a sender (“second communication equipment”) is above a second predetermined threshold (see par. 0070). Le Maigat teaches that a piece of information is detected by one of the end devices and a quantity of control data detected as being corrupted (“missing data”) by one of the end devices is above a third threshold (see par. 0071 to 0072).
Le Maigat teaches that activation of the set of modes may be performed by one of the end devices and the activation of each other mode if said set is carried out by the network device (intermediate equipment”) or one of the end devices (see par. 0073 to 0074). Le Maigat teaches that activation of each other mode of said set by the network devices includes a modification of the value of at least one bit in a packet header and the modification being detectable by one of the end devices (see par. 0076).
Le Maigat teaches that in another embodiment communication between end devices and a middlebox comprises a tone end device acting as a client (21) and the other end device acting as a server (23) (see fig. 3 and par. 0162). Le Maigat teaches that the middlebox (22) and a network management device (24) are coupled between the client and server (see par. 0162). Le Maigat teaches that the client sends an attachment to the network management device with the network management device sending a proposal in return for all the modes (see par. 0162). Le Maigat teaches that the middlebox modifies the proposal transmitted by the client, replacing the first mode of the first set of mode (see par. 0164). Le Maigat teaches that the server also modifies the proposal transmitted by the client and previously modified by the middlebox (see par. 0165). Le Maigat teaches that at step 41 of figure 3, it is assumed that a connection is a set up between the client and the server and that the set of modes and the associated ranking order that are selected includes loss (see par. 0169).
Le Maigat fails to specifically teach the limitation of: “in response to the first mode of processing missing data called missing data retransmission mode, being selected and the value of the intermediate performance parameter being less than a first threshold, delaying until expiration of a countdown of a duration proportional to a first round-trip propagation duration between the first communication equipment and the intermediate equipment, an emission to the second equipment of a message requestion retransmission of the missing data.” However, this teaching is obvious to the teachings of Le Maigat since Le Maigat teaches in a QUIC (Quick UDP internet connections) transport protocol, utilizes a spin-bit to measure full and half round trip time (RTT) between two end devices and aggregate the RTT estimates to identify critical latency points in the network (see par. 0010 to 0014).
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 Le Maigat to include the claimed limitation of: “in response to the first mode of processing missing data called missing data retransmission mode, being selected and the value of the intermediate performance parameter being less than a first threshold, delaying until expiration of a countdown of a duration proportional to a first round-trip propagation duration between the first communication equipment and the intermediate equipment, an emission to the second equipment of a message requestion retransmission of the missing data” because Le Maigat teaches a method and an apparatus for monitoring a connection between end devise via a communications network comprises measuring RTT and using the measured RTT to identify critical latency points in a system. This modification would have been obvious because a person of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to employ a know method of using measured RTT to identify critical latency points as taught by Le Maigat (see par. see par. 0016).
Independent claims 11 and 12 are similar to claim 1 and are rejected for the same rationale applied to claim 1.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2 to 10 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
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
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