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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This action is responsive to claims filed on September 17, 2024. Claims 1-20 are pending and presented for examination.
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Claim Objections
Claim 17 is objected to because of the following informalities: the term processing resourced, on line 4 of the claim, appears to be a typo. For the purpose of examination, said term has been interpreted to mean processing resources. Appropriate corrections are required where applicable.
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 1-20 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 limitation "the first and second network devices" in lines 6-7 of the claim. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claims 2-8 are rejected under the same rationale as claim 1 due to their dependency.
Claim 9 recites the limitation "the first and second network devices" in lines 7-8 of the claim. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claims 10-16 are rejected under the same rationale as claim 9 due to their dependency.
Claim 17 recites the limitation "the first and second network devices" in line 9 of the claim. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim.
Claims 18-20 are rejected under the same rationale as claim 17 due to their dependency.
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.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Hu, US-PGPub. No. 20220337512 in view of Uehara et al “Uehara”, US-PGPub. No. 20100312943.
As per claims 1, 9 and 17, Hu teaches a method and a network device (Fig. 3 – CDN 310-1 “computer network device - interchangeability referred to active unit”, Paragraph(s) [0065]), comprising:
one or more processing resources (Fig. 3 – processor 320, Paragraph(s) [0065], [0069]);
a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing instructions (Fig. 3 – memory 330, Paragraph(s) [0016], [0065], [0166]) that when executed by the one or more processing resourced (Fig. 3 – processor 320) cause the network device to:
maintain a first link between a first port of the network device and a second port of a second network device of a virtual switch (Paragraph(s) [0093], [0135]; as illustrated on Fig. 4, active unit “network device” is directly connected “first link” to standby unit “a second network device”. In addition, Hu teaches a virtual switch redundancy protocol (Paragraph(s) [0135])), wherein the virtual switch includes the network device and the second network device operating on a unified control plane (Paragraph(s) [0007]; a stacking system that includes multiple computer network devices (such as a switch or a router). The stacking system may include an active computer network device that implements software for control protocols and user configuration of the stacking system and a standby computer network device that provides switchover backup for the active computer network device. Hu further teaches, in the current stacking system architecture, the centralized protocol and control system table(s) may be managed by one particular unit, the active unit, which is also a stacking unit (Paragraph(s) [0074])), and wherein the first link is distinct from a second link used for exchanging data traffic between the first and second network devices of the virtual switch (Paragraph(s) [0093]; as illustrated on Fig. 4, active unit “network device” uses separate links to communicate with standby unit “a second network device” and member units “second network devices – additional network devices”);
operate a spanning tree protocol on the first link to place the first port and the second port in respective port states, wherein the port states include a forwarding state and a blocked state (Paragraph(s) [0008], [0031]; the stacking system may implement a control protocol that protects against loops in a network by blocking ports, and that relearns network topologies when a link in the network fails. Hu further teaches the linecard controller knows the port forwarding/blocking status (which is shared with all L2 control protocols, such as the spanning tree protocol, MRP, virtual switch redundancy protocol and L2 link level protocols, e.g., unidirectional link detection, link operations, administration and management, and a link aggregation control protocol, etc.)(Paragraph(s) [0135]));
in response to the second link becoming unavailable (Paragraph(s) [0068]; when active control module goes down administratively or fails, the standby module can take over the control and continue provide seamless service to the customer):
determine that the virtual switch has split into a first segment comprising the network device and a second segment comprising the second network device (Paragraph(s) [0032], [0113]; with multi-chassis trunking (MCT), member links of the trunk may be split and connected to two clustered MCT-supporting computer network devices. Additionally, MCT may include integrated loop detections, which allows all links to be active. If a failure is detected, traffic may be dynamically allocated across the remaining links. This failure detection and allocation of traffic may occur in sub-second time, without impact on the rest of the network);
determine a first port state of the first port (Fig. 3 – status packet 314, Paragraph(s) [0063-0064]; hardware (HW) 312 in computer network device 310-1 “network device – active unit” may communicate a status packet 314 (such as a link down event) to hardware 316 (such as a linecard) in computer network device 310-2 “a second network device – standby unit”); and
in response to the first port state being in the blocked state, suspend communication via a respective port of the first segment (Paragraph(s) [0072]; the system control and linecard control architecture may be used to enable/disable a port. Hu further teaches if the new active unit thinks the port needs to be blocking/disabled while the hardware is forwarding/enabled, it may be set to blocking/disabled after the delay repaint timer expires (Paragraph(s) [0140])).
While Hu discloses virtual switch redundancy protocol (Hu - Paragraph(s) [0135]), however Hu fails to explicitly teach but Uehara provides more in depth teachings of virtual switches (Paragraph(s) [0016]; a virtual switch group management module creates a virtual switch group including at least one of the plurality of virtual switches, sets up an enabled flag to one of the plurality of virtual switches included in the virtual switch group to indicate that connection with one of the plurality of ports is enabled and a port management module for managing relation between each of the generated communication paths and at least one of the plurality of ports included in the each of the generated communication paths based on settings of the communication path generating module and settings of the virtual switch group management module.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of the ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the applicants' invention to combine the teachings of Hu and Uehara to provide more efficient stacking system for handling a link failure by enabling a standby unit “a second network device” to take over control of member units “second network devices” in order to continue providing seamless service.
As per claims 2, 10 and 18, Hu teaches in response to the first port state being in the forwarding state or a down state, processing traffic via a respective port of the first segment, wherein the first port state being in the down state indicates unavailability of the second network device (Paragraph(s) [0012], [0063-0064]).
As per claims 3 and 11, Hu teaches method of claim 2, further comprising:
receiving data traffic destined to an external device via a first multi-chassis link aggregation group (MC-LAG) (Paragraph(s) [0008], [0029]); and
forwarding the received data traffic to the external device via a second MC-LAG, wherein the first MC-LAG and the second MC-LAG include respective links coupling the second segment (Paragraph(s) [0030-0032]).
As per claims 4, 12, and 19, Hu teaches wherein the first port state being in the blocked state indicates that the first network device is a standby device of the virtual switch and the second network device is a conductor device of the virtual switch, and wherein the conductor device facilities the unified control plane of the virtual switch (Paragraph(s) [0030], [0046], [0072]).
As per claims 5 and 13, Hu teaches wherein communication between the virtual switch and an external device is based on a stack media access control (MAC) address allocated to a respective network device of the virtual switch, and wherein suspending the communication via a respective port of the first segment prevents using the stack MAC address by the first segment (Paragraph(s) [0046], [0053]).
As per claims 6, 14 and 20, Hu teaches wherein operating the spanning tree protocol comprises allocating the forwarding state for the conductor device and the blocked state for the standby device (Paragraph(s) [0029-0030]).
As per claims 7 and 15, Hu teaches wherein determining the split of the virtual switch comprises determining that the second network device is unreachable from the second network device in the virtual switch (Paragraph(s) [0063-0064]).
As per claims 8 and 16, Hu teaches, wherein, in response to the second link becoming unavailable, the method further comprises:
determining availability of a third link via which the second network device is reachable from the first network device (Paragraph(s) [0038], [0113-0114]);
determining that the second network device is available in the virtual switch (Paragraph(s) [0038]); and
forwarding data traffic via the third link (Paragraph(s) [0135], [0140]).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Please refer to form PTO-892 (Notice of Reference Cited) for a list of relevant prior art.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MOHAMED A WASEL whose telephone number is (571) 272-2669. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri (8:00 am – 4:30 pm).
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Glenton Burgess can be reached on (571)272-3949. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MOHAMED A. WASEL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2454
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