DETAILED ACTION
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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 3, and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Dhanabalan et al (US 2021/0092062).
Regarding claim 1: Dhanabalan discloses a network device, comprising:
a port, to connect to a network (see communication interface 118 of Figure 2, for example); and
packet processing circuitry (see processor 103 of Figure 2, for example), to:
transmit a data packet to the network (disclosed throughout; see [0095], for example, which discloses that “packets may be duplicated over the current path (e.g., duplicated over the same path)”; the first of these packets maps to the claimed data packet); and
after transmitting the data packet, transmit to the network an Implicit Loss Indication (ILI) packet that (i) references the data packet and (ii) is provisioned to traverse a same route via the network as the data packet (disclosed throughout; see [0095], for example, which, as noted above, discloses sending duplicate packets over the same path; the second packet is interpreted as an implicit loss indication packet as it is transmitted when “the level or quality of all other identified paths is so low that no meaningful benefit can be gained by duplicating the flow over those path” [0095], thus implying that loss would occur on those paths; further, this duplicated packet references the data packet (in that it has the same information in it) and is provisioned to travers a same route (the same path discussed above)).
Regarding claim 13: Dhanabalan discloses a method, comprising:
transmitting a data packet to the network (disclosed throughout; see [0095], for example, which discloses that “packets may be duplicated over the current path (e.g., duplicated over the same path)”; the first of these packets maps to the claimed data packet); and
after transmitting the data packet, transmitting to the network an Implicit Loss Indication (ILI) packet that (i) references the data packet and (ii) is provisioned to traverse a same route via the network as the data packet (disclosed throughout; see [0095], for example, which, as noted above, discloses sending duplicate packets over the same path; the second packet is interpreted as an implicit loss indication packet as it is transmitted when “the level or quality of all other identified paths is so low that no meaningful benefit can be gained by duplicating the flow over those path” [0095], thus implying that loss would occur on those paths; further, this duplicated packet references the data packet (in that it has the same information in it) and is provisioned to travers a same route (the same path discussed above)).
Regarding claim 3: Dhanabalan discloses the limitations that the packet processing circuitry is to assign the ILI packet a Layer-2 (L2) header and a Layer-3 (L3) header that match the L2 header and the L3 header of the data packet (disclosed throughout; see [0095], which, as noted above, discloses sending duplicate packets over the same path; the duplicate packet clearly has matching (duplicated) L2 and L3 headers).
Claims 1 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Shokarev et al (US 2020/0092174).
Regarding claim 1: Shokarev discloses a network device, comprising:
a port, to connect to a network (disclosed throughout; see the input/output components 305/315 of Figure 3, which are ports to a network connected via the physical link(s)); and
packet processing circuitry (disclosed throughout; see the controller 320 of Figure 3, for example), to:
transmit a data packet to the network (disclosed throughout; see the transmission of the traffic flow disclosed throughout; for example, see element 130 of Figure 1B; the packets of the traffic flow (including the “selected packet” discussed below) are transmitted “as part of” the traffic flow); and
after transmitting the data packet, transmit to the network an Implicit Loss Indication (ILI) packet that (i) references the data packet and (ii) is provisioned to traverse a same route via the network as the data packet (disclosed throughout; the “packet replica” (of a selected packet) is interpreted as an implicit loss indication packet; for example, see [0015]-[0016], for example, which indicates that the first network device may generate a packet replica of a packet that is part of the traffic flow and may “modify a value in a header of the packet replica, such that the second network device is unable to validate the packet replica as a result of the modification”; this modified header value implicitly indicates a packet loss; further, the replica packet references the data packet (by including all but the modified portions of the selected packet; for example, as indicated in [0017], the replica packet includes the same IP address information) and is provisioned to traverse the same route as the data packet (see Figure 1B, for example, which indicates that the replica packets traverse the same route as the selected packets that are part of the same traffic flow)).
Regarding claim 13: Shokarev discloses a method, comprising:
transmitting a data packet to the network (disclosed throughout; see the transmission of the traffic flow disclosed throughout; for example, see element 130 of Figure 1B; the packets of the traffic flow (including the “selected packet” discussed below) are transmitted “as part of” the traffic flow); and
after transmitting the data packet, transmitting to the network an Implicit Loss Indication (ILI) packet that (i) references the data packet and (ii) is provisioned to traverse a same route via the network as the data packet (disclosed throughout; the “packet replica” (of a selected packet) is interpreted as an implicit loss indication packet; for example, see [0015]-[0016], for example, which indicates that the first network device may generate a packet replica of a packet that is part of the traffic flow and may “modify a value in a header of the packet replica, such that the second network device is unable to validate the packet replica as a result of the modification”; this modified header value implicitly indicates a packet loss; further, the replica packet references the data packet (by including all but the modified portions of the selected packet; for example, as indicated in [0017], the replica packet includes the same IP address information) and is provisioned to traverse the same route as the data packet (see Figure 1B, for example, which indicates that the replica packets traverse the same route as the selected packets that are part of the same traffic flow)).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2, 4-7, and 14-16 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.
Claims 8-12 and 17-20 are allowed.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Dohadwala et al (US 2024/0421937) discloses a method including fast retransmission mechanisms to mitigate stragglers and high tail latencies for reliable out of order transport protocols.
Hausauer et al (US 2024/0314203) discloses an RDMA NIC utilizing packet level request and response interleaving.
Ramasamy et al (US 2017/0064762) discloses a method for providing integrity protection in a dual SIM dual standby device.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Robert C Scheibel whose telephone number is (571)272-3169. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Hassan A Phillips can be reached at 571-272-3940. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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Robert C. Scheibel
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2467
/Robert C Scheibel/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2467 July 31, 2026
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