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 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.
Claim 20 is 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.
With regard to claim 20, the instant claim provides that “the first device is further configured to…receive a second message sent by the first device, wherein the first message is a response for the second message.” This claim would require that the first device sends the second message to itself, then receives a response from the second device to that first message (that was not sent to the second device). It appears that the intention was to have this functionality performed by the second device, and thus be similar to claim 9. For purposes of prosecution, it is assumed that the functionality of claim 20 is performed by the second device.
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.
Claim(s) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over “APN6: Application-aware IPv6 Networking,” published July 3, 2020 (as submitted by Applicant on 12/19/2024) (HuaweiSP) in view of US 2022/0200948 (Gundavelli).
With regard to claim 1, HuaweiSP discloses a network device, comprising:
one or more memories configured to store instructions; and one or more processors coupled to the one or more memories and configured to execute the instructions (HuaweiSP: Pages 2-3. The functions of the different components are performed by computer devices.), wherein execution of the instructions causes the network device to:
send a first packet, wherein the first packet carries the first application-aware networking identifier, and the first application-aware networking identifier indicates application information to which the first packet belongs (HuaweiSP: Pages 4-5. In APN6, application information is carried in the packet. It is noted that this appears to be the type of disclosure that Applicant is attempting to improve upon with the disclosed invention (Specification: Paragraph [0004]).).
HuaweiSP fails to disclose, but Gundavelli teaches
receive a first message sent by a second device, wherein the first message comprises a first application-aware networking identifier, the second device is configured to manage an application- aware networking identifier resource, and the first application-aware networking identifier is an application-aware networking identifier in an application-aware networking identifier resource (Gundavelli: Abstract, Paragraphs [0026]-[0027] and [0055] to [0056] and Figure 8. Gundavelli presents a system where a DNS query (first message) is sent by a user device (first device), which results in the DNS server (second device) sending a response which is received by the first device (receive a first message…). The DNS response includes an application ID associated with the application. This application ID allows for the creation and utilization of a QoS flow for the traffic of the application according to a selected QoS policy, making the network an application-aware network.).
Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide an application identifier from a DNS server, such as in Gundavelli, for the system of HuaweiSP to efficiently provide such identifiers and ensure that the proper QoS treatment is applied.
With regard to claim 2, HuaweiSP in view of Gundavelli teaches send a second message to the second device, wherein the first message is a response message for the second message (Gundavelli: Abstract, Paragraphs [0026]-[0027] and [0055] to [0056] and Figure 8. The application identifier is a response (first message) to a sent query to a DNS server (first message).).
With regard to claim 3, HuaweiSP in view o fGundavelli teaches wherein the application information to which the first packet belongs reflects a first application to which the first packet belongs, and the first application-aware networking identifier is an Application-aware Networking identifier APN ID corresponding to the first application (HuaweiSP: Pages 4-5 and Gundavelli: Abstract, Paragraphs [0026]-[0027] and [0055] to [0056] and Figure 8).
With regard to claim 4, HuaweiSP in view of Gundavelli teaches that the first network device is an application device, the first application is installed on the application device, and the second device is a domain name system (DNS) server (Gundavelli: Abstract, Paragraphs [0026]-[0027] and [0055] to [0056] and Figure 8).
With regard to claim 5, HuaweiSP in view of Gundavelli teaches wherein the first message further comprises a first internet protocol IP address, wherein the first IP address matches a first domain name, the first packet is used to access the first domain name, and a destination address of the first packet is the first IP address (HuaweiSP: Page 7 and Gundavelli: Abstract, Paragraphs [0026]-[0027] and [0055] to [0056] and Figure 8. A DNS response would be to the address that sent the DNS query, thus having a matching address, where such are to guarantee SLA.). HuaweiSP fails to teach, but knowledge possessed by one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing teaches the first application-aware networking identifier matches the first domain name (More specifically, Official Notice is taken that having SLA policies based on domain was well-known to one of ordinary skill in the art, where such would have any information associated with the SLA policy provided to identify the application in HuaweiSP and Gundavelli would have such information being specific to the domain.). Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have the app aware ID match the first domain name to provide meaningful information for any policies of the domain, such that one domain would not have to adhere to conventions (such as application identifiers) of another domain.
With regard to claim 6, HuaweiSP fails to teach, but knowledge possessed by one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing teaches wherein the first message further comprises a key; and wherein the execution of the instructions further causes the network device to: verify, based on the key, whether the first application-aware networking identifier is tampered with (More specifically, Official Notice is taken that the use of keys for securing network communications was well-known to one of ordinary skill in the art, where one form of keys would ensure that the packet matches expectations, such as length (e.g. checksum) or data (e.g. hash).). Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to utilize a key to verify the message has not been tampered with to secure such communications, such that a third party would not be able to hijack a session (or, in less malicious terms, ensure that the packet is correctly received and not altered due to network issues).).
With regard to claim 7, HuaweiSP in view of Gundavelli teaches wherein the first application-aware networking identifier comprises at least one of the following information: an application group identifier APP GROUP ID, a user group identifier USER GROUP ID, a flow identifier FLOW ID, or a service level agreement SLA (HuaweiSP: Pages 4-5. As a note, lacking detail of what constitutes these different options, the ID would identify a flow (as the ID would be used for matching the traffic to a flow), a SLA identifier (the SLA information would be conveyed), and would identify an application group (traffic would be grouped according to the application.), where only one options from the list of options is required to teach the instant claim, as a whole.)
With regard to claims 8-20, the instant claims are similar to claim 1, and are rejected for similar reasons (claim 1 is directed to the first device, claim 8 is directed to the second device, claim 13 is directed to a system with both devices, where the claims are recited in such a way that the exchange between the devices substantially requires the details of the each device.).
Conclusion
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SCOTT B. CHRISTENSEN
Examiner
Art Unit 2444
/SCOTT B CHRISTENSEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2444
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