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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 6-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter.
As to claim 6, use of the word “apparatus” does not inherently mean that the claim is directed to a machine. Only if at least one of the clamed elements of the arrangement is a physical part of a device can the apparatus as claimed constitute part of a device or a combination of devices to be a machine within the meaning of 35 U.S.C. 101.
In the instant case, the claimed apparatus comprises two elements: a processor and a forwarding engine. The specification fails to provide a specific definition for either one of these units as necessarily including hardware. The specification mentions in para. [0028] (as filed) that an example of the processor is CPU, but is not a definition. The specification also provides examples of the forwarding engine implementation in para. [0099], but not a definition. Therefore, the specification leaves an open-ended interpretation, in at least one embodiment, the claims to be broad enough to be implemented completely in software (software processor and forwarding engine being a computer program), which renders claim 6 non-statutory under 35 U.S.C. 101.
Claims 7-10 fail to correct the deficiency of claim 6 and thus are rejected for analogous reasons.
Applicants are advised to amend line 1 of claim 6 to recite: “A traffic forwarding apparatus, comprising: a hardware processor and a forwarding engine; wherein: “
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.
Claims 6-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
As to claim 6, recitations “the forwarding engine is to report…”, “the processor is to, …, merge…”, “the processor is further to determine cycle information…”, and “the processor is further to determine flow characteristic…” suggest intended use and do not effectively require the forwarding engine and the processor to be configured (or programmed) to perform the recited functions, rendering the scope of the claim ambiguous. Applicants are advised to add “configured” before “to” at each of the four instances recited above to overcome this issue.
Dependent claims are rejected for the same reasons.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-5 are allowed.
Claims 6-10 would be allowable if rewritten or amended to overcome the rejections under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) and 35 U.S.C. 101, set forth in this Office action.
Reasons for Allowance
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance:
none of the qualifying prior art references of record, taken alone or in combination, disclose or reasonably suggest: a combination of elements as claimed in independent claim 1 including among flow statistics information with the same flow identification information, merging, by the processor, the flow statistics information meeting a preset interval duration merging condition based on the first packet timestamp and the last packet timestamp; determining, by the processor, cycle information of a flow based on the merged flow statistics information; wherein the cycle information of the flow includes cycle duration of the flow, traffic interval duration between adjacent cycles, and traffic rate within the cycle; determining, by the processor, flow characteristic information of a downstream port of a spine node based on the cycle information of the flow, and advertising the flow characteristic information of the downstream port of the spine node to leaf nodes, so that the leaf nodes perform upstream data flow scheduling based on the flow characteristic information of the downstream port of the spine node; wherein, the flow characteristic information includes flow creation time and the cycle information of the flow.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Related Prior Art
Johnson et al. (US 2020/0007388 A1) is directed to a network traffic optimization (abstract). In particular, Johnson teaches monitoring by a first network component incoming data packets, detecting a change in a traffic profile, and transmitting information on changes to a second network component to adjust corresponding settings for servicing the incoming data packets (Fig. 5 and corresponding description). While conceptually similar, Johnson fails to teach the particulars of the flow statistics information, cycle information, and flow characteristic information, as claimed in the instant invention.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to OLEG SURVILLO whose telephone number is (571)272-9691. The examiner can normally be reached 9:00am - 5:00pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ario Etienne can be reached at 571-272-4001. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/OLEG SURVILLO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2457
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