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
Claims 1-20 are pending.
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 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.
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 1/14/2025 and 5/16/2025 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-3,7-12,16,19 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1)/(2) as being anticipated by Raghunath et al (US Pub. No. 2014010254), hereafter, “Raghunath.”
As to claim 1, Raghunath discloses an application layer traffic optimization (ALTO) protocol-based communication method (Abstract), comprising:
sending, by an ALTO server, first information to an ALTO client, wherein the first information is sent according to an ALTO protocol, the first information indicates one or more network services available in a first network, and the first information is used by a first device, associated with the ALTO client, to obtain the one or more network services ([0009]-[0010], particularly, “The CDN cache nodes provide status updates to the ALTO server, which incorporates the status update into calculation of ALTO network maps and cost maps. For example, a CDN cache node may send the ALTO server a status update stating that its content service is not operational. The ALTO server thus removes the node from the network map and updates the cost map accordingly. Because status updates regarding congestion or other network conditions may result in frequent modifications to the network map, the techniques cause the ALTO server to proactively update ALTO clients with incremental network map and cost map revisions. The incremental map revisions enable the ALTO clients to update a prior version of the network and cost maps, rather than receive the full network and cost maps in the update. In this manner, the techniques may allow ALTO clients to maintain current network and cost maps yet avoid traffic in the network that would otherwise result from frequent complete network or cost map transmissions.”).
As to claim 10, Raghunath discloses an application layer traffic optimization (ALTO) protocol-based communication method, comprising:
receiving, by an ALTO client, first information from an ALTO server, wherein the first information is received according to an ALTO protocol, the first information indicates one or more network services available in a first network, and the first information is used by a first device, associated with the ALTO client, to obtain the one or more network services ([0009]-[0010], particularly, “The CDN cache nodes provide status updates to the ALTO server, which incorporates the status update into calculation of ALTO network maps and cost maps. For example, a CDN cache node may send the ALTO server a status update stating that its content service is not operational. The ALTO server thus removes the node from the network map and updates the cost map accordingly. Because status updates regarding congestion or other network conditions may result in frequent modifications to the network map, the techniques cause the ALTO server to proactively update ALTO clients with incremental network map and cost map revisions. The incremental map revisions enable the ALTO clients to update a prior version of the network and cost maps, rather than receive the full network and cost maps in the update. In this manner, the techniques may allow ALTO clients to maintain current network and cost maps yet avoid traffic in the network that would otherwise result from frequent complete network or cost map transmissions.” See also Fig. 9, labels 134-142 and [0076], particularly, “Name server 132 comprises ALTO client 134 that requests and receives a network map and cost map from ALTO server 136 of CDN 130. DNS proxy 138 sends DNS request 152 responsive to DNS request 150 received from host 140, and name server 132 responds by selecting the most appropriate CDN node (in this instance, CDN node 142) based on the IP address of host 140 (forwarded by DNS proxy 138 in DNS request 152) and the network map and cost map received from ALTO server 136.” Illustrating how ALTO clients send the information they receive from the ALTO server to other devices, i.e. the claimed “first device”); and
sending, by the ALTO client, the first information to the first device (Fig. 9, labels 134-142 and [0076], particularly, “Name server 132 comprises ALTO client 134 that requests and receives a network map and cost map from ALTO server 136 of CDN 130. DNS proxy 138 sends DNS request 152 responsive to DNS request 150 received from host 140, and name server 132 responds by selecting the most appropriate CDN node (in this instance, CDN node 142) based on the IP address of host 140 (forwarded by DNS proxy 138 in DNS request 152) and the network map and cost map received from ALTO server 136.”).
As to claim 20, it is rejected by similar rationale to that set forth in claim 1’s rejection.
As to claims 2 and 11, Raghunath discloses the first information comprises identification information of at least one network service or service capability information of at least one network service ([0035], particularly, “CDN-ALTO server 22 stores ALTO maps, i.e., a network map and cost map, for CDN 6 and provides these maps to ALTO clients, such as CDN-ALTO client 28 of redirector 26. As described in detail below with respect to FIG. 7, a network map contains network location identifiers, or PIDs, that each represents one or more network devices in a network. In general, a PID may represent a single device or device component, a collection of devices such as a network subnet, an SP network, or some other grouping.”)
As to claims 3 and 12, Raghunath discloses the service capability information of the comprises one or more of following: type information of the network service, specification information of the network service, or quality of service (QoS) information of the network service ([0070] and [0090]).
As to claims 7 and 16, Raghunath discloses before the sending the first information to the ALTO, the method comprises: determining, by the ALTO server, the first information ([0009]-[0010]).
As to claim 8, Raghunath discloses determining the first information comprises: obtaining, by the ALTO server, second information including, one or more of: topology information of the first network, device information of the first device in the first network, service function chain information of the first network, computing capability information of the first network, or application-aware networking (APN) information of the first network; and determining, by the ALTO server, the first information based on the second information ([0009]-[0010]).
As to claim 9, Raghunath discloses determining the first information based on the second information comprises: determining, by the ALTO server and based on the second information, the one or more network services available in the first network; and determining, by the ALTO server and based on the one or more network services available in the first network, the first information corresponding to the one or more network services available in the first network ([0009]-[0010]).
As to claim 19, Raghunath discloses wherein a type of any one of the one or more network services comprises a segment routing (SR) path service, a traffic engineering (TE) tunnel path service, a security service, a network slicing service, or a computing capability service ([0035] and [0092])
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 4-6, 13-15, 17, and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Raghunath in view of Nadeau et al (US Pub. No. 2015/0200838), hereafter, “Nadeau.”
As to claims 4 and 13, Raghunath discloses the parent claim but does not explicitly disclose the first information comprises application-aware networking (APN) information related to the at least one network service. However, Nadeau discloses first information comprises application-aware networking (APN) information related to at least one network service (Abstract and [0029], particularly, “For example, network orchestration device 17 may facilitate application awareness for application- and/or user-demand responsive path computation and service chain establishment. Network orchestration device 17 may include an Application Programming Interface (API) for policy and network topology/location services, such as Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO), BGP, and Domain Network Service (DNS), for instance.”)
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the application to combine the teachings of Raghunath and Nadeau in order to extend Raghunath’s system to be compatible with a broader variety of applications and services and thereby increase its usage.
As to claims 5 and 14, the teachings of Raghunath and Nadeau as combined for the same reasons set forth in claim 4’s rejection further disclose the APN information comprises one or more following: APN identifier (ID) information, intent information, or APN parameter information, the APN ID information comprises user group identifier information and/or application group identifier information, and the APN parameter information comprises one or more of: network performance requirement information, security service requirement information, or network service requirement information (Nadeau, [0067]-[0068]).
As to claims 6 and 15, Raghunath discloses the parent claim but does not disclose the first information comprises a correspondence between the one or more network services and application-aware networking (APN) information related to the at least one network service. However, Nadeau discloses a correspondence between one or more network services and application-aware networking (APN) information related to the at least one network service. (Abstract and [0029], particularly, “For example, network orchestration device 17 may facilitate application awareness for application- and/or user-demand responsive path computation and service chain establishment. Network orchestration device 17 may include an Application Programming Interface (API) for policy and network topology/location services, such as Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO), BGP, and Domain Network Service (DNS), for instance.”)
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the application to combine the teachings of Raghunath and Nadeau in order to extend Raghunath’s system to be compatible with a broader variety of applications and services and thereby increase its usage.
As to claim 17, Raghunath discloses the first information comprises information related to the at least one network service determining, by the ALTO client, the target network service based on the first information comprises: determining, by the ALTO client, the target network service based on the information related to the at least one network service ([0042]). But, Raghunath does not explicitly disclose the first information comprises application-aware networking information.
However, Nadeau discloses the first information provided to a ALTO client comprises application-aware networking (APN) information (Abstract and [0029], particularly, “For example, network orchestration device 17 may facilitate application awareness for application- and/or user-demand responsive path computation and service chain establishment. Network orchestration device 17 may include an Application Programming Interface (API) for policy and network topology/location services, such as Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO), BGP, and Domain Network Service (DNS), for instance.”)
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the application to combine the teachings of Raghunath and Nadeau in order to extend Raghunath’s system to be compatible with a broader variety of applications and services and thereby increase its usage.
As to claim 18, Raghunath discloses the first information comprises the correspondence between the one or more network services and application-aware networking (APN) information related to the at least one network service, and determining, by the ALTO client, the target network service based on the first information comprises: determining, by the ALTO client, the target network service based on the correspondence between the one or more network services ([0042]). But, Raghunath does not disclose the first information comprises the correspondence between the one or more network services and application-aware networking (APN) information.
However, Nadeau discloses the first information comprises the correspondence between the one or more network services and application-aware networking (APN) information (Abstract and [0029], particularly, “For example, network orchestration device 17 may facilitate application awareness for application- and/or user-demand responsive path computation and service chain establishment. Network orchestration device 17 may include an Application Programming Interface (API) for policy and network topology/location services, such as Application-Layer Traffic Optimization (ALTO), BGP, and Domain Network Service (DNS), for instance.”)
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art prior to the effective filing date of the application to combine the teachings of Raghunath and Nadeau in order to extend Raghunath’s system to be compatible with a broader variety of applications and services and thereby increase its usage.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to THOMAS J DAILEY whose telephone number is (571)270-1246. The examiner can normally be reached 9:30am-6:00pm.
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/THOMAS J DAILEY/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2458