Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Objection to the Specification
2. The title of the invention is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed.
Non-Art Rejection
3. 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.
4. Claims 21-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as failing to set forth 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.
Claims 21-23 are invalid multiple dependent claims because they depend on another multiple dependent claim, e.g., claim 6.
Art Rejection
5. 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 of this title, 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.
6. 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.
7. Claims 1, 17 and 20-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rochberger, U.S. pat. No. 6,760,309, in view of Le Pallec, U.S. pat. Appl. Pub. No. 2014/0043992.
Per claim 1, Rochberger discloses a message processing method, applied to a network forwarding node, comprising:
a) encapsulating a received message to obtain an encapsulated message, e.g., encoding a message using H.225.0 standard (see col 2, ln 65-67 and col 4, ln 33-41);
b) wherein the encapsulated message comprises current-node stay time information, e.g., a TTL value (see col 6, ln 57-65).
Rochberger does not teach that the encapsulated message comprises current-node entry and exit timestamp information. However, such use of entry time and exit time to compute the time (i.e., resident time) that the packet spends at the network node is well known in the art as disclosed by Le Pallec, wherein the current-node entry time and exit time are recorded in the packet (see Le Pallec, par 0035-0041).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Rochberger with Le Pallec’s teaching because it would have enabled computing the time the packet spends at the network entity (see Rochberger, col 6, ln 57-65).
Per claim 17, Rochberger teaches:
a) determining a forwarding path of the packet, e.g., using routers (see col 5, ln 38-44);
b) determining latency information of the message according to the forwarding path (see col 7, ln 26-39); and
c) distributing the latency information to a network forwarding node on the forwarding path such that the network forwarding node encapsulates the received message according to the latency information to obtain an encapsulated message, wherein the encapsulated message comprises current-node stay time information (see col 7, ln 13-15).
Rochberger does not teach that the encapsulated message comprises current-node entry and exit timestamp information. However, such use of entry time and exit time to compute the time (i.e., resident time) that the packet spends at the network node is well known in the art as disclosed by Le Pallec, wherein the current-node entry time and exit time are recorded in the packet (see Le Pallec, par 0035-0041).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Rochberger with Le Pallec’s teaching because it would have enabled computing the time the packet spends at the network entity (see Rochberger, col 6, ln 57-65).
Per claim 20, Rochberger teaches writing the latency information into the message wherein the latency information indicates a total latency value of the packet on the forwarding path (see col 6, ln 57-65), distributing the latency information message and the packet to a network forwarding node on the forwarding path (see col 7, ln 13-15).
Per claims 21-23, Le Pallec further teaches implementing the method with a computer program stored in a memory to be executed by a processor (see par 0060).
8. Claims 4, 6-8, 13, 16 and 18-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rochberger and Le Pallec, and further in view of Filsfils, U.S. pat. Appl. Pub. No. 2006/0193248.
Per claims 4 and 18-19, Rochberger and Le Pallec teach:
a) acquiring previous-node stay time information T1 from the packet field/label, e.g., TTL value is extracted from the packet (see col 7, ln 34-35);
b) acquiring previous-hop entry and exit time information from the packet field/label and computing resident time R1 (see Le Pallec, par 0041);
c) determining the current-node stay time information T2 according to the previous-hop stay time information and the previous-hop entry and exit timestamp information, e.g., T2=T1-R1 (see col 7, ln 13-15);
d) replacing the previous-hop stay time information with the current-node stay time information (see col 7, ln 37-39).
Neither Rochberger nor Le Pallec teach storing time and routing information in a guide label. However such use of guide label or service label for routing packets is well-known in the art as disclosed by Filsfils (see Filfils, par 0018-0019).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to further modify Rochberger with Filsfils’s teaching because it would have enabled switching packets more effectively.
Per claims 6-8, Filsfils also teaches determining hop count information of the current node and writing the hop count information of the current node into a hop count field included in the packet label, wherein the label field is used to identify the service label through a fixed label value (see par 0048-0049).
Per claims 13 and 16, Filsfils teaches that the packet comprises a plurality of segment labels, i.e., label stack, each label corresponds to each network forwarding node on the packet forwarding path (see par 0020), wherein hop count information of current node is determined and written into a hop count field included in a stack bottom label of the label stack (see par 0049).
Allowable Subject Matter
9. Claims 2-3, 5, 9-12, 14-15 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.
Conclusion
10. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Viet Vu whose telephone number is 571-272-3977. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday through Thursday from 8:00am to 6:00pm. The Group general information number is 571-272-2400. The Group fax number is 571-273-8300.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Emmanuel Moise, can be reached at 571-272-3865.
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/Viet D Vu/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2455
8/10/26
Prosecution Insights