DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . This application has been examined. Claims 1-20.
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 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.
Claims 1-8, 10-17, and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Williams et al. (2024/0364629, hereinafter Williams) in view of Knee et al. (2002/0143787, hereinafter Knee).
Regarding claim 1, Williams discloses a method for information routing, the method comprising:
receiving a destination indication corresponding to data (Williams discloses that the network identifier entry 110 that matches the number of bits of the destination address 104 of the network packet 102 can be indexed to a corresponding entry at a destination table 112) (Williams, para. 42); and
transmitting the data on a routing path based on routing information retrieved from a routing table bypass (Williams discloses that the routing lookup structure determines that the network packets can bypass the lookup table (routing table bypass) and directly routed by the default range table) (Williams, para. 21) that includes a routing cache (Williams discloses that the routing lookup structure 200 performs the initial processing for the network packet(s) 202 at the primary lookup table 204 (routing cache) based on the constituent destination address 210) (Williams, para. 53).
Williams does not explicitly disclose a match mask.
In analogous art, Knee teaches a match mask (Knee discloses that the routing process 220 may retrieve an encoded mask vector (match mask) corresponding to a destination network layer address contained in the received packet from the mask table 240 and then performs one or more address look-up requests using those masks indicated by the encoded mask vector to have a potential for matching an entry in the routing table 230) (Knee, para. 36).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to take the teachings of Knee related to the match mask and to combine with Williams in order to increase the efficiency of forwarding packet data with the longest match search in the routing table (Knee, para. 24).
Regarding claim 2, Williams and Knee discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the destination indication comprises at least a portion of a network address (Williams discloses that the network identifier entry 110 that matches the number of bits of the destination address 104 of the network packet 102 can be indexed to a corresponding entry at a destination table 112) (Williams, para. 42).
Regarding claim 3, Williams and Knee discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising bypassing a routing table based on the routing information being present in the routing cache or the match mask (Williams discloses that the routing lookup structure determines that the network packets can bypass the lookup table (routing table bypass) and directly routed by the default range table) (Williams, para. 21).
Regarding claim 4, Williams and Knee discloses the method of claim 1, wherein a total number of entries of the routing cache is fewer than a number of addresses in a working set (Williams discloses that the number of network identifier entries 420 (total number of entries of the routing cache) exceeding the second network identifier entry threshold 404B which receives an initial comparison against the network identifier entries 408 at the lookup table 406 before proceeding to one of the plurality of range tables 418A-418N (working set)) (Williams, para. 75).
Regarding claim 5, Williams and Knee discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the match mask is dynamically programmable (Knee discloses that the routing table entries are created, modified (dynamically programmable), or deleted and the mask table 650 is updated to reflect the contents of the routing table 600 on a periodic basis or in real-time) (Knee, para. 56; Fig. 6).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to take the teachings of Knee related to the match mask is dynamically programmable and to combine with Williams and Knee in order to increase the efficiency of forwarding packet data with the longest match search in the routing table (Knee, para. 24).
Regarding claim 6, Williams and Knee discloses the method of claim 1, wherein an entry of the match mask includes a bit mask, a bit match (Knee discloses that the entries with the potential to match the search key have mask lengths of 16 or 8-bits (bit mask), then the set of masks can be limited to two masks, one of length 16 and the other length 8 (bit match)) (Knee, para. 50) and a routing destination associated with at least a portion of an address (Knee discloses that the routing process 220 may retrieve an encoded mask vector (match mask) corresponding to a destination network layer address contained in the received packet from the mask table 240 and then performs one or more address look-up requests using those masks indicated by the encoded mask vector to have a potential for matching an entry in the routing table 230) (Knee, para. 36).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to take the teachings of Knee related to the match mask includes a bit mask, bit match, and a routing destination and to combine with Williams and Knee in order to increase the efficiency of forwarding packet data with the longest match search in the routing table (Knee, para. 24).
Regarding claim 7, Williams and Knee discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the data comprises a packet (Williams discloses that the lookup table can process network packets using a default range table) (Williams, para. 17).
Regarding claim 8, Williams and Knee discloses the method of claim 1, wherein the routing information is retrieved from the routing cache based on both the routing cache (Williams discloses that the secondary lookup table 206 (routing cache) determines that a second portion of the destination address 210 (first 24-bits) matches a network identifier entry 230 where the size of the second portion is defined by the maximum network identifier length) (Williams, para. 59) and match mask including entries corresponding to the destination indication (Knee discloses that the routing process 220 may retrieve an encoded mask vector (match mask) corresponding to a destination network layer address contained in the received packet from the mask table 240 and then performs one or more address look-up requests using those masks indicated by the encoded mask vector to have a potential for matching an entry in the routing table 230) (Knee, para. 36).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to take the teachings of Knee related to the match and to combine with Williams and Knee in order to increase the efficiency of forwarding packet data with the longest match search in the routing table (Knee, para. 24).
Regarding claim 10, Williams discloses a device for information routing, comprising:
circuitry (Williams, para. 94) configured to receive a destination indication corresponding to data (Williams discloses that the network identifier entry 110 that matches the number of bits of the destination address 104 of the network packet 102 can be indexed to a corresponding entry at a destination table 112) (Williams, para. 42); and
circuitry (Williams, para. 94) configured to transmit the data on a routing path based on routing information retrieved from a routing table bypass (Williams discloses that the routing lookup structure determines that the network packets can bypass the lookup table (routing table bypass) and directly routed by the default range table) (Williams, para. 21) that includes a routing cache (Williams discloses that the routing lookup structure 200 performs the initial processing for the network packet(s) 202 at the primary lookup table 204 (routing cache) based on the constituent destination address 210 (match mask)) (Williams, para. 53).
Williams does not explicitly disclose a match mask.
In analogous art, Knee teaches a match mask (Knee discloses that the routing process 220 may retrieve an encoded mask vector (match mask) corresponding to a destination network layer address contained in the received packet from the mask table 240 and then performs one or more address look-up requests using those masks indicated by the encoded mask vector to have a potential for matching an entry in the routing table 230) (Knee, para. 36).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to take the teachings of Knee related to the match mask and to combine with Williams in order to increase the efficiency of forwarding packet data with the longest match search in the routing table (Knee, para. 24).
Regarding claim 11, Williams and Knee discloses the device of claim 10, wherein the destination indication comprises at least a portion of a network address (Williams discloses that the network identifier entry 110 that matches the number of bits of the destination address 104 of the network packet 102 can be indexed to a corresponding entry at a destination table 112) (Williams, para. 42).
Regarding claim 12, Williams and Knee discloses the device of claim 10, further comprising circuitry configured to bypass a routing table based on the routing information being present in the routing cache or the match mask (Williams discloses that the routing lookup structure determines that the network packets can bypass the lookup table (routing table bypass) and directly routed by the default range table) (Williams, para. 21).
Regarding claim 13, Williams and Knee discloses the device of claim 10, wherein a total number of entries of the routing cache is fewer than a number of addresses in a working set of the device (Williams discloses that the number of network identifier entries 420 (total number of entries of the routing cache) exceeding the second network identifier entry threshold 404B which receives an initial comparison against the network identifier entries 408 at the lookup table 406 before proceeding to one of the plurality of range tables 418A-418N (working set)) (Williams, para. 75).
Regarding claim 14, Williams and Knee discloses the device of claim 10, wherein the match mask is dynamically programmable (Knee discloses that the routing table entries are created, modified (dynamically programmable), or deleted and the mask table 650 is updated to reflect the contents of the routing table 600 on a periodic basis or in real-time) (Knee, para. 56; Fig. 6).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to take the teachings of Knee related to the match mask is dynamically programmable and to combine with Williams and Knee in order to increase the efficiency of forwarding packet data with the longest match search in the routing table (Knee, para. 24).
Regarding claim 15, Williams and Knee discloses the device of claim 10, wherein an entry of the match mask includes a bit mask, a bit match (Knee discloses that the entries with the potential to match the search key have mask lengths of 16 or 8-bits (bit mask), then the set of masks can be limited to two masks, one of length 16 and the other length 8 (bit match)) (Knee, para. 50) and a routing destination associated with at least a portion of an address (Knee discloses that the routing process 220 may retrieve an encoded mask vector (match mask) corresponding to a destination network layer address contained in the received packet from the mask table 240 and then performs one or more address look-up requests using those masks indicated by the encoded mask vector to have a potential for matching an entry in the routing table 230) (Knee, para. 36).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to take the teachings of Knee related to the match mask includes a bit mask, bit match, and a routing destination and to combine with Williams and Knee in order to increase the efficiency of forwarding packet data with the longest match search in the routing table (Knee, para. 24).
Regarding claim 16, Williams and Knee discloses the device of claim 10, wherein the data comprises a packet (Williams discloses that the lookup table can process network packets using a default range table) (Williams, para. 17).
Regarding claim 17, Williams and Knee discloses the device of claim 10, wherein the routing information is retrieved from the routing cache based on both the routing cache and match mask including entries corresponding to the destination indication (Williams discloses that the secondary lookup table 206 (routing cache) determines that a second portion of the destination address 210 (first 24-bits) (match mask) matches a network identifier entry 230 where the size of the second portion is defined by the maximum network identifier length) (Williams, para. 59).
Regarding claim 19, Williams discloses a routing device (Williams, para. 4), comprising:
circuitry (Williams, para. 94) configured to receive a destination indication corresponding to data (Williams discloses that the network identifier entry 110 that matches the number of bits of the destination address 104 of the network packet 102 can be indexed to a corresponding entry at a destination table 112) (Williams, para. 42); and
circuitry (Williams, para. 94) configured to transmit the data on a routing path based on routing information retrieved from either a routing cache (Williams discloses that the routing lookup structure 200 performs the initial processing for the network packet(s) 202 at the primary lookup table 204 (routing cache)based on the constituent destination address 210 (match mask)) (Williams, para. 53).
Williams does not explicitly disclose a match mask.
In analogous art, Knee teaches a match mask (Knee discloses that the routing process 220 may retrieve an encoded mask vector (match mask) corresponding to a destination network layer address contained in the received packet from the mask table 240 and then performs one or more address look-up requests using those masks indicated by the encoded mask vector to have a potential for matching an entry in the routing table 230) (Knee, para. 36).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to take the teachings of Knee related to the match mask and to combine with Williams in order to increase the efficiency of forwarding packet data with the longest match search in the routing table (Knee, para. 24).
Regarding claim 20, Williams and Knee discloses the routing device of claim 19, wherein the routing device does not include a routing table (Williams discloses that the lookup table can process network packets using a default range table; the network packet with a destination address that does not match any of the entries of the lookup table can instead be matched to a default entry (does not include a routing table)) (Williams, para. 17).
Claims 9 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Williams et al. (2024/0364629, hereinafter Williams) and Knee et al. (2002/0143787, hereinafter Knee) as applied to claims 1 and 10 above, and further in view of Shobatake (2004/0153570).
Regarding claim 9, Williams and Knee discloses the method of claim 1, but does not explicitly disclose wherein the routing cache includes a pinned entry which includes a tag corresponding to an entry of the match mask.
In analogous art, Shobatake teaches wherein the routing cache includes a pinned entry which includes a tag corresponding to an entry of the match mask (Shobatake discloses that the internal route information holding table 4101 (route cache) is a table that can be referred to and each entry contains a primary route field indicating the route to be selected with the higher priority (pinned entry) in selecting the route, selected route field, selected channel field indicating (tag corresponding to an entry of the match mask) whether the corresponding flow is currently transferred by the default channel or the bypass channel) (Shobatake, para. 255; Fig. 38).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to take the teachings of Shobatake related to the routing cache includes a pinned entry which includes a tag corresponding to an entry of the match mask and to combine with Williams and Knee in order to increase the efficiency of utilizing the wavelength resources in the message relay device (Shobatake, para. 47).
Regarding claim 18, Williams and Knee discloses the device of claim 10, but does not explicitly disclose wherein the routing cache includes a pinned entry which includes a tag corresponding to an entry of the match mask.
In analogous art, Shobatake teaches wherein the routing cache includes a pinned entry which includes a tag corresponding to an entry of the match mask (Shobatake discloses that the internal route information holding table 4101 (route cache) is a table that can be referred to and each entry contains a primary route field indicating the route to be selected with the higher priority (pinned entry) in selecting the route, selected route field, selected channel field indicating (tag corresponding to an entry of the match mask) whether the corresponding flow is currently transferred by the default channel or the bypass channel) (Shobatake, para. 255; Fig. 38).
Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to take the teachings of Shobatake related to the routing cache includes a pinned entry which includes a tag corresponding to an entry of the match mask and to combine with Williams and Knee in order to increase the efficiency of utilizing the wavelength resources in the message relay device (Shobatake, para. 47).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Thirumurthi et al. (2022/0345422) and Boden et al. (6,167,444) discloses the matching masks with the entries on the routing table.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANDREW WOO whose telephone number is (571)270-7521. The examiner can normally be reached Telework 9:00AM-6:00PM | IFP M-F 9:00AM-6:00PM.
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/ANDREW WOO/Examiner, Art Unit 2458
/UMAR CHEEMA/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2458
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