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 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.
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.
Claims 1-20 are rejected in the Instant Application.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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, 2-4, 7-10, 13-14, 16-18, 20-21 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Thesling (US20080212517A1) hereinafter Thesling in view of Borkmann et al. (US20150186174A1) hereinafter Borkmann further in view of Jia (US20140071838A1) hereinafter Jia
Regarding claims 2, 9, 16. Thesling teaches a method of traffic shaping on an adaptive modulation and coding (AMC) data link (¶0029 see The gateway 115 may be configured to receive data and information directed to one or more subscriber terminals 130, and format the data and information (e.g., using Adaptive Coding and Modulation (ACM)) for delivery downstream to the respective subscriber terminals), comprising:
obtaining third data from a user-configured percentage input (¶0042 see QoS designations 255 include class of service designations, and any other form of prioritized or enhanced service requirements or privileges that may be associated with a data packet or other set of data. QoS designations 255 may include, but are not limited to, various resource reservation control mechanisms. QoS designations 255 may provide different priorities to different users or data flows [QoS selection and designation is interpreted as user configured percentage input]); and
reconfiguring an operating system (OS) traffic shaping implementation based on the first data, the second data, and the third data (¶0069 see the timestamps are modified for one or more of the data packets, based on one or more of their quality of service designation [third data], their age [second data], and delay at the device [first data] 400 Fig 6 ¶0067 modcodes are dynamically assigned to each of a number of data packets based on the signal quality of the link to which each respective packet is destined. At block 610, a timestamp is associated with each of the data packets. At block 615, quality of service designations are identified for at least a subset of the data packets based on a lookup of packet type. At block 620, timestamps for one or more of the data packets are modified based on their quality of service designations. At block 625, data packets are transmitted according to a defined order of progression. At block 630, the defined order of progression is interrupted upon expiration of a timer to transmit an out of order packet with a modified timestamp before other, earlier arriving packets)
Thesling teaches first, second and third data however does not explicitly teach obtaining first data from data representing a neighbor routing table stored on a network interface card (NIC); obtaining second data from data representing a modulation to goodput table;
Borkmann however in the same field of computer networking teaches obtaining first data from data representing a neighbor routing table stored on a network interface card (NIC) (¶0046 see a MAC address prefix filter for the identified MAC address prefix to a filter or routing table of a NIC and/or a virtual switch. ¶0028 see virtual switch may include a routing table with multiple different network traffic flows. Each flow may include various routing information. As used herein, routing information may be any data that is usable for routing packets to a particular location (e.g., to a particular virtual machine) [neighbor])
Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art of computer networking at the effective filing date of the claimed invention given the data of Thesling and the teachings of Borkmann for utilizing routing tables on NIC to combine the teachings such that Thesling utilizes the routing table of Borkmann. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that the results of the combination are predictable because each element in the combination is merely performing the same function it would perform separately. One would be motivated to combine these teachings because doing so will allow a host machine to be used in a non-promiscuous mode while still passing through all packets that are addressed to the virtual machines running on the host machine [Borkmann ¶0014]
Thesling-Borkmann does not explicitly teach obtaining second data from data representing a modulation to goodput table;
Jia however in the same field of computer networking teaches obtaining second data from data representing a modulation to goodput table (¶0077 see selecting the modulation and coding scheme from the identified rate table. In addition, the selection of the modulation and coding scheme may comprise selecting a modulation and coding schemes from the identified rate table that is associated with a highest goodput value)
Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art of computer networking at the effective filing date of the claimed invention given the data of Thesling and the teachings of Jia for utilizing data representing modulation to goodput table to combine the teachings such that Thesling utilizes the goodput table of Jia. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that the results of the combination are predictable because each element in the combination is merely performing the same function it would perform separately. One would be motivated to combine these teachings because doing so will allow for relatively large change in MCS (modulation scheme) may be accommodated, if warranted by the change in signal quality (Jia ¶0011)
Further regarding claim 9. The already combined references further teach a device comprising: a processor; and a non-transitory computer-readable media storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform operations comprising (Thesling ¶0051 see instructions embodied in a computer-readable medium, formatted to be executed by one or more general or application specific processors. Thus, the device 400 may include different types and configurations of memory (not shown), which may be integrated into the hardware)
Further regarding claim 16: The already combined references further teach a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing instructions that, when executed, cause a processor to perform operations (Thesling ¶0051 see instructions embodied in a computer-readable medium, formatted to be executed by one or more general or application specific processors)
Regarding claims 3, 17. The already combined references teach the method of claim 2 and further teaches data defining a first modulation of a data link and a first physical layer data transmission rate associated with a first media access control (MAC) address (see Thesling Mod Table ¶0007 see physical layer frames are built with a modcode adapted to the signal quality of a destination terminal, and timestamp modification may change the order in which packets associated with the same modcode are processed. Data packets assigned to the same modcode are generally sent in the same frame, although packets associated with higher modcodes may be used to complete a frame before switching to the applicable higher modcode for construction of subsequent frames ¶0038 see tables in FIGS. 2A and 2B may be embodied on one or more memories, which may be either on or off chip, and may be used in conjunction with one another to correlate a MAC address with a particular modcode format)
Thesling however does not explicitly teach wherein the first data from the neighbor routing table comprises data
Borkman however in the same field of computer networking teaches wherein the first data from the neighbor routing table comprises data (¶0028 see virtual switch may include a routing table with multiple different network traffic flows [mod and rate]. Each flow may include various routing information. As used herein, routing information may be any data that is usable for routing packets to a particular location (e.g., to a particular virtual machine). Examples of routing information include a MAC address, a transmission control protocol (TCP) port or universal datagram protocol (UDP) port, a VLAN tag identifying a virtual LAN that a virtual machine is associated with, a tunnel ID)
Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art of computer networking at the effective filing date of the claimed invention given the data of Thesling and the teachings of Borkmann for utilizing routing tables on NIC with rates to combine the teachings such that Thesling utilizes the routing table with rates of Borkmann. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that the results of the combination are predictable because each element in the combination is merely performing the same function it would perform separately. One would be motivated to combine these teachings because doing so will allow a host machine to be used in a non-promiscuous mode while still passing through all packets that are addressed to the virtual machines running on the host machine [Borkmann ¶0014]
Regarding claims 4, 10, 18. The already combined references teach the method of claim 2, wherein the second data from the modulation to goodput table comprises a frequency modulation scheme, a physical layer data transmission rate and at least one value defining a goodput corresponding to the frequency modulation scheme and the physical layer data transmission rate (Jia ¶0077 see at least one rate table comprises a plurality of rate tables. Accordingly, the selection of the modulation and coding scheme may comprise: identifying a rate table associated with a range of signal quality values that include the second signal quality, wherein the identified rate table is one of the plurality of rate tables and Fig 3)
Regarding claims 7, 13, 20. The already combined references teach the method of claim 2, further comprising altering the second data to a percentage thereof based on the third data (Thesling ¶0042 see modifications for each QoS designation may be based on a range of factors. As used herein, QoS designations 255 include class of service designations, and any other form of prioritized or enhanced service requirements or privileges that may be associated with a data packet or other set of data. QoS designations 255 may include, but are not limited to, various resource reservation control mechanisms. QoS designations 255 may provide different priorities to different users or data flows, or guarantee a certain level of performance to a data flow in accordance with requests from the application program or the internet service provider policy [goodput is associated with the QoS designation directly]).
Regarding claims 8, 14, 20. The already combined references teach the method of claim 2, wherein the neighbor routing table indicates neighbor nodes that the NIC of an originating node is able to identify (Borkmann ¶0013 see MAC address prefixes to host machines [neighbors] for managing network traffic. Each host machine is assigned one or a few MAC address prefixes. Each MAC address prefix is a sequence of bits at a front of the MAC address (e.g., the first 3 bytes of the MAC address). Each host machine assigns MAC addresses having the assigned MAC address prefix to virtual machines started on that host machine. Each host machine further includes a MAC address prefix filter that can be used at the hardware level (e.g., by the NIC) [identification via MAC])
Claims 5-6, 11-12, 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Thesling-Borkmann-Jia further in view of Yazdani et al. (US20160147466A1) hereinafter Yazdani
Regarding claims 5, 11, 19. Thesling-Borkmann-Jia teach the method of claim 2, wherein the modulation to goodput table (see claim 2 above)
Thesling-Borkmann-Jia does not explicitly teach table modified by actions comprising: editing source code of a node; and recompiling an executable of the source code
Yazdani however in the same field of computer networking teaches table modified by actions comprising: editing source code of a node; and recompiling an executable of the source code (¶0030 see a compiler and a loader are used to produce unique Address-Size data pairs, referred to as ‘address-size pair’ in predefined tables used by the hardware. When an object is declared or created in the program, an entry is created in a predefined table. The scope of an object is either local or global. The scope of a global object comprises the entire program)
Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art of computer networking at the effective filing date of the claimed invention given goodput table of Thesling-Borkmann-Jia and the teachings of Yazdani for hardcoded tables that require compilation of code to combine the teachings such that Thesling utilizes the hardcodes table with rates of Yazdani. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that the results of the combination are predictable because each element in the combination is merely performing the same function it would perform separately. One would be motivated to combine these teachings because doing so will allow checking to insure memory access, including indirect object access through pointers, is within a range of defined object bounds [Yazdani ¶0006]
Regarding claims 6, 12. Thesling-Borkmann-Jia teach the method of claim 2,
Thesling-Borkmann-Jia teaches modulation to goodput table (see claim 2 above) however does not explicitly teach wherein the table is hardcoded to a data storage device
Yazdani however in the same field of computer networking teaches wherein the modulation to goodput table is hardcoded to a data storage device (¶0030 see loader are used to produce unique Address-Size data pairs, referred to as ‘address-size pair’ in predefined tables used by the hardware. When an object is declared or created in the program, an entry is created in a predefined table. The scope of an object is either local or global. The scope of a global object comprises the entire program. Local-scope-objects are declared within a function body.)
Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art of computer networking at the effective filing date of the claimed invention given goodput table of Thesling-Borkmann-Jia and the teachings of Yazdani for hardcoded tables that require compilation of code to combine the teachings such that Thesling utilizes the hardcodes table with rates of Yazdani. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that the results of the combination are predictable because each element in the combination is merely performing the same function it would perform separately. One would be motivated to combine these teachings because doing so will allow checking to insure memory access, including indirect object access through pointers, is within a range of defined object bounds [Yazdani ¶0006]
Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Thesling-Borkmann-Jia further in view of Segal et al (US20180352581A1) hereinafter Segal
Regarding claim 15. Thesling-Borkmann-Jia teach the device of claim 9,
Thesling-Borkmann-Jia does not explicitly teach wherein the device is an edge device
Segal however in the same field of computer networking teaches wherein the device is an edge device (¶0058-59 see Depending on the adaptive modulation and coding used for transmission, some MNs are able to sense transmissions of some other MNs even if the transmission is not fully and successfully received …. Connectivity graph 300 may comprise a node marked by a letter for each mesh node, and an edge for any two nodes that directly receive one another's transmission. The width of each edge may indicate the communication scheme, thus bold edges such as edge 312 may indicate communication using 16QAM constellation and 0.7 FEC rate)
Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art of computer networking at the effective filing date of the claimed invention given the devices of Thesling-Borkmann-Jia and the teachings of Segal for utilizing edge nodes for utilizing communication scheme updates to combine the teachings such that Thesling utilizes the edge nodes of Segal. One of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that the results of the combination are predictable because each element in the combination is merely performing the same function it would perform separately. One would be motivated to combine these teachings because doing so will provide routers which may form a network that ensures robust and efficient communication under changing topology condition [Segal ¶0029]
Conclusion
References are cited not only for their quoted language but for all that they teach.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Atta Khan whose telephone number is 571-270-7364. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 09:00-6:00.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Vivek Srivastava can be reached on (571) 272-7304. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ATTA KHAN/
Examiner, Art Unit 2449
Prosecution Insights