DETAILED ACTION
This application has been examined. Claims 1-12 are pending.
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 .
Making Final
Applicant's arguments filed 8/9/2026 have been fully considered but they are moot in view of the new grounds for rejection.
The claim amendments regarding -- ‘marking an incoming packet with a single identifier of a traffic domain assigned to the incoming packet, the single identifier being independent of a level of the hierarchy to which the traffic domain belongs’ -- clearly change the literal scope of the independent and dependent claims and/or the range of equivalents for such claims. The said amendments alter the scope of the claims but do not overcome the disclosure by the prior art as shown below.
The Examiner is presenting new grounds for rejection as necessitated by the claim amendments and is thus making this action FINAL.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 8/9/2026 have been fully considered but they are moot in view of the new grounds for rejection.
While Brar substantially disclosed the claimed invention Brar does not disclose (re. Claim 1) marking an incoming packet with a single identifier of a traffic domain assigned to the incoming packet, the single identifier being independent of a level of the hierarchy to which the traffic domain belongs.
Zahid disclosed (re. Claim 1) marking an incoming packet with a single identifier of a traffic domain assigned to the incoming packet, the single identifier being independent of a level of the hierarchy to which the traffic domain belongs.( Zahid-Figure 6,Paragraph 35,The SM can configure partition membership information on each port as a table of 16-bit partition keys (P Keys), Paragraph 36, The P Key information can then be added to every IB transport packet sent.)
Brar and Zahid are analogous art because they present concepts and practices regarding network partition routing. Before the time of the effective date of the claimed invention it would have been obvious to combine Zahid into Brar. The motivation for the said combination would have been to enable SM to perform periodic light sweeps of the subnet to detect any topology changes and reconfigure the network accordingly.(Zahid-Paragraph 33)
Priority
The effective date of the claims described in this application is February 2, 2025.
Information Disclosure Statement
The Applicant is respectfully reminded that each individual associated with the filing and prosecution of a patent application has a duty of candor and good faith in dealing with the Office, which includes a duty to disclose to the Office all information known to that individual to be material to patentability as defined in 37 CFR 1.56.
There were no information disclosure statements filed with this application.
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.
Claim(s) 1-2,5-6,7-8,11-12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Brar (USPGPUB 2025/0126080) further in view of Zahid (USPGPUB 2016/0127236)
Regarding Claim 1
Brar Paragraph 156,Paragraph 159 disclosed implementing global virtual planes (also referred to herein as ‘virtual planes’). The resources of the entire network fabric 700 are partitioned into a number of portions. Each portion is assigned/associated with a virtual plane. The resources of the network fabric may correspond to the plurality of switches included in the hierarchical structure of switches i.e., T0, T1, and T2 layer switches.
Brar Paragraph 164 disclosed wherein traffic on a particular virtual plane remains on the same virtual plane in an end-to-end manner. Thus, if a particular GPU on a particular host machine desires to communicate with another GPU on another host machine (assuming both host machines are associated to the same virtual plane), an end-to-end path (i.e., referred to herein as a “traffic path” within a virtual plane and described later with reference to FIG. 8) is pre-established.
Brar disclosed (re. Claim 1) a Network Management System (NMS),(Brar-Paragraph 42, a console that enables customers and network administrators to configure, access, and manage resources deployed in the cloud using CSPI resources) comprising: one or more network interfaces, to communicate with a communication network comprising multiple network devices, the network devices being connected (i) to one another via inter-device ports and (ii) to network endpoints via endpoint-facing ports; (Brar-Figure 16,Paragraph 156,Paragraph 197-198,Paragraph 162, ports of the particular switch i.e., uplink ports and downlink ports are associated with the particular virtual plane. Paragraph 114, host-facing ports in FIG. 2 include port 236 on NVD 210, and ports 248 and 254 on NVD 212. A network-facing port of an NVD is a port that is used to connect the NVD to a TOR switch) and one or more processors, to:
define a plurality of traffic domains arranged in a hierarchy having two or more levels; (Brar Paragraph 156,Paragraph 159, global virtual planes (also referred to herein as ‘virtual planes’). The resources of the entire network fabric 700 are partitioned into a number of portions. Each portion is assigned/associated with a virtual plane. In other words, the resources of the network fabric may correspond to the plurality of switches included in the hierarchical structure of switches i.e., T0, T1, and T2 layer switches.)
associate the endpoint-facing ports of the network devices with respective ones of the traffic domains; (Brar-Paragraph 203, packet is communicated from the first GPU on the first host machine to the second GPU on the second host machine using ports from a first subset of ports (associated with the first virtual plane) and a second subset of ports (associated with the second virtual plane). )
and configure the network devices (i) to assign incoming packets to the respective traffic domains that are associated with the endpoint-facing ports via which the incoming packets enter the communication network, (Brar-Paragraph 176, (i) decapsulating a packet received on a first overlay network (e.g., first virtual plane) to extract information corresponding to a first header associated with the first virtual plane, and (ii) encapsulating the first packet with information corresponding to a second header associated with another overlay network (e.g., the second virtual plane) )
and (ii) to permit forwarding of packets only within each of the traffic domains.(Brar-Paragraph 165, a first host machine associated with a first virtual plane is not permitted to communicate with a second host machine that is associated with a second virtual plane. In this manner, traffic isolation between different customers can be achieved by allocating host machines associated with different virtual planes to the different customers.)
While Brar substantially disclosed the claimed invention Brar does not disclose (re. Claim 1) marking an incoming packet with a single identifier of a traffic domain assigned to the incoming packet, the single identifier being independent of a level of the hierarchy to which the traffic domain belongs.
Zahid Figure 6,Paragraph 35 disclosed wherein InfiniBand IB networks can support partitioning (i.e., supporting multiple tenants) as a security mechanism to provide for isolation of logical groups of systems sharing a network fabric. Each HCA port on a node in the fabric can be a member of one or more partitions. Partition memberships are managed by a centralized partition manager, which can be part of the subnet manager SM. The SM can configure partition membership information on each port as a table of 16-bit partition keys (P Keys). Subnet manager SM can also configure switches and routers with the partition enforcement tables containing P Key information associated with the LIDs. Partition membership of a switch port can represent a union of all membership indirectly associated with LIDs routed via the port in an egress (towards the link) direction.
Zahid Paragraph 36 disclosed wherein for the communication between nodes, Queue Pairs (QPs) and End-to-End contexts (EECs) can be assigned to a particular partition, except for the management Queue Pairs (QP0 and QP1). The P Key information can then be added to every IB transport packet sent. When a packet arrives at an HCA port or a switch, its P Key value can be validated against a table configured by the SM. If an invalid P Key value is found, the packet is discarded immediately. In this way, communication is allowed only between ports sharing a partition.
Zahid disclosed (re. Claim 1) marking an incoming packet with a single identifier of a traffic domain assigned to the incoming packet, the single identifier being independent of a level of the hierarchy to which the traffic domain belongs.( Zahid-Figure 6,Paragraph 35,The SM can configure partition membership information on each port as a table of 16-bit partition keys (P Keys), Paragraph 36, The P Key information can then be added to every IB transport packet sent.)
Brar and Zahid are analogous art because they present concepts and practices regarding network partition routing. Before the time of the effective date of the claimed invention it would have been obvious to combine Zahid into Brar. The motivation for the said combination would have been to enable SM to perform periodic light sweeps of the subnet to detect any topology changes and reconfigure the network accordingly.(Zahid-Paragraph 33)
Regarding Claim 5
Claim 5 (re. method) recites substantially similar limitations as Claim 1. Claim 5 is rejected on the same basis as Claim 1.
Regarding Claim 7
Claim 7 (re. method) recites substantially similar limitations as Claim 1. Claim 7 is rejected on the same basis as Claim 1.
Regarding Claim 11
Claim 11 (re. method) recites substantially similar limitations as Claim 1. Claim 11 is rejected on the same basis as Claim 1.
Regarding Claim 2,6,8,12
Brar-Zahid disclosed (re. Claim 2,6,8,12) wherein the single a domain identifier is indicative of the traffic domain assigned to the incoming packet, but not indicative of the hierarchy.( Zahid-Figure 6,Paragraph 35,The SM can configure partition membership information on each port as a table of 16-bit partition keys (P Keys), Paragraph 36, The P Key information can then be added to every IB transport packet sent.)
Claim(s) 3,9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Brar (USPGPUB 2025/0126080) further in view of Zahid (USPGPUB 2016/0127236)
further in view of Huang (USPGPUB 2023/0084206)
Regarding Claim 3,9
While Brar-Zahid substantially disclosed the claimed invention Brar-Zahid does not disclose (re. Claim 3,9) wherein, in response to adding a traffic domain to the plurality, the one or more processors are to (i) define a location of the traffic domain in the hierarchy, (ii) define a domain identifier for the traffic domain, (iii) update association of the endpoint-facing ports to account for the traffic domain, and (iv) reconfigure the network devices to account for the traffic domain.
Huang Paragraph 54 disclosed wherein each controlling unit 432…434 is connected in the processing system 400 via a Channel Path Identifier (CHPID). For example, the controlling unit 432 is connected via “CHPID: P0.0.00.” Here, “CHPID: P0.0.00” represents a link path between the processing device 410 and the controlling unit 432, which includes the switch-in port PT01, the switch-out port PT 44, and one or more network nodes in the SAN 420. Similarly, the processing device 412 in the processing system 400 may be connected to the controlling unit 434 via “CHPID: P2.0.C2.”
Huang disclosed (re. Claim 3,9) wherein, in response to adding a traffic domain (Huang-Paragraph 81, in response to receiving a request for adding a target controlling unit ) to the plurality, the one or more processors are to (i) define a location of the traffic domain in the hierarchy, (Huang-Paragraph 79, a target subnet with a relative lighter workload may be selected) (ii) define a domain identifier for the traffic domain, (iii) update association of the endpoint-facing ports to account for the traffic domain, (Huang-Paragraph 77, a CHPID may be assigned for a path that leads to the controlling unit 520) and (iv) reconfigure the network devices to account for the traffic domain.(Huang-Paragraph 81, in response to receiving a request for adding a target controlling unit into a processing system, a plurality of network nodes in the processing system is divided into a group of subnets based on a topology of the plurality of network nodes, the plurality of network nodes being connected to at least one controlling unit in the processing system.)
Brar and Huang are analogous art because they present concepts and practices regarding network partition routing. Before the time of the effective date of the claimed invention it would have been obvious to combine Huang into Brar. The motivation for the said combination would have been to provide automatic solutions for selecting the target subnet, which may free the administrator from heavy manual works , wherein the solution for selecting the target subnet considers both of the static topology of the SAN 420 as well as the dynamic workload of the network nodes in the SAN 420, therefore the target subnet may be selected in a more accurate and effective way.(Huang-Paragraph 79)
Claim(s) 4,10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Brar (USPGPUB 2025/0126080) further in view of Zahid (USPGPUB 2016/0127236) further in view of Huang (USPGPUB 2023/0084206) further in view of Kim (US Patent 10659434)
Regarding Claim 4,10
Brar-Huang disclosed (re. Claim 4,10) wherein, in response to terminating a traffic domain (Huang-Paragraph 75, one or more subnets may be removed from the candidate subnet group 810 while the candidate subnet group still includes at least one subnet ) in the plurality, the one or more processors are to (i) remove the traffic domain from the hierarchy, (Huang-Paragraph 75, one or more subnets may be removed from the candidate subnet group 810 while the candidate subnet group still includes at least one subnet ) and (iii) reconfigure the network devices to account for removal of the traffic domain.
While Brar-Zahid-Huang substantially disclosed the claimed invention Brar-Zahid-Huang does not disclose (re. Claim 4,10) (ii) release a domain identifier that was assigned to the traffic domain.
Kim Column 27 Lines 25-30 disclosed wherein the controller 3006 may update and optimize the application flow routing table 3012. Upon removal of the corresponding gateway, the application flow routing table in the controller may be updated to remove the gateway flow and optimize the routing information.
Kim disclosed (re. Claim 4,10) (ii) release a domain identifier that was assigned to the traffic domain. (Kim-Column 27 Lines 25-30,the controller 3006 may update and optimize the application flow routing table 3012. Upon removal of the corresponding gateway, the application flow routing table in the controller may be updated to remove the gateway flow and optimize the routing information.)
Brar and Kim are analogous art because they present concepts and practices regarding network partition routing. Before the time of the effective date of the claimed invention it would have been obvious to combine Kim into Brar. The motivation for the said combination would have been to enable reconstructing an existing node flow every time a gateway is removed and can provide a routing table that may efficiently transmit data packets.(Kim-Column 27 Lines 10)
Conclusion
Examiner’s Note: In the case of amending the claimed invention, Applicant is respectfully requested to indicate the portion(s) of the specification which dictate(s) the structure relied on for proper interpretation and also to verify and ascertain the metes and bounds of the claimed invention.
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GREG C BENGZON whose telephone number is (571)272-3944. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday - Friday 8 AM - 4:30 PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, John Follansbee can be reached on (571) 272-3964. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/GREG C BENGZON/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2444
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