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 .
Claim Objections
Claim 4 is objected to because of the following informality: Claim 4 refers to “the data packet,” where such a data packet is not previously recited. Appropriate correction is required.
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)(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.
Claim(s) 1, 9, and 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102a1 as being anticipated by US 2025/0284654 (Ghosh).
With regard to claim 1, Ghosh discloses a system comprising:
a PCIe switch coupled to a plurality of hosts (Ghosh: Figures 1 and 4), the PCIe switch comprising:
a plurality of partitions, respective partitions comprising at least one upstream port and at least one downstream port (Ghosh: Figures 1 and 4 and Paragraph [0034]);
an adaptive enumeration controller coupled to the plurality of partitions, the adaptive enumeration controller comprising a memory, a rules table and a device capability tracker circuit (Ghosh: Paragraphs [0129], [0124], and Figure 14); and
the adaptive enumeration controller to control communication between at least one of the plurality of hosts and one or more PCIe devices based on a first configuration information read from the one or more PCIe devices and a second configuration information stored in the memory (Ghosh: Paragraphs [0093], [0121], and [0083]. Based on the received capabilities of a device, traffic is handled differently, where control would thus be based on the first configuration information (device capabilities) and second configuration information (configuration of the switch).).
With regard to claim 9, Ghosh discloses the first configuration information read from the one or more PCIe devices comprising at least one of a device ID, a vendor ID, a class code, a source address of the data packet, a destination address of the data packet, an ingress port address of the data packet, an egress port address of the data packet, a configuration register address, a configuration register datum, and a device capability identifier (Ghosh: Paragraphs [0093], [0121], and [0083]. The configuration information at least includes identification of the device capabilities.).
With regard to claim 12, Ghosh discloses that the PCIe devices comprising one or more Non-Volatile Memory Express (NVMe) memory components and one or more Network Interface Cards (NICs) (Ghosh: Paragraph [0044]).
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) 2-8, 10-11, and 13-23 are is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ghosh.
With regard to claim 2, Ghosh fails to disclose, but knowledge possessed by one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing teaches the adaptive enumeration controller to read data from the rules table and to store the data read from the rules table in the memory (More specifically, Official Notice is taken that the reading of data from a table to be used, and the at least temporary storage of such data in a memory was well-known to one of ordinary skill in the art. For any finding of Official Notice, Applicant should refer to MPEP 2144.03 C, where an adequate traversal would include stating why the noticed fact is not well-known. However, as long as Applicant states that “Applicant does not consider the noticed fact to be well-known to one of ordinary skill in the art,” such a traversal would be deemed adequate, and evidence will be provided as appropriate. With such statements, however, Applicant should be aware of the level of disclosure of the instant specification with regard to support under 35 USC 112a (e.g. as noted below, ADAS is only mentioned once in the specification with no details of the use or structure of such technology, where Applicant would clearly be relying on knowledge of one of ordinary skill in the art to enable claim 11).). Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to read the data from the table and to store the data read into the memory to provide better access to the data as it is being used, such as caching the data from the table for faster access of repeatedly accessed data instead of needing to locate and read the data from the table each time the data is needed.
With regard to claim 3, Ghosh fails to disclose, but knowledge possessed by one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing teaches the second configuration information stored in the memory comprising a linked list, the linked list including columns of filter criteria and columns of transport operations (More specifically, Official Notice is taken that linked lists were well-known to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing. Furthermore, the use of filter criteria, such as whitelists, black lists, permissions, etc., where different traffic parameters (e.g. source or destination, such as identified by addresses) would result in different treatment of the traffic, with such stored in a table, database, list, etc. were well-known to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing.). Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have the second configuration information stored in the memory comprising a linked list, the linked list including columns of filter criteria and columns of transport operations to allow for an organized collection of information on how traffic from different sources or with different characteristics should be treated, where a linked list would provide an efficiently expandable collection of such information, as information would be able to be freely added or removed using pointers to the different entries, with such operations only requiring adjustments of the pointers, with the storage of such a list not requiring contiguous memory allocations with resizing of the list avoiding expensive memory reallocations or shifting of data.
With regard to claim 4, Ghosh in view of knowledge possessed by one of ordinary skill in the art teaches the filter criteria comprising at least one of a device ID, a vendor ID, a class code, a source address of the data packet, a destination address of the data packet, an ingress port address of the data packet, an egress port address of the data packet, a configuration register address, a configuration register datum, and a device capability identifier (Ghosh: Paragraphs [0093], [0121], and [0083]. As addressed in claim 1, above, the device capabilities of the device would be utilized to determine how traffic is handled, where the use of the linked list of claim 3, above, would lead to such information being included. Further, as addressed in claim 3, such known parameters would include source and/or destination addresses.).
With regard to claim 5, Ghosh in view of knowledge possessed by one of ordinary skill in the art teaches that the transport operations comprising at least one of allowing data transmission, blocking data transmission and modifying data transmission (Ghosh: Paragraphs [0093], [0121], and [0083]. Ghosh at least teaches allowing and modifying, where one of ordinary skill in the art would also have known to provide blocking for such a filter (where only one item from the list is needed to teach the instant claim, as a whole, and thus a teaching of allowing or modifying is enough to teach the instant claim, as a whole.).).
With regard to claim 6, Ghosh in view of knowledge possessed by one of ordinary skill in the art teaches the adaptive enumeration controller to allow the at least one of the plurality of hosts to communicate with the one or more PCIe devices based on a filter criteria in the first configuration information matching a filter criteria in the second configuration information and the corresponding transport operation representing allowing transmission (Ghosh: Paragraphs [0093], [0121], and [0083]. First, if the capabilities match in Ghosh, the communication would be allowed. Second, when presented with the filter of claim 3, such as with permissions or whitelists being represented by the linked list, communications would be allowed based on a macth.).
With regard to claim 7, Ghosh in view of knowledge possessed by one of ordinary skill in the art teaches the adaptive enumeration controller to prevent the at least one of the plurality of hosts from communicating with the one or more PCIe devices based on the filter criteria in the first configuration information matching the filter criteria in the second configuration information and the corresponding transport operation representing blocking transmission (As addressed in claim 3, blacklists were known, which would block traffic based on a match.).
With regard to claim 8, Ghosh in view of knowledge possessed by one of ordinary skill in the art teaches the adaptive enumeration controller to modify the communication between at least one of the plurality of hosts and the one or more PCIe devices based on the filter criteria in the first configuration information matching the filter criteria in the second configuration information and the corresponding transport operation representing modifying transmission (Ghosh: Paragraphs [0093], [0121], and [0083]. The traffic would be modified based on the capabilities.).
With regard to claim 10, Ghosh in view of knowledge possessed by one of ordinary skill in the art teaches the one or more PCIe devices comprising an Ethernet controller (Ghosh: Paragraph [0044]).
With regard to claim 11, Ghosh fails to teach, but knowledge possessed by one of ordinary skill in the art teaches the PCIe switch comprising a PCIe switch in an Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS) (More specifically, ADAS was well-known to one of ordinary skill in the art as being enabled by PCIe, where ADAS was a known architecture that provides high bandwidth, low latency, and scalability for workloads, such as for a vehicle. As a note, the instant specification only mentions such technology once, but provides no detail concerning the use or implementation of such (Specification: Paragraph [0040).). Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have the switch be in an ADAS to allow such systems to benefit from the benefits of the switch of Ghosh, thus enabling the switch to be used in different real-world applications.
With regard to claim 13, the instant claim is similar to a combination of claims 1-3, and are rejected for the same.
With regard to claims 16-17 and 20-23, the instant claims include subject matter found within claims 4-9, and are rejected for similar reasons.
With regard to claim 18, Ghosh teaches that the at least one transport operation comprising a combination of at least two of: a pass-through operation, modifying the data packet from host to device, modifying the data packet from device to host, preventing transmission of the data packet, and returning an error code (Ghosh: Paragraphs [0093], [0121], and [0083]. Ghosh at least teaches allowing and modifying (where such modifying would modify traffic at least in one direction), where one of ordinary skill in the art would also have known to provide blocking for such a filter (where only one item from the list is needed to teach the instant claim, as a whole, and thus a teaching of allowing or modifying is enough to teach the instant claim, as a whole.).).
With regard to claim 19, Ghosh teaches the at least one transport operation to be applied to matching data packets among subsequent data packets (Ghosh: Paragraphs [0093], [0121], and [0083]. Any filtering, such as addressed above, would be applied to all data packets, including any subsequent data packets that match the same criteria.).
Conclusion
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SCOTT B. CHRISTENSEN
Examiner
Art Unit 2444
/SCOTT B CHRISTENSEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2444
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