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 .
Detailed action
1. Status of Claims:
Claims 1-10 are pending in this Office Action.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
2. Claims 1-2 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102 (a) (1) as being anticipated by US 2005/0120232 issued to Hori et al. (Hori).
As per claim 1, Hori teaches a network communication system, comprising a network (Hori: Fig. 5, ¶ 0031 - data communication network), a server coupled to the network for storing a license key file having a license key (Hori: ¶ 0010 - distribution server holding the encrypted content data and the license), and a first network device coupled to the network (Hori: Fig. 5 - communication device (350) is coupled to the network) having a switching assembly having a plurality of ports for managing and routing data (Hori: ¶ 0167 - an encryption processing unit 1406 encrypting the data selectively provided (routing) from a selector switch),a modem module for receiving the data from the switching assembly and then modulating the data to generate modem data, a radiofrequency assembly for receiving the modem data and then transmitting the modem data over the network (Hori: ¶ 0105 - a license administration device (hardware) having the same license administration function as memory card 110, and distributes a license and encrypted content data to a personal computer 50 in a manner similar to that for cellular phone 100 in response to an access performed by personal computer 50 via a modem 40 and over Internet network 30 for requesting the distribution), and a controller for controlling the first network device and for storing the license key (Hori: ¶ 0150 - content administration module 511, which is a program to be executed by controller 510, receives the encrypted content data and the level-1 license from distribution server 10, and produces the dedicated license by uniquely encrypting the received license).
As per claim 2, Hori teaches the system of claim 1, wherein the controller applies a decryption technique to the license key to generate a decrypted license key (Hori: Fig. 3, ¶ 0123 - Content data Dc is encrypted in a format allowing decryption with a license key Kc).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
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.
3. Claims 3, 5, and 6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2005/0120232 issued to Hori et al. (Hori) in view of JP2007249804A issued to Akira et al. (Akira) and further in view of US 8,565,077 issued to Stahl.
As per claim 3, Hori teaches the system of claim 1 however does not explicitly teach wherein the license key includes media access control (MAC) address data associated with the first network device, ingress data capacity or data rate limits associated with one or more of the plurality of ports, egress data capacity or data rate limits associated with the modem module, and priority data associated with one or more of the plurality of ports.
Akira however explicitly teaches wherein the license key includes media access control (MAC) address data associated with the first network device (Akira: ¶ 0117 - the license server program updates the license management table wherein the used machine name is 401c and the MAC address is 401d corresponding to the license key),
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teaching of Hori in view of Akira to teach wherein the license key includes media access control (MAC) address data associated with the first network device. One would be motivated to do so as the license server program updates the license management table wherein a MAC address is assigned corresponding to a machine (device) (Akira: ¶ 0117).
The modified teaching of Hori however does not explicitly teach ingress data capacity or data rate limits associated with one or more of the plurality of ports, egress data capacity or data rate limits associated with the modem module, and priority data associated with one or more of the plurality of ports.
Stahl however explicitly teaches ingress data capacity or data rate limits associated with one or more of the plurality of ports, egress data capacity or data rate limits associated with the modem module, and priority data associated with one or more of the plurality of ports (Stahl: Claim 1 - enabling the user to select a bandwidth limit between at least one of the ingress ports and the data network and for dividing data frames into a plurality of groups based on user priorities; the controller limiting a rate at which data transmitted by the data network to the apparatus is accepted by said at least one of the ingress ports in response to the user selection of the bandwidth limit, the controller also configured to enable an adaptive bandwidth limiting function, wherein the controller detects the presence of streaming data on an ingress port, and in response, increases the bandwidth associated with the ingress port associated with the streaming data and decreases the bandwidth associated with remaining ones of said plurality of ingress ports to thereby ensure that aggregate bandwidth for an associated egress port remains below a set QOS limit).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the modified teaching of Hori in view of Stahl to teach ingress data capacity or data rate limits associated with one or more of the plurality of ports, egress data capacity or data rate limits associated with the modem module, and priority data associated with one or more of the plurality of ports. One would be motivated to do so as the interface enabling the user to select a bandwidth limit between at least one of the ingress ports and the data network and for dividing data frames into a plurality of groups based on user priorities; the controller limiting a rate at which data transmitted by the data network to the apparatus is accepted by said at least one of the ingress ports in response to the user selection of the bandwidth limit, the controller also configured to enable an adaptive bandwidth limiting function, wherein the controller detects the presence of streaming data on an ingress port, and in response, increases the bandwidth associated with the ingress port associated with the streaming data and decreases the bandwidth associated with remaining ones of said plurality of ingress ports to thereby ensure that aggregate bandwidth for an associated egress port remains below a set QOS limit (Stahl: Claim 1).
As per claim 5, Hori teaches a method for setting data capacity limits in a network device, the network device having a switching assembly having a plurality of ports for managing and routing data (Hori: ¶ 0167 - an encryption processing unit 1406 encrypting the data selectively provided (routing) from a selector switch), a modem module for receiving the data from the switching assembly and then modulating the data to generate modem data, a radiofrequency assembly for receiving the modem data and then transmitting the modem data over the network (Hori: ¶ 0105 - a license administration device (hardware) having the same license administration function as memory card 110, and distributes a license and encrypted content data to a personal computer 50 in a manner similar to that for cellular phone 100 in response to an access performed by personal computer 50 via a modem 40 and over Internet network 30 for requesting the distribution), and a controller for controlling the first network device and for storing in memory the license key and a network device address (Hori: ¶ 0150 - content administration module 511, which is a program to be executed by controller 510, receives the encrypted content data and the level-1 license from distribution server 10, and produces the dedicated license by uniquely encrypting the received license), the method comprising, determining if the stored network device address matches a network device address in the license key, if the stored network device address matches the network device address in the license key, downloading the license key and storing the license key in the memory (Hori: ¶ 0035, ¶ 0036 - a device unit storing a binding license including a binding key in a dedicated region; the module unit extracts the binding license by decrypting the encrypted private file, obtains the binding license from the device unit, and provides the license obtained by decrypting the dedicated license included in the administration files when the extracted binding license matches with the binding license extracted from the encrypted private file; and the control unit stores the encrypted private file produced by the module unit in the storing unit), applying one or more decryption techniques to the license key to decrypt the license key (Hori: Fig. 3, ¶ 0123 - Content data Dc is encrypted in a format allowing decryption with a license key Kc),
Hori however does not explicitly teach providing a license key having a network device address and ingress and egress data capacity information, and applying the ingress and egress data capacity limits to the network device.
Akira however explicitly teaches providing a license key having a network device address (Akira: ¶ 0117 - the license server program updates the license management table wherein the used machine name is 401c and the MAC address is 401d corresponding to the license key),
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teaching of Hori in view of Akira to teach providing a license key having a network device address. One would be motivated to do so as the license server program updates the license management table wherein a MAC address is assigned corresponding to a machine (device) (Akira: ¶ 0117).
The modified teaching of Hori however does not explicitly teach ingress and egress data capacity information, and applying the ingress and egress data capacity limits to the network device.
Stahl however explicitly teaches ingress and egress data capacity information, and applying the ingress and egress data capacity limits to the network device (Stahl: Claim 1 - enabling the user to select a bandwidth limit between at least one of the ingress ports and the data network and for dividing data frames into a plurality of groups based on user priorities; the controller limiting a rate at which data transmitted by the data network to the apparatus is accepted by said at least one of the ingress ports in response to the user selection of the bandwidth limit, the controller also configured to enable an adaptive bandwidth limiting function, wherein the controller detects the presence of streaming data on an ingress port, and in response, increases the bandwidth associated with the ingress port associated with the streaming data and decreases the bandwidth associated with remaining ones of said plurality of ingress ports to thereby ensure that aggregate bandwidth for an associated egress port remains below a set QOS limit).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the modified teaching of Hori in view of Stahl to teach ingress and egress data capacity information, and applying the ingress and egress data capacity limits to the network device. One would be motivated to do so as the interface enabling the user to select a bandwidth limit between at least one of the ingress ports and the data network and for dividing data frames into a plurality of groups based on user priorities; the controller limiting a rate at which data transmitted by the data network to the apparatus is accepted by said at least one of the ingress ports in response to the user selection of the bandwidth limit, the controller also configured to enable an adaptive bandwidth limiting function, wherein the controller detects the presence of streaming data on an ingress port, and in response, increases the bandwidth associated with the ingress port associated with the streaming data and decreases the bandwidth associated with remaining ones of said plurality of ingress ports to thereby ensure that aggregate bandwidth for an associated egress port remains below a set QOS limit (Stahl: Claim 1).
As per claim 6, the modified teaching of Hori in view of Stahl teaches the method of claim 5, wherein the license key includes data priority information, further comprising applying the data priority information to the plurality of ports (Stahl: Claim 1 - enabling the user to select a bandwidth limit between at least one of the ingress ports and the data network and for dividing data frames into a plurality of groups based on user priorities).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the modified teaching of Hori in view of Stahl to teach the license key includes data priority information, further comprising applying the data priority information to the plurality of ports. One would be motivated to do so as the interface enabling the user to select a bandwidth limit between at least one of the ingress ports and the data network and for dividing data frames into a plurality of groups based on user priorities (Stahl: Claim 1).
4. Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2005/0120232 issued to Hori et al. (Hori) in view of CN104078736A issued to Wan et al. (Wan).
As per claim 4, Hori teaches the system of claim 1 however does not explicitly teach wherein the first network device is a microwave network device.
Wan however explicitly teach wherein the first network device is a microwave network device (Wan: ¶ 0002 - microwave network device).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teaching of Hori in view of Wan to teach wherein the first network device is a microwave network device. One would be motivated to do so as microwave network device is a multi-port power divider that break down input power into two equal or unequal output, in a phased array radar, multi-path wireless communication system (Wan: ¶ 0002).
5. Claims 7 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2005/0120232 issued to Hori et al. (Hori) in view of JP2007249804A issued to Akira et al. (Akira) further in view of US 8,565,077 issued to Stahl and further in view of US 2021/0334111 issued to Limonciello et al. (Limonciello).
As per claim 7, the modified teaching of Hori in view of Stahl teaches the method of claim 6 however does not explicitly teach further comprising performing a boot up sequence for the controller and then determining whether the network device retrieves a license key from a remote server or from the memory, determining if the license key is stored in the remote server, and downloading the license key from the remote server if stored therein.
Limonciello however explicitly teaches further comprising performing a boot up sequence for the controller and then determining whether the network device retrieves a license key from a remote server or from the memory, determining if the license key is stored in the remote server, and downloading the license key from the remote server if stored therein (Limonciello: ¶ 0008 - performing the following steps when booting a current operating system (OS) for execution on a programmable integrated circuit of a local information handling system: accessing firmware on non-volatile memory of the local information handling system to determine whether or not existing OS license data is stored on the non-volatile memory; initializing the current OS; determining a type of the current initialized OS based on unique OS initialization characteristics that are specific to the current the current OS; storing OS history information on the non-volatile memory of the local information handling system).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the modified teaching of Hori in view of Stahl and further by Limonciello to teach performing a boot up sequence for the controller and then determining whether the network device retrieves a license key from a remote server or from the memory, determining if the license key is stored in the remote server, and downloading the license key from the remote server if stored therein. One would be motivated to do so as performing the following steps when booting a current operating system (OS) for execution on a programmable integrated circuit of a local information handling system: accessing firmware on non-volatile memory of the local information handling system to determine whether or not existing OS license data is stored on the non-volatile memory; initializing the current OS; determining a type of the current initialized OS based on unique OS initialization characteristics that are specific to the current the current OS; storing OS history information on the non-volatile memory of the local information handling system (Limonciello: ¶ 0008).
As per claim 8, the modified teaching of Hori in view of Stahl and further by Limonciello teaches the method of claim 7 however does not explicitly teach further comprising, if the license key is not stored in the remote server, incrementing a counter indicative of the number of attempts made to download the license key, and determining at a later time whether the license key is stored in the remote server.
Limonciello however explicitly teaches further comprising, if the license key is not stored in the remote server, incrementing a counter indicative of the number of attempts made to download the license key, and determining at a later time whether the license key is stored in the remote server (Limonciello: Claim 2 - incrementing a boot counter corresponding to the determined type of current initialized OS that is maintained as OS history information on the non-volatile memory of the local information handling system).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the modified teaching of Hori in view of Stahl and further by Limonciello to teach if the license key is not stored in the remote server, incrementing a counter indicative of the number of attempts made to download the license key, and determining at a later time whether the license key is stored in the remote server. One would be motivated to do so as incrementing a boot counter corresponding to the determined type of current initialized OS that is maintained as OS history information on the non-volatile memory of the local information handling system (Limonciello: Claim 2).
6. Claims 9 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 2005/0120232 issued to Hori et al. (Hori) in view of JP2007249804A issued to Akira et al. (Akira) further in view of US 8,565,077 issued to Stahl and further in view of US 2021/0334111 issued to Limonciello et al. (Limonciello) and further in view of US 9,628,406 issued to Morandin et al. (Morandin).
As per claim 9, the modified teaching of Hori in view of Stahl and further by Limonciello teaches the method of claim 8 however does not explicitly teach further comprising, when the counter exceeds a threshold level, setting an egress data capacity of the network capacity to a predetermined level.
Morandin however explicitly teaches further comprising, when the counter exceeds a threshold level, setting an egress data capacity of the network capacity to a predetermined level (Morandin: Abstract, Col. 8, ll. (15-25) - teaches the intra switch transport protocol is configured to determine a window size according to a predetermined bandwidth and a round trip time between a plurality of ingress ports and an egress port, the network device continues to send packets and increment a counter accordingly until the counter reaches the window size. The ingress device may be configured to generate probe messages when congestion levels are high. The congestion level may be determined from a recent acknowledgement message 211a. The ingress device may compare the congestion level to a threshold level. When the congestion level exceeds the threshold level there is speculation that using the maximum window size would result in fabric congestion. The probe message 210b informs the egress device of the existence of the flow, and the egress device can properly regulate the flow).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the modified teaching of Hori in view of Stahl and further by Limonciello and further in view of Morandin to teach when the counter exceeds a threshold level, setting an egress data capacity of the network capacity to a predetermined level. One would be motivated to do so as the intra switch transport protocol is configured to determine a window size according to a predetermined bandwidth and a round-trip time between a plurality of ingress ports and an egress port, the network device continues to send packets and increment a counter accordingly until the counter reaches the window size. The ingress device may be configured to generate probe messages when congestion levels are high. The congestion level may be determined from a recent acknowledgement message 211a. The ingress device may compare the congestion level to a threshold level. When the congestion level exceeds the threshold level there is speculation that using the maximum window size would result in fabric congestion. The probe message 210b informs the egress device of the existence of the flow, and the egress device can properly regulate the flow (Morandin: Abstract, Col. 8, ll. (15-25)).
As per claim 10, the modified teaching of Hori in view of Stahl and further by Limonciello and further in view of Morandin teaches the method of claim 9, further comprising providing an account management software application for enabling a user to set the egress data capacity limit and the ingress data capacity limit for storage in the license key (Stahl: Col. 12, ll. (23-30) - aggregated traffic on an egress port stays below the link rate such that QoS for the stream is assured. In an exemplary embodiment, adaptive bandwidth limiting may occur when a NID detects streaming data ingressing on one of its ports and limits the other ports available bandwidth accordingly. For example, an application running on an endpoint or a streaming data server may transmit a message that traverses the NID, such as in a URL or in a data transport header).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the modified teaching of Hori in view of Stahl and further by Limonciello and further in view of Morandin to teach providing an account management software application for enabling a user to set the egress data capacity limit and the ingress data capacity limit for storage in the license key. One would be motivated to do so as an aggregated traffic on an egress port stays below the link rate such that QoS for the stream is assured. In an exemplary embodiment, adaptive bandwidth limiting may occur when a NID detects streaming data ingressing on one of its ports and limits the other ports available bandwidth accordingly. For example, an application running on an endpoint or a streaming data server may transmit a message that traverses the NID, such as in a URL or in a data transport header (Stahl: Col. 12, ll. (23-30)).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SM AZIZUR RAHMAN whose telephone number is (571) 270-7360. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F Telework;
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ali Shayanfar can be reached on 571-270-1050. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/SM A RAHMAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2434
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