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
2. This action is in response to the amendment filed September 3, 2026.
3. Claims 1, 4, 6, 8, 11, 12, 15, and 18 have been amended.
4. Claims 1-20 have been examined and are pending with this action.
5. The Information Disclosure Statement filed September 3, 2026 has been considered.
Response to Arguments
6. Applicant's arguments filed September 3, 2026 with respect to the rejection of claims 1-20, previously rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) and 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by
Mahesh et al. (US 2022/0029906 A1) have been fully considered and are not persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made.
Basunov (US 2016/0218971 A1) and Paruchuri et al. (US 2021/0083948 A1) has been cited to better teach the pending claim as newly amended. Please see rejections below.
For these reason and the rejections set forth below, claims 1-20 have been rejected and remain pending.
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.
7. Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over
Basunov (US 2016/0218971 A1) in view of Paruchuri et al. (US 2021/0083948 A1)
INDEPENDENT:
As per claim 1, Basunov teaches a method comprising:
receiving, by a first router of a cluster if routers located at a remote location of an enterprise organization and from a client device, data packets with a destination of an application infrastructure (see Basunov, FIG. 1; [0021]: “FIG. 1 illustrates a diagram of an example system 100 for providing a platform for optimizing traffic in a (packet-switched) computer network wherein multiple distributed routing domains 102, 104, 106 are shown interconnected by way of DCIs 108, 110, 112, respectively. (System 100 is an intelligent platform for performing this optimization.) Traffic represents all of data packets (or just packets) sent/received as known to those skilled in the art”; and [0030]: “As known to those skilled in the art, multiple routing domains may be part of a single POP when the routing data received from upstream SPs is different (due to for example and not limited to different sets of upstream providers) or if different routing policies are applied in each of them to make the routing tables differ significantly (as assessed by human operators)”);
receiving, by the first router and from a second router of the cluster of routers, first routing performance data, wherein the first routing performance data includes a first score indicating a first performance of a first path from the remote location to the application infrastructure (see Basunov, [0005]: “The platform measures QoS characteristics values for all routes of traffic to a destination network”; [0033]: “Network explorer 114-2 is a module used for probing network prefixes to determine network prefix reachability and to measure and collect each network prefix QoS characteristics (also called metrics), e.g., packet loss, latency, jitter as well as other characteristics known to those skilled in the art, that can be used for routing table changes. Network explorer 114-2 stores these values of the QoS characteristics into the central repository 114-4. (Probing is distinguished from other processes that determine reachability, measure and collect data for other purposes.)”; [0037]: “traffic controller 102-3 periodically retrieves provider interfaces 102A1-A2, 104A1-A2, 106A1-A3 traffic statistics from routers 102A, 104A, 106A and decides what network prefixes are relevant for further processing and stores this data in central repository 114-4”; and [0038]: “Traffic controller 114-3 retrieves from central repository 114-4 the list of network prefixes with probing results completed by network explorer 114-2 and evaluates if re-routing is necessary in accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure. Traffic controller 114-3 evaluates if re-routing decisions shall apply for a single routing domain or globally for all routing domains and marks the decisions correspondingly with markers designated for individual routing domains or for all routing domains. Routes manager 114-1 applies the decisions made by traffic controller 114-3 to a single or multiple routers 102A, 104A, 106A correspondingly attaching the markers assigned to each re-routing decision by traffic controller 114-3. Finally, routers 102A, 104A, 106A distinguish re-routing decisions designated only for a specific routing domain and ensure its propagation only internally within the routing domain or globally and ensure re-routing decision propagation across all routing domains in the network”);
receiving, by the first router and from a third router of the cluster of routers, second routing performance data, wherein the second routing performance data includes a second score indicating a second performance of a second path from the remote location to the application infrastructure (see Basunov, [0005]: “The platform measures QoS characteristics values for all routes of traffic to a destination network”; [0033]: “Network explorer 114-2 is a module used for probing network prefixes to determine network prefix reachability and to measure and collect each network prefix QoS characteristics (also called metrics), e.g., packet loss, latency, jitter as well as other characteristics known to those skilled in the art, that can be used for routing table changes. Network explorer 114-2 stores these values of the QoS characteristics into the central repository 114-4. (Probing is distinguished from other processes that determine reachability, measure and collect data for other purposes.)”; [0037]: “traffic controller 102-3 periodically retrieves provider interfaces 102A1-A2, 104A1-A2, 106A1-A3 traffic statistics from routers 102A, 104A, 106A and decides what network prefixes are relevant for further processing and stores this data in central repository 114-4”);
comparing, by the first router, the first score and the second score (see Basunov, [0047]: “Therefore, QoS measurements will be taken for each path and decisions will be made based on the collected QoS data. The distance (length) between routing domain and SP is a factor in QoS measurement (but not the only characteristic for QoS) as known to those skilled in the art. For example, if the QoS of routes B (from provider interface 104A2) and D (from provider interface 106A2) exceed QoS characteristics of currently implemented routes E and G (interfaces 102A2 and 104A1) in routing domains 104 and 106, respectively, it would be advantageous to re-route traffic for destination network 134 to achieve better QoS for packets flowing from these routing domains towards destination network 134. When a route is both the best route and also the current route, no re-routing decision is made”; and [0061]: “That is, for each routing domain, traffic controller 114-3 verifies if re-routing traffic from other routing domains will improve those other routing domains QoS values as compared with currently determined local best. This takes into account the combined QoS degradation introduced by the DCI link between the candidate routing domain and those other routing domains.”);
based at least in part on the comparing, determining, by the first router, whether the first path or the second path has a higher score (see Basunov, [0046]: “paths F, B, D represent the alternative routes with best QoS characteristics values for each routing domain 102, 104, 106. The best routes are determined after assessing each route's QoS values towards a specific destination network and resolving ties (conditions when one route has a better QoS value for one QoS characteristic and a worse value for the other). Again, only one best local communication path exists in each routing domain. In Communication paths A and C also represent alternative local routes but they are neither the local best or current routes towards a desired destination network.”; [0048]: “This is true only if the QoS for this routing domain remains the best even after taking into account QoS degradation caused by the DCI links 108, 110, 112 between routing domains.”; and [0060]: “The local best route is one of the routes from all available routes in a routing domain with best QoS. QoS characteristics are examined in a particular order so that comparison ties can be resolved. This means that when a QoS value of one local route is better and another QoS value is worse when comparing two alternative SPs then the ordering of QoS characteristics makes the overall decision explicit”); and
transmitting, by the first router, the data packets to the application infrastructure via a path associated with the higher score (see Basunov, [0048]: “his means that the packets in the other routing domains can use the DCI links towards routing domain with the best QoS and be routed towards the destination network using this route and be more advantageous than being routed from local routing domains. This is true only if the QoS for this routing domain remains the best even after taking into account QoS degradation caused by the DCI links 108, 110, 112 between routing domains”).
Basunov does not explicitly teach that the score is a QoE score.
Paruchuri teach a QoE score (see Paruchuri, Abstract: “In response to receiving the application data packet, the network device may assign the data flow to a first link of a plurality of links and initiate a probing process for the data flow on the first link to determine one or more quality of experience (QoE) metrics for the first link.”).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the system of Basunov in view of Paruchuri so that the score is a QoE score. One would be motivated to do so because Basunov teaches employing Quality of Service characteristic values for the comparing.
As per claim 8, Basunov and Paruchuri teach a system comprising:
one or more processors (see Basunov, [0113]: “The computer 900 typically includes at least one processor 902 and system memory 904. The system memory 904 may store instructions for execution by processor 902, an operating system 906 and one or more application platforms 908”); and
one or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to perform operations (see Basunov, [00113: “The computer 900 typically includes at least one processor 902 and system memory 904. The system memory 904 may store instructions for execution by processor 902, an operating system 906 and one or more application platforms 908”) comprising:
receiving, by a first router of a cluster of routers located at a remote location of an enterprise organization and from a client device, data packets with a destination of an application infrastructure (see Claim 1 rejection above);
receiving, by the first router and from a second router of the cluster of routers, first routing performance data, wherein the first routing performance data includes a first Quality of Experience (QoE) score indicating a first performance of a first path from the remote location to the application infrastructure (see Claim 1 rejection above);
receiving, by the first router and from a third router of the cluster of routers, second routing performance data, wherein the second routing performance data includes a second QoE score indicating a second performance of a second path from the remote location to the application infrastructure (see Claim 1 rejection above);
comparing, by the first router, the first QoE score and the second QoE score (see Claim 1 rejection above);
based, at least in part on the comparing, determining, by the first router, whether the first path or the second path has a higher QoE score (see Claim 1 rejection above); and
transmitting, by the first router, the data packets to the application infrastructure via a path associated with the higher QoE score (see Claim 1 rejection above).
As per claim 15, Basunov and Paruchuri teach one or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing instructions that when executed, cause one or more processors to perform operations comprising:
receiving, by a first router of a cluster of routers of an enterprise organization and from a client device, data packets with a destination of an application infrastructure (see Claim 1 rejection above);
receiving, by the first router and from a second router of the cluster of routers, first routing performance data, wherein the first routing performance data includes a first Quality of Experience (QoE) score indicating a first performance of a first path from the remote location to the application infrastructure (see Claim 1 rejection above);
receiving, by the first router and from a third router of the cluster of routers, second routing performance data, wherein the second routing performance data includes a second QoE score indicating a second performance of a second path from the remote location to the application infrastructure (see Claim 1 rejection above);
comparing, by the first router, the first QoE score and the second QoE score (see Claim 1 rejection above);
based at least in part on the comparing, determining, by the first router, whether the first path or the second path has a higher QoE score (see Claim 1 rejection above); and
transmitting, by the first router, the data packets data traffic to the application infrastructure via a path associated with the higher QoE score (see Claim 1 rejection above).
DEPENDENT:
As per claims 2, 9, and 16, which respectively depend on claims 1, 8, and 15, Basunov and Paruchuri further teach wherein the second router is exclusively designated to send probes over the first path between the remote location and the application infrastructure, and the third router is exclusively designated to send probes over the second path between the remote location and the application infrastructure (see Basunov, [0058]: “Next, execution moves to step 306 wherein network explorer 114-2 identifies proper destination network prefixes to probe from central repository 114-4 and probes the identified destination network prefix through all configured SPs. During probing, network explorer 114-2 determines values for QoS characteristics. This ensures that all characteristics for all routes are measured.”).
As per claims 3, 10, and 17, which respectively depend on claims 1, 8, and 15, Basunov and Paruchuri further teach wherein the remote location is in an edge site colocation facility and the first path and the second path are direct paths between the edge site colocation facility and the application infrastructure (see Basunov, [0026]: “Edge routers are routers 102A, 104A, 106A that interconnect controlled network 130 with SPs 118-128 as known to those skilled in the art.”; and [0111]: “If at step 812 edge router identified a global re-routing decision, execution moves to step 814 wherein edge router propagates re-routing decision to neighboring routers in the other routing domains”).
As per claims 4, 11, and 18, which respectively depend on claims 1, 8, and 15, Basunov and Paruchuri teach further comprising:
receiving, by the first router and from a fourth router of the cluster of routers, third routing performance data, wherein the third routing performance data includes a third QoE score indicating a third performance of a third path from a regional gateway to the application infrastructure, wherein the fourth router is designated to send probes over a third path to a regional gateway site (see Basunov, [0033]: “Network explorer 114-2 is a module used for probing network prefixes to determine network prefix reachability and to measure and collect each network prefix QoS characteristics (also called metrics), e.g., packet loss, latency, jitter as well as other characteristics known to those skilled in the art, that can be used for routing table changes. Network explorer 114-2 stores these values of the QoS characteristics into the central repository 114-4. (Probing is distinguished from other processes that determine reachability, measure and collect data for other purposes.)”; and [0038]: “Network explorer 114-2 is a module used for probing network prefixes to determine network prefix reachability and to measure and collect each network prefix QoS characteristics (also called metrics), e.g., packet loss, latency, jitter as well as other characteristics known to those skilled in the art, that can be used for routing table changes. Network explorer 114-2 stores these values of the QoS characteristics into the central repository 114-4. (Probing is distinguished from other processes that determine reachability, measure and collect data for other purposes.)”);
comparing, by the first router, the first QoE score, the second QoE score, and the third QoE score (see Claim 1 rejection above);
based at least in part on the comparing, determining, by the first router, whether the first path, the second path, or the third path has a highest QoE score (see Claim 1 rejection above); and
transmitting, by the first router, data packets to the application infrastructure via the path associated with the highest QoE score (see Claim 1 rejection above).
As per claims 5, 13, and 19, which respectively depend on claims 1, 8, and 15, Basunov and Paruchuri further teach wherein the application infrastructure is one of:
a software as a service (SaaS); an infrastructure as a service (IaaS); a platform as a service (PaaS); a domain name system (DNS) server; a private data center; or an extranet. (see Basunov, [0005]: “In accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure, a system and method are disclosed for providing a platform for optimizing traffic through a computer network with two or more distributed routing domains that are interconnected through a data center interconnect link.”; and [0006]: “In accordance with an embodiment of the present disclosure, a computer implemented method of providing a platform for optimizing traffic on a computer network including a plurality of routing domains that route the traffic to one or more destination networks, the plurality of routing domains interconnected via one or more data center interconnect links”)
As per claims 6 and 12, which respectively depend on claims 1 and 8, Basunov and Paruchuri further teach wherein the application infrastructure is a first application infrastructure and further comprising:
receiving, by the first router and from a fourth router of the cluster of routers, third routing performance data, wherein the third routing performance data includes a third QoE score indicating a third performance of a third path from the remote location to a second application infrastructure; (see Claim 4 rejection above)
receiving, by the first router and from a fifth router of the cluster of routers, fourth routing performance data, wherein the fourth routing performance data includes a fourth QoE score indicating a fourth performance of a fourth path from the remote location to the second application infrastructure (see Claim 4 rejection above);
comparing, by the first router, the third QoE score and the fourth QoE score (see Claim 1 rejection above);
based at least on the comparing, determining, by the first router, whether the third path or the fourth path has a higher QoE score (see Claim 1 rejection above); and
transmitting, by the first router, the data packets to the second application infrastructure via the path associated with the higher QoE score (see Claim 1 rejection above).
As per claims 7, 14, and 20, which respectively depend on claims 1, 8, and 15, Basunov and Paruchuri further teach wherein the first path is a different network service provider than the second path (see Basunov, [0006]: “defining a plurality of service providers that are able to route traffic to a destination network via the plurality of service providers”; [0022]: “In particular, system 100 includes network controller 114, and service providers (SP) 118-120, 122-124 and 126-128 for routing traffic (i.e., packets) through routing domains 102, 104 and 106, respectively.”; and [0028]: “There are many destination networks 132, 134 as known to those skilled in the art. Different destination networks 132, 134 have different communication paths through different SPs 118-128 and correspondingly different values for the QoS characteristics for them.”).
Conclusion
7. For the reasons above, claims 1-20 have been rejected and remain pending.
8. 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.
9. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHAEL Y WON whose telephone number is (571)272-3993. The examiner can normally be reached on Wk.1: M-F: 8-5 PST & Wk.2: M-Th: 8-7 PST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Nicholas R Taylor can be reached on 571-272-3889. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Michael Won/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2443
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