DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Application # 19/054,259 was filed on 2/14/2025.
Claims 1-20 are subject to examination.
An IDS filed on 2/14/2025 has been fully considered and entered by the Examiner.
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
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Claims 1-20 rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-18 of U.S. Patent No. 12,231,312. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because they contain similar subject matter as follows:
19/054,259
Patent # 12,231,312
Claim 1, 11 and 20.
A method comprising: obtaining, by a supervisory service for a network, user experience metrics for application sessions of an online application that are indicative of subjective quality of experience of users of the application sessions of the online application; mapping, by the supervisory service, the application sessions to paths that traverse a plurality of autonomous systems; identifying, by the supervisory service and based in part on the user experience metrics, a particular autonomous system from the plurality of autonomous systems is associated with a decreased user experience for the online application or is forecasted to cause decreased user experience metrics for an application session of the online application; and causing, by the supervisory service, application traffic for the online application to avoid the particular autonomous system.
Claim 1, 10, 18.
A method, comprising: obtaining, by a supervisory service for a network, user experience metrics for application sessions of an online application as specified by users of the online application regarding their subjective quality of experiences with the applications sessions of the online application; mapping, by the supervisory service, the application sessions to paths from an edge router that traverse a plurality of autonomous systems that implement Border Gateway Protocol routing; identifying, by the supervisory service and based in part on the user experience metrics, a particular autonomous system from the plurality of autonomous systems associated with decreased user experience metrics for the online application; determining, by the supervisory service, a list of one or more alternative paths from the edge router that avoid the particular autonomous system of the network and any other autonomous systems from the plurality of autonomous systems that are forecasted to cause decreased user experience metrics for the online application; and causing, by the supervisory service, application traffic for the online application to avoid the particular autonomous system and any other autonomous systems from the plurality of autonomous systems that are forecasted to cause decreased user experience metrics for the online application by providing, to the edge router, the list of one or more alternative paths from the edge router that avoid the particular autonomous system of the network and any other autonomous systems from the plurality of autonomous systems that are forecasted to cause decreased user e metrics for the online application.
Claim 2, 12.
The method as in claim 1, further comprising: obtaining, by the supervisory service, path network metrics, wherein the supervisory service identifies the particular autonomous system based further in part on the path network metrics.
Claim 2, 11.
The method as in claim 1, further comprising: obtaining, by the supervisory service, path network metrics, wherein the supervisory service identifies the particular autonomous system based further in part on the path network metrics.
Claim 3, 13.
The method as in claim 1, wherein mapping the application sessions to paths that traverse a plurality of autonomous systems comprises: generating, by the supervisory service, a graph having nodes that represent the plurality of autonomous systems and edges that represent path segments connecting the plurality of autonomous systems.
Claim 3, 12.
The method as in claim 1, wherein mapping the application sessions to paths that traverse the plurality of autonomous systems comprises: generating, by the supervisory service, a graph having nodes that represent the plurality of autonomous systems and edges that represent path segments connecting the plurality of autonomous systems.
Claim 4, 14.
The method as in claim 3, further comprising: assigning, by the supervisory service, scores to the plurality of autonomous systems based on associated score distributions for the user experience metrics.
Claim 4, 13.
The method as in claim 3, further comprising: assigning, by the supervisory service, scores to the plurality of autonomous systems based on associated score distributions for the of user experience metrics.
Claim 5, 15.
The method as in claim 1, wherein causing the application traffic for the online application to avoid the particular autonomous system comprises: providing, by the supervisory service and to an edge router, a list of one or more alternative paths that avoid the particular autonomous system.
Under claim 1 & 10.
Claim 6, 16.
The method as in claim 1, wherein the user experience metrics are specified by users of the online application.
Claim 6, 14.
The method as in claim 1, wherein the user experience metrics are specified by users of the online application.
Claim 7, 17.
The method as in claim 1, further comprising: detecting a sudden decreased in user experience metrics associated with a path; and initiating sending of path-trace probes along that path.
Claim 7, 15.
The method as in claim 1, further comprising: detecting a sudden decreased in user experience metrics associated with a path; and initiating sending of path-trace probes along that path.
Claim 8, 19.
The method as in claim 1, further comprising: initiating sending of a Border Gateway Protocol community that indicates the particular autonomous system to one or more downstream autonomous systems.
Claim 7, 16.
The method as in claim 1, further comprising: initiating sending of a Border Gateway Protocol community that indicates the particular autonomous system to one or more downstream autonomous systems.
Claim 9,
The method as in claim 1, wherein the online application is a software as a service (SaaS) application.
Claim 8,
The method as in claim 1, wherein the online application is a software as a service (SaaS) application.
Claim 10, 19.
The method as in claim 1, wherein identifying the particular autonomous system from the plurality of autonomous systems comprises: identifying a subset of autonomous systems from the plurality of autonomous systems suspected of decreasing the user experience metrics.
Claim 9, 17.
The method as in claim 1, wherein identifying the particular autonomous system from the plurality of autonomous systems comprises: identifying a subset of autonomous systems from the plurality of autonomous systems suspected of decreasing the user experience metrics.
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) 1-6,9-16,19-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Dhanabalan et al. U.S. Patent Publication # 20210044530 (hereinafter Dhanabalan) in view of Gegout et al. U.S. Patent # 9,712,400 (hereinafter Gegout)
With respect to claim 1, Dhanabalan teaches method comprising:
-obtaining, by a supervisory service for a network, user experience metrics for application sessions of an online application (i.e. receiving QoE metrics associated with applications executing on the computing devices) that are indicative of subjective quality of experience of users of the application sessions of the online application (i.e. QoE metrics for an application for example an increase in latency as reflected in a network metric may negatively impact user experience which may be reflect in one or more metrics) (Paragraph 43-44)
-mapping, by the supervisory service, the application sessions to paths that traverse a plurality of autonomous systems (i.e. one or more paths in the network wherein first router may periodically report to an administrative computing device one or more metrics for the hop between the first computing device and first router and/or second hop between the first router and the first switch) (Paragraph 45-46)
- identifying, by the supervisory service and based in part on the user experience metrics, a particular autonomous system from the plurality of autonomous systems is associated with a decreased user experience for the online application (i.e. QoE metrics for an application for example an increase in latency as reflected in a network metric may negatively impact user experience which may be reflect in one or more metrics)(Paragraph 43-44) or is forecasted to cause decreased user experience metrics for an application session of the online application (Paragraph 6, 15)
Dhanabalan does not explicitly teach i causing, by the supervisory service, application traffic for the online application to avoid the particular autonomous system.
Gegout teaches causing, by the supervisory service, application traffic for the online application to avoid the particular autonomous system (i.e. client device to access the network is conditionally switched to one of the other access points based on the current QoE and the expected QoEs) (column 4 lines 44-51). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement Gegout’s teaching in Dhanabalan’s teaching to come up with causing the application traffic to avoid particular autonomous system. The motivation for doing so would to maintain QoE for a client device on a network by providing different route or path (column 2 lines 55-57)
With respect to claim 2, Dhanabalan and Gegout teaches the method as in claim 1, but Dhanabalan further teaches further comprising: obtaining, by the supervisory service, path network metrics, wherein the supervisory service identifies the particular autonomous system based further in part on the path network metrics (Paragraph 57)
With respect to claim 3, Dhanabalan and Gegout teaches the method as in claim 1, but Dhanabalan further teaches wherein mapping the application sessions to paths that traverse a plurality of autonomous systems comprises: generating, by the supervisory service, a graph having nodes that represent the plurality of autonomous systems and edges that represent path segments connecting the plurality of autonomous systems (Fig. 3)(Paragraph 38-42)
With respect to claim 4, Dhanabalan and Gegout teaches the method as in claim 3, but Gegout further teaches further comprising: assigning, by the supervisory service, scores to the plurality of autonomous systems based on associated score distributions for the user experience metrics (column 3 lines 55-67)
With respect to claim 5, Dhanabalan and Gegout teaches the method as in claim 1, but Gegout further teaches wherein causing the application traffic for the online application to avoid the particular autonomous system comprises: providing, by the supervisory service and to an edge router, a list of one or more alternative paths that avoid the particular autonomous system (column 4 lines 44-51).
With respect to claim 6, Dhanabalan and Gegout teaches the method as in claim 1, but Dhanabalan further teaches wherein the user experience metrics are specified by users of the online application (Paragraph 42-44)
With respect to claim 9, Dhanabalan and Gegout teaches the method as in claim 1, but Dhanabalan further teaches wherein the online application is a software as a service (SaaS) application (Paragraph 44)
With respect to claim 10, Dhanabalan and Gegout teaches the method as in claim 1, but Gegout further teaches wherein identifying the particular autonomous system from the plurality of autonomous systems comprises: identifying a subset of autonomous systems from the plurality of autonomous systems suspected of decreasing the user experience metrics (column 4 lines 44-56)
With respect to claims 11-16, 19 respectively teaches same limitation as claims 1-6, 10 respectively, therefore rejected under same basis.
With respect to claim 20, it teaches same limitation as claim 1, therefore rejected under same basis.
Claim(s) 7, 17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Dhanabalan et al. U.S. Patent Publication # 20210044530 (hereinafter Dhanabalan) in view of Gegout et al. U.S. Patent # 9,712,400 (hereinafter Gegout) further in view of Mohan et al. U.S. Patent Publication # 2020/0153701 (hereinafter Mohan)
With respect to claim 7, Dhanabalan and Gegout teaches the method as in claim 1, but Dhanabalan further teaches further comprising: detecting a sudden decreased in user experience metrics associated with a path (Paragraph 43-44) but does not explicitly teach initiating sending of path-trace probes along that path.
Mohan teaches initiating sending of path-trace probes along that path (Paragraph 106). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement Mohan’s teaching in Dhanabalan and Gegout’s teaching to come up with initiating sending of path-trace probes along that path. The motivation for doing so would be to perform data monitoring using application quality of experience metric prediction functions.
With respect to claim 17, it teaches same limitation as claim 7, therefore rejected under same basis.
Claim(s) 8, 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Dhanabalan et al. U.S. Patent Publication # 20210044530 (hereinafter Dhanabalan) in view of Gegout et al. U.S. Patent # 9,712,400 (hereinafter Gegout) further in view of Nguyen et al. U.S. Patent Publication # 20060165009 (hereinafter Nguyen)
With respect to claim 8, Dhanabalan and Gegout teaches the method as in claim 1, but does not explicitly further teaches further comprising: initiating sending of a Border Gateway Protocol community that indicates the particular autonomous system to one or more downstream autonomous systems.
Nguyen teaches initiating sending of a Border Gateway Protocol community that indicates the particular autonomous system to one or more downstream autonomous systems (Paragraphs 60, 69, 116-118). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement Nguyen’s teaching in Dhanabalan and Gegout’s teaching to come up with initiating sending of Border Gateway Protocol community that indicates the particular autonomous system to one or more downstream autonomous systems. The motivation for doing so would to find and use optimal path using BGP routing.
With respect to claim 18, it teaches same limitation as claim 8, therefore rejected under same basis.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
a. Chu et al., US 2021/0058319 A1: Method For Path Selection, Involves Selecting Paths Through Which Content Is Transferred To First Computing Device, And Providing Content From Second Computing Device To First Computing Device Through Selected Paths.
b. Paruchuri et al., US 2020/0296012 A1: ON-DEMAND PROBING FOR QUALITY OF EXPERIENCE METRICS
C. Means et al. U.S. Patent # 10,764,120 which teaches about using another autonomous systems to avoid routing loops and BGP drops.
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DHAIRYA A. PATEL
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2453
/DHAIRYA A PATEL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2453
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