DETAILED ACTION
This action is responsive to communications filed 24 February 2025.
Claims 1-20 are subject to examination.
Note: Examiner attempted to contact attorney to propose amendments, which were not accepted.
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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 24 February 2025, 02 March 2026, 01 April 2026 and 12 June 2026 was filed. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1, 10 and 19 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention. The claims recite a “usage reduction cost”; however, nowhere in the claim does it define how the “usage reduction cost” is computed in a definite and distinct manner nor what exactly the “cost” is, such as seen in claim(s) 7 and 16. Further, the specification defines that TCAM usage reduction cost can be understood as the degree to which the cross-field summarization label set of a rule would reduce consumption in TCAM if that label set is used, such as computed by multiplying the number of TCAM entries in the first TCAM layout by the number of other match patterns specified in the rule that are not part of the fields, computing a cross-field label cost by multiplying the number of TCAM entries in the second TCAM layout by the number of other match patterns, and subtracting the cross-field label cost from the field label cost (see, [0035]).
Claims 2-6, 8-9, 11-15, 17-18 and 20 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention. They do not further render the claims definite for at least the same reasons set forth above.
Claims 1, 5-10, 14-20 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being incomplete for omitting essential steps, such omission amounting to a gap between the steps. See MPEP § 2172.01. The omitted steps are: generate and assign field label sets to the rules of a traffic policy via field summarization, generate and assign cross-field summarization labels to the field term groups/rules of the policy, marking a rule as not using cross field summarization if determined that the entries do not fit in cross-field label lookup table, and programming the rules of the policy into the TCAM in accordance with the markings (e.g., marked as using or as not using cross-field summarization based on entries fitting or not fitting in the cross-field label lookup table), see [FIG. 3].
The omitted matter is essential to the invention as it builds upon two optimizations known as field summarization and cross-field summarization (see [0020]) however further, the cross-field label lookup table will (in many cases) not be large enough to accommodate all of the entries and any cross-field summarization label that cannot be mapped via cross-field lookup table will not be programmed into a TCAM, potentially resulting in sub-optimal TCAM utilization (see, [0027]) such that a mitigation to the issue is the use of a novel cost-based label selection algorithm that ensure that labels that result in the most TCAM usage reduction will be programmed into the table first (see [0028-0029]), and further, wherein if a given rule was marked as not using cross-field summarization, they are based on the field summarization label tuples determined for that rule, rather than the rule’s cross-field summarization labels (see [0039]). As such, without fully capturing the method, the optimization would not be reached.
Claims 2 and 11 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being incomplete for omitting essential steps, such omission amounting to a gap between the steps. See MPEP § 2172.01. The omitted steps are: generate and assign field label sets to the rules of a traffic policy via field summarization, generate and assign cross-field summarization labels to the field term groups/rules of the policy, and programming the rules of the policy into the TCAM in accordance with the markings (e.g., marked as using or as not using cross-field summarization based on entries fitting or not fitting in the cross-field label lookup table), see [FIG. 3].
The omitted matter is essential to the invention as it builds upon two optimizations known as field summarization and cross-field summarization (see [0020]) however further, the cross-field label lookup table will (in many cases) not be large enough to accommodate all of the entries and any cross-field summarization label that cannot be mapped via cross-field lookup table will not be programmed into a TCAM, potentially resulting in sub-optimal TCAM utilization (see, [0027]) such that a mitigation to the issue is the use of a novel cost-based label selection algorithm that ensure that labels that result in the most TCAM usage reduction will be programmed into the table first (see [0028-0029]), and further, wherein if a given rule was marked as not using cross-field summarization, they are based on the field summarization label tuples determined for that rule, rather than the rule’s cross-field summarization labels (see [0039]). As such, without fully capturing the method, the optimization would not be reached.
Claims 3 and 12 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being incomplete for omitting essential steps, such omission amounting to a gap between the steps. See MPEP § 2172.01. The omitted steps are: generate and assign field label sets to the rules of a traffic policy via field summarization, generate and assign cross-field summarization labels to the field term groups/rules of the policy, and programming the rules of the policy into the TCAM in accordance with the markings (e.g., when marked as not using cross-field summarization based on entries not fitting in the cross-field label lookup table), see [FIG. 3].
The omitted matter is essential to the invention as it builds upon two optimizations known as field summarization and cross-field summarization (see [0020]) however further, the cross-field label lookup table will (in many cases) not be large enough to accommodate all of the entries and any cross-field summarization label that cannot be mapped via cross-field lookup table will not be programmed into a TCAM, potentially resulting in sub-optimal TCAM utilization (see, [0027]) such that a mitigation to the issue is the use of a novel cost-based label selection algorithm that ensure that labels that result in the most TCAM usage reduction will be programmed into the table first (see [0028-0029]), and further, wherein if a given rule was marked as not using cross-field summarization, they are based on the field summarization label tuples determined for that rule, rather than the rule’s cross-field summarization labels (see [0039]). As such, without fully capturing the method, the optimization would not be reached.
Claims 4 and 13 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being incomplete for omitting essential steps, such omission amounting to a gap between the steps. See MPEP § 2172.01. The omitted steps are: generate and assign field label sets to the rules of a traffic policy via field summarization, and generate and assign cross-field summarization labels to the field term groups/rules of the policy, see [FIG. 3].
The omitted matter is essential to the invention as it builds upon two optimizations known as field summarization and cross-field summarization (see [0020]) however further, the cross-field label lookup table will (in many cases) not be large enough to accommodate all of the entries and any cross-field summarization label that cannot be mapped via cross-field lookup table will not be programmed into a TCAM, potentially resulting in sub-optimal TCAM utilization (see, [0027]) such that a mitigation to the issue is the use of a novel cost-based label selection algorithm that ensure that labels that result in the most TCAM usage reduction will be programmed into the table first (see [0028-0029]), and further, wherein if a given rule was marked as not using cross-field summarization, they are based on the field summarization label tuples determined for that rule, rather than the rule’s cross-field summarization labels (see [0039]). As such, without fully capturing the method, the optimization would not be reached.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Varghese et al. (US-6449256-B1) Fast Level Four Switching Using Crossproducting;
Cadambi et al. (US-7592935-B2) Information Retrieval Architecture For Packet Classification;
Zhou et all. (US-8990492-B1) Increasing Capacity In Router Forwarding Tables;
Paduvalli et al. (US-11689464-B2) Optimizing Entries In A Content Addressable Memory Of A Network Device;
Levy et al. (US-12294636-B2) Efficient Memory Utilization For Cartesian Products Of Rules.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Alex Tran whose telephone number is (571)272-8173. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 10AM-6PM ET.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kamal Divecha can be reached at (571)272-5863. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Alex Tran/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2453
