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 .
1. This action is responsive to the application filed on 02/27/2025.
2. Claims 1-10 are pending.
3. Claims 5-9 are objected.
4. Claims 1-10 are rejected.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 02/27/2025 and 09/17/2025 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-9 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims and once the 101 software issue of claims 1-9 has been addressed.
Examiner’s Note:
After the 101 software issue of claims 1-9 have been properly addressed, claims 1-10 still fall under 112f and 112b for having a system with different units configured to perform the functions of the invention, without having any support in the Specification of the instant application as to any type of hardware. The Examiner suggests to change the “configured to” language in order to avoid this issue.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because the “system” claims are not a process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter.
The claim lacks the necessary physical articles / objects / elements / components / structure / hardware to constitute a machine or a manufacture within the meaning of 35 USC 101. They are clearly not a series of steps or acts to be a process nor are they a combination of chemical compounds to be a composition of matter. Therefore, the claimed subject matter as a whole fails to fall within the definition of a process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter, patentable eligible category subject matter.
For more information regarding 35 U.S.C 101 please see MPEP 2106 and section of 2106 titled “Non-limiting examples of claims that are not directed to one of the statutory categories: vi. a computer program per se, Gottschalk v. Benson, 409 U.S. at 72.”
Examiner suggests coupling the system with sufficient structure such as a memory, CPU, etc.
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)(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.
Claims 1-4 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Tadeusz Szymanski et al (US 20190230042 A1), hereinafter “Szymanski”.
Regarding Claim 1, Szymanski discloses a network latency guarantee system based on service order-preserving global finish time, the network latency guarantee system comprising:
a packet processing unit configured to generate new metadata by storing arrived packets and calculating finish times of stored packets (Szymanski, Paragraph 0083, processing packet headers to identify the desired output port of the switch. Paragraph 0160, the arrival time of a packet at a VOQ 16 will determine its Virtual Finishing Time (VFT) and its departure order from the VOQ. Paragraph 0162, when an input port receives an arriving packet, the flow controller forwards the packet to the appropriate flow-VOQ and updates its internal state);
a scheduling unit configured to extract a packet having a minimum finish time by comparing the finish times of the stored packets (Szymanski, Paragraph 0086, scheduling input queues in order to move the packets from the internal input queues to the internal output queues);
and a packet output unit configured to output scheduled packets through output ports (Szymanski, Paragraph 0129, scheduling the packets between input and output ports).
Regarding Claim 2, Szymanski discloses the network latency guarantee system of claim 1 above, wherein the scheduling unit extracts a packet having a minimum finish time by storing multiple flow sets classified according to a predefined criteria in separate FIFO (first in, first out) queues and by comparing finish times of heads (Head of Queue, HoQ) of the multiple FIFO queues to each other (Szymanski, Paragraph 0161, wherein the input port selects a packet from a flow-VOQ having the smallest virtual finishing time (VFT)).
Regarding Claim 3, Szymanski discloses the network latency guarantee system of claim 2 above, wherein, in the predefined criteria, at least one of a maximum burst size, a maximum packet size, and an assigned service rate is classified for identical flows within a preset error range (Szymanski, Paragraph 0083, the switch 10 can use variable-size or fixed-sized packets. Paragraph 0133, flow controller implements a traffic policing algorithm. A traffic policing algorithm may process incoming packets associated with a traffic flow, to ensure that those packets conform to a traffic profile associated with the traffic flow. A traffic profile may specify an average data rate, a burst data rate, and a maximum burst size).
Regarding Claim 4, Szymanski discloses the network latency guarantee system of claim 1 above, wherein the scheduling unit extracts the packet having the minimum finish time by using a priority queue (Szymanski, Paragraph 0160, In the dynamic method, the arrival time of a packet at a VOQ 16 will determine its Virtual Finishing Time (VFT) and its departure order from the VOQ. Paragraph 0161, wherein the input port selects a packet from a flow-VOQ having the smallest virtual finishing time (VFT)).
Claim 10 carries similar limitations as discussed with regards to Claim 1 above and therefore is rejected for the same reason.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. All the references listed on 892 are related to the subject matter of scheduling data packets based on priority.
Some of the prior art include:
US 20230254264 A1, which discloses a method of software-defined guaranteed-latency networking.
EP 2740245 B1, which discloses a method of scalable packet scheduling policy for vast number of sessions.
US 11943111 B1, which discloses a method of implementing packet processing network functions as a service.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JAVIER O GUZMAN whose telephone number is (571)270-0588. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday 8 am to 4 pm EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jorge L. Ortiz-Criado can be reached at (571)272-7624. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JAVIER O GUZMAN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2496
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