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 .
This Non-Final rejection is in response to the preliminary amendment filed on 4/28/2025. Claims 1-20 are cancelled. Claims 21-40 are new.
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.
Claims 21-40 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Barman et al. (US 2022/0166709 A1, hereinafter Barman) in view of Albert et al. (US 6,742,045 B1, hereinafter Albert).
Regarding claim 21, Barman teaches an apparatus, comprising: first circuitry to determine a particular processing core amongst a plurality of processing cores for an Internet Protocol (IP) fragment based at least in part on the IP fragment's IP fragmentation ID; and, second circuitry to enqueue the IP fragment for the particular processing core, [Figure 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 and associated description, Figure 9 assign fragmented packet data to core group and receive by the core group the fragmented data packet for the traffic flow; Par.[0055], [0057] 3T or 5T data to process packet fragments, see also Par.[0033] and [0042] packet fragments of a traffic flow are steered to the same core]; Barman does not explicitly teach the limitation “IP fragment's IP fragmentation ID”
Albert reference provides support for the limitation “based on IP fragment's IP fragmentation ID”, [Col. 28, lines 19-2; see also Figure 12 where fragment ID is used to route the fragment to the specified fragment manager]; it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to augment Barman with IP fragment ID. The motivation/suggestion would have been to forward the packet fragment to the specified fragment manager, [Albert: Figure 12].
Claims 28 and 35 are obvious variants of claim 21 and are rejected as above. [All Figures are relevant to support the network entity related limitations in claim 35 though the claim limitations recite only elements related to the forwarding plane].
Regarding claim 22, Barman and Albert teach the apparatus of claim 21 and Barman teaches wherein the first circuitry is to determine the particular processing core by performing a hash operation for the IP fragment, [see Par.[0055] and [0071] among others].
Regarding claim 23, Barman and Albert teach the apparatus of claim 21 and Barman teaches wherein the IP fragment is an IPv4 or IPv6 IP fragment, [see Par.[0066].
Regarding claim 24, Barman and Albert teach the apparatus of claim 21 and Barman teaches wherein the first circuitry is to determine the particular processing core based at least in part on the IP fragment's IP fragmentation ID, source address and destination address, [Par.[0030], [0055] among others describe source and destination addresses in a 3T or 5T data and Albert teaches using fragment ID for routing to a specific processing unit/core as above [dependent claim is obvious over Barman in view of Albert for the same reasons as above, Figure 12]].
Regarding claim 25, Barman and Albert teach the apparatus of claim 21 and Albert teaches wherein the IP fragmentation ID is a secondary IP fragmentation ID within an outer IP header of the IP fragment, [dependent claim is obvious over Barman in view of Albert for the same reasons as above; Col. 3, lines 51-67, Col. 4, lines 1-3 wildcard or fixed affinity identifier, see Figure 9D and 12].
Regarding claim 26, Barman and Albert teach the apparatus of claim 21 and a modified Barman teaches wherein the second circuitry is to enqueue the IP fragment into a queue that is specially instantiated for a flow that is defined at least in part by the IP fragment's IP fragmentation ID, [Figure 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 and associated description, Figure 9 assign fragmented packet data to core group and receive by the core group the fragmented data packet for the traffic flow; Par.[0055], [0057] 3T or 5T data to process packet fragments, see also Par.[0033] and [0042] packet fragments of a traffic flow are steered to the same core; Albert teaches using fragment ID for routing to a specific processing unit/core as above [dependent claim is obvious over Barman in view of Albert for the same reasons as above, Figure 12 and Col. 4, lines 12-22 describes connection between a flow identifier and a fragment/s].
Regarding claim 27, Barman and Albert teach the apparatus of claim 21 and Barman teaches wherein the first circuitry and the second electronic circuitry are implemented as: another one of the processing cores; logic circuitry disposed on a queueing acceleration add-in module; logic circuitry disposed in a stage of a packet processing pipeline, [Figure 3, 5, 6, 7, 8 and associated description].
Claims 29 and 37 correspond to claim 22.
Claim 30 corresponds to claim 23.
Claims 31 and 38 correspond to claim 24.
Claims 32 and 39 correspond to claim 25.
Claims 33 and 40 correspond to claim 26.
Regarding claim 34, Barman and Albert teach the apparatus of claim 21 and Barman teaches wherein the second circuitry is to arrange the IP fragment with another IP fragment in succession in a queue, the IP fragment and the other IP fragment being different fragments of a same larger IP packet, [Figure 9 fragments of the same flow are queued at the same assigned core].
Conclusion
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/PADMA MUNDUR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2443
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