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 # 19/153,259 was filed on 8/1/2025.
Claims 1-20 are subject to examination.
An IDS filed on 8/1/2025 has been fully considered and entered by the Examiner.
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) 1-2, 6-11, 13-15, 18-19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bickhart et al. U.S. Patent Publication # 2017/0373973 (hereinafter Bickhart) in view of Brisssette et al. U.S. Patent Publication # 10,637,687 (hereinafter Brissette)
With respect to claim 1, Bickhart teaches a method performed by a network device functioning as a first provider edge (PE) (Fig. 1 element 10) providing multihoming in an ethernet virtual private network (EVPN) to proactively learn and advertise host addresses in the EVPN (Paragraph 20), the method comprising:
receiving a first address advertisement message from a second PE in the EVPN (i.e. previous PE device has advertised the MAC/IP binding of the customer endpoint that has migrated) (Paragraph 27, 6-7), wherein the first address advertisement message includes an internet protocol (IP) address associated with a host that is reachable via the second PE and an ethernet segment identifier identifying an ethernet segment (i.e. PE router may advertise an MPLS services per Ethernet tag for ethernet as ethernet tag identifier) (Paragraph 30, 27, 6-8)
responsive to receiving the first address advertisement message and determining that the first PE is attached to the ethernet segment identified by the ethernet segment identifier (i.e. receiving advertisement message which has MAC/IP binding, wherein the announcement has MAC addresses for the EVPN an including a RD, ESI, Ethernet tag identifier, IP address and MPLS label)(Paragraph 7-8, 27-30), sending an address resolution request message for the IP address included in the first address advertisement message via a local interface (i.e. PE routers may learn MAC/IP bindings in the data plane by address resolution protocol)(Paragraph 47)
receiving an address resolution response message corresponding to the address resolution request message via the local interface, wherein the address resolution response message includes a media access control (MAC) address corresponding to the IP address (i.e. PE router learns the IP address associated with a MAC address which is included in the address resolution protocol message) (Paragraph 47, 66); and
responsive to receiving the address resolution response message, sending a second address advertisement message to one or more remote PEs in the EVPN (Paragraph 67), wherein the second address advertisement message includes the MAC address corresponding to the IP address (Paragraph 67).
Although Bickhart teaches responsive to receiving ARP response messages, and sending a address advertisement message to one or more remote Pes in the EVPN) (i.e. learning new MAC address and the then advertise and EVPN MACP/IP advertisement route using BGP to remote Pes), wherein the second address advertisement message includes the MAC address corresponding to the IP address (Paragraph 67), but Bickhart does not explicitly state these advertisement as second advertisement message.
Brissette teaches sending a second address advertisement message in the EVPN (column 2 lines 65-67)(column 3 lines 1-9) wherein the second address advertisement message includes the MAC address corresponding to the IP address (column 7 lines 63-67). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement Brissette’s teaching in Brickhart’s teaching to come up with sending a second address advertisement message in the EVPN wherein the second address advertisement message includes MAC address corresponding to the IP address. The motivation for doing so would be to provide reachability information associated with the ESI for the second network device.
With respect to claim 2, Brickhart and Brissette teaches the method of claim 1, but Brickhart further teaches wherein the second address advertisement message is a Multi-Protocol Border Gateway Protocol (MP-BGP) message including a MAC/IP advertisement route (Paragraph 51, 67)
With respect to claim 6, Brickhart and Brissette teaches the method of claim 1, but Brickhart further teaches comprising: responsive to receiving the address resolution response message, installing a local EVPN route for the IP address and the MAC address corresponding to the IP address in a border gateway protocol (BGP) table (Paragraph 41, 60, 71-73)
With respect to claim 7, Brickhart and Brissette teaches the method of claim 1, but Brickhart further teaches comprising: responsive to receiving the address resolution response message, installing a local host route for the IP address in a routing information base (RIB) (Paragraph 42, ,40, 60, 73, 80), wherein the RIB is used to program a forwarding information base (FIB) (Paragraph 61-63)
With respect to claim 8, Brickhart and Brissette teaches the method of claim 1, but Brickhart further teaches further comprising: responsive to receiving the first address advertisement message, installing a remote host route for the IP address in a routing information base (RIB) with the second PE as a next hop (Paragraph 61-63); and responsive to receiving the address resolution response message, updating the remote host route for the IP address to a local host route (Paragraph 73, 76, 82-85)
With respect to claim 9, Brickhart and Brissette teaches the method of claim 1, but Brissette further teaches wherein the ethernet segment operates in an all-active redundancy mode (Paragraph 8 lines 53-60)
With respect to claim 10, Brickhart and Brissette teaches the method of claim 1, but Brissette further teaches wherein sending the second address advertisement message to the one or more remote PEs causes each of the one or more remote PEs to install a remote host route for the IP address with both the first PE and the second PE as next hops (column 9 lines 60-67)
With respect to claim 11, Brickhart and Brissette teaches the method of claim 1, but Brissette further teaches wherein the one or more remote PEs perform equal cost multiple path (ECMP) routing for traffic destined for the IP address using the first PE and the second PE as next hops (column 13 lines 59-67 )(column 14 lines 1-9, 31-54)
With respect to claim 13, Brickhart and Brissette teaches the method of claim 1, but Brickhart further teaches further comprising: receiving traffic destined for the IP address from a remote PE in the EVPN (Paragraph 53); and sending the traffic destined for the IP address to the host using local switching (Paragraph 53, 69).
With respect to claims 14-15 respectively, teaches same limitations as claims 1-2 respectively, therefore rejected under same basis.
With respect to claims 18-19 respectively, teaches same limitations as claims 1-2 respectively, therefore rejected under same basis.
Claim(s) 3-5, 16-17, 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bickhart et al. U.S. Patent Publication # 2017/0373973 (hereinafter Bickhart) in view of Brisssette et al. U.S. Patent Publication # 10,637,687 (hereinafter Brissette) further in view of Mathew et al. U.S. Patent Publication # 2018/0262458 (hereinafter Mathew)
With respect to claim 3, Brickhart and Brissette teaches the method of claim 1, but Brickhart further teaches wherein the address resolution request message is an Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) request message (Paragraph 47, 70) but does not explicitly state the address resolution response message is an ARP reply message.
Mathew teaches the address resolution response message is an ARP reply message (Paragraph 33). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement Mathew’s teaching in Brickhart and Brissette’s teaching to come up with having address resolution response message is an ARP reply message. The motivation for doing so would be to learn about the necessary mapping information (Paragraph 30).
With respect to claim 4, Brickhart and Brissette teaches the method of claim 1, but Brickhart further teaches wherein the address resolution request message is a Neighbor Solicitation (NS) message (Paragraph 70) but does not explicitly state the address resolution response message is a Neighbor Advertisement (NA) message.
Mathew teaches the address resolution response message is a Neighbor Advertisement (NA) message (Paragraph 33). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement Mathew’s teaching in Brickhart and Brissette’s teaching to come up with having address resolution response message is a Neighbor Advertisement message. The motivation for doing so would be to learn about the necessary mapping information (Paragraph 30).
With respect to claim 5, Brickhart and Brissette teaches the method of claim 1, but fails to further teach wherein the address resolution request message is sent using a non-anycast IP address associated with the first PE as a source IP address and a hardware MAC address associated with the first PE as a source hardware address.
Mathew teaches the address resolution request message is sent using a non-anycast IP address associated with the first PE as a source IP address and a hardware MAC address associated with the first PE as a source hardware address (Paragraph 43, 46). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement Mathew’s teaching in Brickhart and Brissette’s teaching to come up with having the address resolution request message is sent using a non-anycast IP address associated with the first PE as a source IP address and a hardware MAC address associated with the first PE as a source hardware address. The motivation for doing so would be to learn about the necessary mapping information and also initiating an address resolution process to retrieve the relevant address mapping information.
With respect to claims 16-17 respectively, teaches same limitations as claims 3-4 respectively, therefore rejected under same basis.
With respect to claim 20, teaches same limitations as claim 5, therefore rejected under same basis.
Claim(s) 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bickhart et al. U.S. Patent Publication # 2017/0373973 (hereinafter Bickhart) in view of Brisssette et al. U.S. Patent Publication # 10,637,687 (hereinafter Brissette) further in view of Nagarajan et al. U.S. Patent Publication # 2020/0127919 (hereinafter Nagarajan)
With respect to claim 12, Brickhart and Brissette teaches the method of claim 1, but fails to further teaches wherein the one or more remote PEs can quickly reconverge to send traffic destined for the IP address to the first PE but not the second PE when the one or more remote PEs determine that the second PE is down. Nagarajan teaches wherein the one or more remote PEs can quickly reconverge to send traffic destined for the IP address to the first PE but not the second PE when the one or more remote PEs determine that the second PE is down (paragraph 8). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement Nagarajan’s teaching in Brickhart and Brissette’s teaching to come up with having send traffic destined for IP address to the first PE when the second PE is down. The motivation for doing so would to reduce the occurrence of traffic blackholing.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
A). Ranpise et al. U.S. Patent Publication # 2021/0226912
B). Bickhart et al. U.S. Patent Publication # 2018/0006995
C). Vairavakkalai et al. U.S. Patent # 8,937,961
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DHAIRYA A. PATEL
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2453
/DHAIRYA A PATEL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2453
