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 communication is in response to claims 1-12 filed on 04/30/2025.
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 6 and 12 are 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. Specifically, for the following reason:
2. Claims 6 and 12 recite the limitation "the marked EID-RLOC". There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claims.
For purposes of examination, these recitations are interpreted as referring to the EID-RLOC mapping requested in claims 5 and 11, from which claims 6 and 12 respectively depend.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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.
3. Claims 1, 4, 7 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a) as being anticipated by Kini et al. (US 2010/0271980).
Regarding claim 1, Kini teaches a network device comprising:
one or more processing units; and
one or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processing units, cause the one or more processing units to:
forward IP packets of a first traffic flow (the unicast packets are Internet Protocol (IP) packet, claim 8) over a first virtual network segment established with a mismatched edge node according to an enhanced forwarding (EF)- compatible forwarding mode (The hybrid bridging node extends the life of nodes in the legacy sub-network by selectively broadcasting unicast packets from the upgraded sub-network to the legacy sub-network, [0033]; the hybrid node selectively broadcasts certain unicast packets between legacy sub-network 218 and upgraded sub-network 220, [0049]; The ARP request database is a database that is used to track ARP requests received on P-new ports and to determine whether to broadcast an ARP request out the P-new ports, P-old ports, or both the P-new and P-old ports, [0052]); and
forward IP packets of a second traffic flow over a second virtual network segment established with a non-mismatched edge node according to traditional forwarding (TF) (legacy sub-network 218 is composed of legacy bridging nodes that communicate packets using one of the legacy bridging protocols. In one embodiment, a legacy bridging protocol is a bridging protocol that shares MAC address information with other bridging nodes in the PB network 202. For example and in one embodiment, a legacy bridging protocol is 802.1ad bridging, 802.1D bridging, 802.1Q VLAN, etc, [0042]; S-VLAN component 210 is coupled to P-old port 214F and communicates packets with nodes and end stations in legacy sub-network 218. In one embodiment, S-VLAN component 210 operates one or more of the legacy bridging protocols, [0051]).
Regarding claim 4, Kini teaches The network device of claim 1, wherein the instructions further cause the one or more processing units to receive an address discovery protocol request from a client device behind an EF-configured edge node (The ARP request database is a database that is used to track ARP requests received on P-new ports, [0052]).
Regarding claim 7, the method claim comprises limitations equivalent to those of network device claim 1, and therefore is rejected in view of the same rationale.
Regarding claim 10, the method claim comprises limitations equivalent to those of network device claim 4, and therefore is rejected in view of the same rationale.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
4. Claims 2 and 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kini in view of Xiong et al. (US 2012/0014386).
Regarding claim 2, Kini teaches the network device of claim 1, wherein the instructions further cause the one or more processing units to broadcast a gratuitous address discovery response over one or more virtual network segments connected to TF-configured edge nodes of the virtual network instance (legacy bridging nodes broadcast all address request, address announcement, and unicast packets with unknown destination addresses. In one embodiment, address request and address announcement packets are ARP gratuitous and non-gratuitous request packets, respectively, [0048]).
However, Kini does not explicitly disclose broadcasting the gratuitous address discovery response in response to a notification regarding a virtual network instance disconnection by an EF-configured edge node.
Xiong teaches broadcasting, in response to a notification regarding a virtual network instance disconnection by an EF-configured edge node (When the LS 2940 is notified by the network that edge switch X has failed, the LS 2940 may send the information of the affected VMs (that may be connected to edge switch X) to edge switch Y, [0189]), a gratuitous address discovery response (edge switch Y may send out a gratuitous ARP message on behalf of VM1 to all the (edge) switches in the network via a pre-established distribution tree. An edge switch 3022 that receives the gratuitous ARP may in turn send the gratuitous ARP message to its attached VMs, [0195]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of claimed invention to send out a gratuitous ARP message after a change in network configuration in the system/method of Kini as suggested by Xiong to ensure that new address and forwarding information is efficiently broadcasted over the network. One would be motivated to combine these teachings in order for edge switches to maintain up-to-date address information.
Regarding claim 8, the method claim comprises limitations equivalent to those of network device claim 2, and therefore is rejected in view of the same rationale.
5. Claims 3 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kini-Xiong in view of Ji et al. (US 2003/0185233).
Regarding claim 3, Kini-Xiong do not explicitly disclose the network device of claim 2, wherein the one or more virtual network segments exclude virtual network segments over which network communications with client devices behind TF-configured edge nodes have not occurred within a threshold of recency.
Ji teaches wherein one or more virtual network segments exclude virtual network segments over which network communications with client devices behind TF-configured edge nodes have not occurred within a threshold of recency (Each entry in a table is created when a foreign interface communicates with the corresponding local interface using ARP messages or the local interface communicates with the foreign interface using ARP messages. When an entry is created, the local host computer time is stored as the Entry Time variable, for use in purging the entry if it becomes too old, [0061]; a purge IHC 812 function is called to delete any IHC entry whose Entry Time value is older than a prespecified time, called the IHC Lifetime, [0068]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to monitor interested hosts and purge old entries in the system/method of Kini-Xiong as suggested by Ji in order to determine which hosts are relevant to exchange ARP messages with. One would be motivated to combine these teachings because sending address resolution messages between hosts that do not communicate for more than a specific amount of time could be a waste of network link resources.
Regarding claim 9, the method claim comprises limitations equivalent to those of network device claim 3, and therefore is rejected in view of the same rationale.
6. Claims 5, 6, 11 and 12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kini in view of Hooda et al. (US 2019/0312809).
Regarding claim 5, Kini does not explicitly disclose the network device of claim 4, wherein the instructions further cause the one or more processing units to forward the address discovery protocol request to a control plane node, requesting the control plane node to return an Endpoint ID (EID)-Routing LOCator (RLOC) mapping containing a destination address in the address discovery protocol request.
Hooda teaches forwarding an address discovery protocol request to a control plane node, requesting the control plane node to return an Endpoint ID (EID)-Routing LOCator (RLOC) mapping containing a destination address in the address discovery protocol request (the E node can send a map-request for the destination EID to the CP node. Assuming the destination host is attached to an E node in the same fabric site, the CP node should have a mapping between the destination EID and the RLOC of the E node to which the destination host is attached. If so the CP node replies to the E node's map-request with the RLOC mapping, [0030]; edge E node sends a map-request for D:EID to CPx in step 206. In response to the request, CPx looks in its state table ST/CPx to see if D:EID is mapped to an RLOC. If D:EID identifies a host that is attached to an edge node of fabric site-x, the state table should have a mapping for D:EID, [0034]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to send a map request to a control plane in the system/method of Kini as suggested by Hooda to obtain a mapping between a destination EID and a RLOC of an edge node to which the destination is attached. One would be motivated to combine these teachings because providing a centralized EID-RLOC mapping for maintaining up to date network information would allow for efficient discovery of forwarding information generating minimal extra traffic.
Regarding claim 6, Kini does not explicitly disclose the network device of claim5, wherein the instructions further cause the one or more processing units to respond, upon receiving a marked EID-RLOC mapping, to the received address discovery protocol request by proxy.
Hooda teaches responding, upon receiving the marked EID-RLOC mapping, to the received address discovery protocol request by proxy (The E node can update its state table ST/E by adding the received mapping, [0030]; the E node can encapsulate the packet with an outer LISP header that includes the RLOC of the B node, and then the E node forwards the encapsulated packet to the B node, [0030]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to send a map request to a control plane in the system/method of Kini as suggested by Hooda to obtain a mapping between a destination EID and a RLOC of an edge node to which the destination is attached. One would be motivated to combine these teachings because providing a centralized EID-RLOC mapping for maintaining up to date network information would allow for efficient discovery of forwarding information generating minimal extra traffic.
Regarding claim 11, the method claim comprises limitations equivalent to those of network device claim 5, and therefore is rejected in view of the same rationale.
Regarding claim 12, the method claim comprises limitations equivalent to those of network device claim 6, and therefore is rejected in view of the same rationale.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Narayanan et al. US 7,697,534 – transmitting frames in a format compatible depending on a provider edge configuration.
Krishnan et al. US 8,537,681 – mixed mode layer 2 and layer 3 at an edge network device.
Kini et al. US 2011/0194559 – hybrid bridging node for operating a legacy bridging protocol and a network that operates VPLS and/or PBB bridging protocols.
Gero et al. US 2011/0310904 – capability with bridges that enable address learning in a network including upgraded edge nodes and traditional edge nodes.
Schrum, Jr. et al. US 2014/0036917 – a hybrid ARP functionality serving as a proxy between conventional ARP functionality and one or more hybrid devices.
Fernando et al. US 2017/0317919 – enabling interoperability between data plan endpoints and control plan endpoints.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MADHU WOOLCOCK whose telephone number is (571)270-3629. The examiner can normally be reached Tuesday, Thursday 9-6 ET.
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MADHU WOOLCOCK
Examiner
Art Unit 2451
/MADHU WOOLCOCK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2451
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