DETAILED ACTION
This application has been examined. Claims 1-20 are pending.
In order to facilitate communication with the Examiner and expedite the prosecution of the instant application the Applicant is requested to submit written authorization to authorize the USPTO to communicate via electronic mail. The written authorization must be compliant with the language from MPEP § 502.03.
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 .
Priority
This application claims benefits of priority from Foreign Application TW113119152 (TAIWAN) filed May 23, 2024.
Information Disclosure Statement
The Applicant is respectfully reminded that each individual associated with the filing and prosecution of a patent application has a duty of candor and good faith in dealing with the Office, which includes a duty to disclose to the Office all information known to that individual to be material to patentability as defined in 37 CFR 1.56.
There were no information disclosure statements filed with this application.
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) 1-6,9-10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over DiFerdinando (USPGPUB 2022/0321499) further in view of Munoz (USPGPUB 2013/0128896)
Regarding Claim 1
DiFerdinando Figure 1C,Paragraph 111,Paragraph 123,Paragraph 143 disclosed MAC learning and MAC propagation functions and updating of the HASH LUT Table with port number information. The Motherboard, forms and manages a routing table based on the ML and pushes down through the Ethernet pathways updated router tables, MAC Propagation, continuously, periodically.
DiFerdinando Paragraph 163 disclosed braking system with slightly longer path delay allows for a more uniform, reliable, and efficient back pressure mitigation.
DiFerdinando Paragraph 165 disclosed wherein the Switch Flow Modules SFM (701) and back pressure processing SFMs 701-706 is configured to take in multiple flows of data packets from a designated number of I/O SFMs that are experiencing a back-pressure situation, whereby the Ingress RAM (570) of the I/O SFM has accumulated packets beyond a designated threshold depth.
DiFerdinando Paragraph 168 disclosed wherein DDR arbiter operates to activate/redirect a given MUX such that, when a grant is received by the particular I/O SFM, the I/O SFM is connected with the given port number associated with the granted DDR SFM. Each I/O SFM transfers packets to a DDR SFM and a dedicated Hyper Cylinder within the DDR SFM.
DiFerdinando Paragraph 146 disclosed wherein the system operates to filter repeating MAC source addresses by comparing against the last three MACs received. The MAC learning is performed in K cycles (where K=4) and collects up to N MAC source addresses, while stopping storing of MAC source addresses when the table is full.
DiFerdinando disclosed (re. Claim 1) a media access control address table updating device, (DiFerdinando Figure 1C,Paragraph 111,Paragraph 143,MAC learning and MAC propagation functions and updating of the HASH LUT Table with port number information. The Motherboard, forms and manages a routing table based on the ML and pushes down through the Ethernet pathways updated router tables, MAC Propagation, continuously, periodically)
comprising: a storage, being configured to store a media access control address table; (DiFerdinando-Paragraph 123, the master lookup table is populated (at the motherboard) and updated, Paragraph 144, each line card feeds back to the Motherboard via an onboard microprocessor. A running list of new MAC addresses, MAC Learning, is sensed on the ports. The Motherboard, in turn, forms and manages a routing table based on the ML and pushes down through the Ethernet pathways updated router tables, MAC Propagation, continuously, periodically)
a learning controller, being electrically connected to the storage and a plurality of network ports; (DiFerdinando-Paragraph 144, each line card feeds back to the Motherboard via an onboard microprocessor. A running list of new MAC addresses, MAC Learning, is sensed on the ports. The Motherboard, in turn, forms and manages a routing table based on the ML and pushes down through the Ethernet pathways updated router tables, MAC Propagation, continuously, periodically)
a packet generator, being electrically connected to the learning controller; (DiFerdinando- Paragraph 126, Each I/O SFM contains the ingress/egress FIFO, Routing Lookup Table and sequencers. The I/O SFM is triggered and commences packet transfers in reaction to the Ethernet MAC core control signals emanating from the core microprocessor (e.g. Xilinx Ethernet Core) on the I/O side indicating reception of a packet.)
and
a traffic manager, being electrically connected to the packet generator and a processor, wherein the traffic manager manages a plurality of queues connected to the processor;( DiFerdinando-Paragraph 165, back pressure processing SFMs 701-706 is configured to take in multiple flows of data packets from a designated number of I/O SFMs that are experiencing a back-pressure situation, whereby the Ingress RAM (570) of the I/O SFM has accumulated packets beyond a designated threshold depth,Paragraph 126, Each I/O SFM contains the ingress/egress FIFO, Routing Lookup Table and sequencers. The I/O SFM is triggered and commences packet transfers in reaction to the Ethernet MAC core control signals emanating from the core microprocessor (e.g. Xilinx Ethernet Core) on the I/O side indicating reception of a packet.)
wherein the media access control address table updating device performs the following operations:
determining, by the traffic manager, whether to generate a first back pressure signal based on a current traffic corresponding to the plurality of queues; (DiFerdinando-Paragraph 165, back pressure processing SFMs 701-706 is configured to take in multiple flows of data packets from a designated number of I/O SFMs that are experiencing a back-pressure situation, whereby the Ingress RAM (570) of the I/O SFM has accumulated packets beyond a designated threshold depth)
in response to determining that the first back pressure signal is generated, transmitting, by the traffic manager, the first back pressure signal to the packet generator; (DiFerdinando-Paragraph 136, in the event of a significant blockage of data flow, a request is made to deposit the overflow packets to an external repository 804 via flow 802. Overflow packets may be retrieved from DDR (e.g. DDR4) FIFO 804 via flow 806. The FPGA architecture includes overflow (back pressure) processing SFMs) and
While DiFerdinando substantially disclosed the claimed invention DiFerdinando does not disclose (re. Claim 1) wherein in response to receiving the first back pressure signal from the traffic manager, stopping, by the packet generator, generating a notification packet corresponding to a notification event,
wherein the notification event is generated by the learning controller based on an update event corresponding to the plurality of network ports, and the notification packet is configured to indicate an update information corresponding to the media access control address table.
Munoz Paragraph 33 disclosed a hardware-based mechanism as a front end to a software-based mechanism for a MAC learning table or bridging table to associate known MAC addresses with a given port.
Munoz Paragraph 37 disclosed wherein If FIFO 208 backs up, bridging logic module 206 ceases to learn new addresses and ages out old addresses, thus ensuring the addresses stored in different memories of network processor 100 remain synchronized.
Munoz disclosed (re. Claim 1) wherein in response to receiving the first back pressure signal from the traffic manager, stopping, by the packet generator, generating a notification packet corresponding to a notification event, (Munoz-Paragraph 37,If FIFO 208 backs up, bridging logic module 206 ceases to learn new addresses and ages out old addresses, thus ensuring the addresses stored in different memories of network processor 100 remain synchronized)
wherein the notification event is generated by the learning controller based on an update event corresponding to the plurality of network ports, and the notification packet is configured to indicate an update information corresponding to the media access control address table.(Munoz-Paragraph 37, Typical received packets might be provided to access control lists (ACLs) module 204 and might perform bridging, policing, and correlation for received packets. Bridging logic module 206 determines where to transmit the data packet and typically implements address learning and aging)
DiFerdinando and Munoz are analogous art because they present concepts and practices regarding MAC address learning mechanisms. Before the time of the effective filing date of the claimed invention it would have been obvious to combine Munoz into DiFerdinando. The motivation for the said combination would have been to allow network processor 100 to process a wide variety of data and control messages more efficiently than with a fixed pipeline or non-pipelined architecture.(Munoz-Paragraph 22)
Regarding Claim 2
DiFerdinando-Munoz disclosed (re. Claim 2) wherein the operation of determining whether to generate the first back pressure signal comprises the following operations: determining, by the traffic manager, whether the current traffic corresponding to the plurality of queues is higher than a traffic threshold; ( DiFerdinando-Paragraph 165, back pressure processing SFMs 701-706 is configured to take in multiple flows of data packets from a designated number of I/O SFMs that are experiencing a back-pressure situation, whereby the Ingress RAM (570) of the I/O SFM has accumulated packets beyond a designated threshold depth) and in response to the current traffic corresponding to the plurality of queues being higher than the traffic threshold, generating, by the traffic manager, the first back pressure signal. (DiFerdinando-Paragraph 136, in the event of a significant blockage of data flow, a request is made to deposit the overflow packets to an external repository 804 via flow 802. Overflow packets may be retrieved from DDR (e.g. DDR4) FIFO 804 via flow 806. The FPGA architecture includes overflow (back pressure) processing SFMs)
Regarding Claim 3
DiFerdinando-Munoz disclosed (re. Claim 3) in response to receiving the first back pressure signal from the traffic manager, the packet generator further performs the following operations:
determining whether a current temporary storage space for storing the notification event is higher than a temporary storage space threshold; (Munoz-Paragraph 37,If FIFO 208 backs up, bridging logic module 206 ceases to learn new addresses and ages out old addresses, thus ensuring the addresses stored in different memories of network processor 100 remain synchronized)
in response to the current temporary storage space being higher than the temporary storage space threshold, generating, by the packet generator, a second back pressure signal; and
transmitting the second back pressure signal to the learning controller, wherein the second back pressure signal is configured to instruct the learning controller to stop updating the media access control address table. (Munoz-Paragraph 37,If FIFO 208 backs up, bridging logic module 206 ceases to learn new addresses and ages out old addresses, thus ensuring the addresses stored in different memories of network processor 100 remain synchronized)
Regarding Claim 4
DiFerdinando-Munoz disclosed (re. Claim 4) receiving, by the learning controller, at least one new update event from the plurality of network ports; determining, by the learning controller, whether the second back pressure signal exists; (Munoz-Paragraph 37,If FIFO 208 backs up, bridging logic module 206 ceases to learn new addresses and ages out old addresses, thus ensuring the addresses stored in different memories of network processor 100 remain synchronized) in response to that the second back pressure signal does not exist, updating, by the learning controller, the media access control address table based on the at least one new update event, and transmitting the notification event corresponding to the at least one new update event to the packet generator; and
in response to that the second back pressure signal exists, stopping, by the learning controller, updating the media access control address table, and stopping transmitting the notification event corresponding to the at least one new update event to the packet generator. (Munoz-Paragraph 37,If FIFO 208 backs up, bridging logic module 206 ceases to learn new addresses and ages out old addresses, thus ensuring the addresses stored in different memories of network processor 100 remain synchronized)
Regarding Claim 5
DiFerdinando-Munoz disclosed (re. Claim 5) generating, by the packet generator, the notification packet based on at least one packet generation condition, wherein the at least one packet generation condition comprises at least one of an event quantity condition and a time condition or a combination thereof.(Munoz-Paragraph 50, traffic shaping algorithms control the quality of service (QoS) for a given type of traffic, the volume of traffic sent in a specified period (e.g., bandwidth throttling), the maximum rate at which traffic is sent (e.g., rate limiting))
Regarding Claim 6
DiFerdinando-Munoz disclosed (re. Claim 6) setting, by the traffic manager, one of the plurality of queues to be an unlimited queue; and transmitting, by the traffic manager, the notification packet to the processor through the unlimited queue.(DiFerdinando-Paragraph 168, When this condition occurs (i.e. when the number of packets in FIFO 570 exceed the threshold), the I/O SFM makes a request to a designated DDR SFM. Each I/O SFM transfers packets to a DDR SFM and a dedicated Hyper Cylinder within the DDR SFM.)
Regarding Claim 9
DiFerdinando-Munoz disclosed (re. Claim 9) a register, being electrically connected to the learning controller and the packet generator, and being configured to store the notification event generated by the learning controller.(DiFerdinando-Figure 10,Paragraph 146, module 1014 operates to create a N×M table (e.g. 48 wide×64 deep) to save MAC source addresses (“SRCMAC_TBL”) and perform read/write operations thereon. A table refresh rate R is selected. In an embodiment, a table refresh rate on a given duty cycle (e.g. 10 microsecond (us) duty cycle) may be implemented. MAC registers are also reset every duty cycle)
Regarding Claim 10
DiFerdinando-Munoz disclosed (re. Claim 10) wherein the operation of generating the second back pressure signal further comprises the following operations: determining, by the packet generator, whether the current temporary storage space of the register storing the notification event is higher than the temporary storage space threshold; (DiFerdinando-Paragraph 146,system operates to filter repeating MAC source addresses by comparing against the last three MACs received. The MAC learning is performed in K cycles (where K=4) and collects up to N MAC source addresses, while stopping storing of MAC source addresses when the table is full)
and generating, by the packet generator, the second back pressure signal in response to the current temporary storage space being higher than the temporary storage space threshold. ( DiFerdinando-Paragraph 165, back pressure processing SFMs 701-706 is configured to take in multiple flows of data packets from a designated number of I/O SFMs that are experiencing a back-pressure situation, whereby the Ingress RAM (570) of the I/O SFM has accumulated packets beyond a designated threshold depth)
Claim(s) 7,17,19,20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over DiFerdinando (USPGPUB 2022/0321499) further in view of Munoz (USPGPUB 2013/0128896) further in view of Lellouch (USPGPUB 2025/0247391)
Regarding Claim 7
DiFerdinando Paragraph 146 disclosed wherein the system operates to filter repeating MAC source addresses by comparing against the last three MACs received. The MAC learning is performed in K cycles (where K=4) and collects up to N MAC source addresses, while stopping storing of MAC source addresses when the table is full.
DiFerdinando-Munoz disclosed (re. Claim 7) receiving, by the learning controller, at least one new update event (DiFerdinando-Paragraph 144, each line card feeds back to the Motherboard via an onboard microprocessor. A running list of new MAC addresses, MAC Learning, is sensed on the ports. The Motherboard, in turn, forms and manages a routing table based on the ML and pushes down through the Ethernet pathways updated router tables, MAC Propagation, continuously, periodically) and updating, by the learning controller, the media access control address table based on the at least one new update event, (DiFerdinando-Paragraph 144, each line card feeds back to the Motherboard via an onboard microprocessor. A running list of new MAC addresses, MAC Learning, is sensed on the ports. The Motherboard, in turn, forms and manages a routing table based on the ML and pushes down through the Ethernet pathways updated router tables, MAC Propagation, continuously, periodically) and transmitting a plurality of new notification events corresponding to the at least one new update event to the packet generator. (DiFerdinando-Paragraph 144, each line card feeds back to the Motherboard via an onboard microprocessor. A running list of new MAC addresses, MAC Learning, is sensed on the ports. The Motherboard, in turn, forms and manages a routing table based on the ML and pushes down through the Ethernet pathways updated router tables, MAC Propagation, continuously, periodically)
While DiFerdinando-Munoz substantially disclosed the claimed invention DiFerdinando-Munoz does not disclose (re. Claim 7) removing, by the learning controller, a duplicate event from the at least one new update event to update the at least one new update event.
Lellouch Paragraph 78 disclosed wherein the system can analyze the received MAC addresses to determine one or more MAC addresses that are repeated in the received data. At step 130, the system can label the repeated MAC addresses and repeated MAC addresses can be deleted.
Lellouch disclosed (re. Claim 7) removing, by the learning controller, a duplicate event from the at least one new update event to update the at least one new update event.(Lellouch-Paragraph 49,Paragraph 78,system can analyze the received MAC addresses to determine one or more MAC addresses that are repeated in the received data. At step 130, the system can label the repeated MAC addresses and repeated MAC addresses can be deleted.)
DiFerdinando,Munoz and Lellouch are analogous art because they present concepts and practices regarding MAC address learning mechanisms. Before the time of the effective filing date of the claimed invention it would have been obvious to combine Lellouch into DiFerdinando-Munoz. The motivation for the said combination would have been such that system can be configured to add a new asset and later determine if the new asset is the same as an existing asset, at which point the new asset and existing asset can be merged. Earlier consolidation can be beneficial as it can improve performance and the overall experience of a system, for example by provided real time or nearly real time information about the assets on a network.(Lellouch-Paragraph 50)
Regarding Claim 17
Claim 17 (re. media access control address table updating device) recites substantially similar limitations as Claim 1. See rejection for Claim 1.
Furthermore DiFerdinando-Munoz-Lellouch disclosed (re. Claim 17) removing, by the learning controller, a duplicate event from the plurality of update events to update the plurality of update events (Lellouch-Paragraph 49,Paragraph 78,system can analyze the received MAC addresses to determine one or more MAC addresses that are repeated in the received data. At step 130, the system can label the repeated MAC addresses and repeated MAC addresses can be deleted.)
Regarding Claim 19
DiFerdinando-Munoz-Lellouch disclosed (re. Claim 19) generating, by the packet generator, the notification packet based on at least one packet generation condition, wherein the at least one packet generation condition comprises at least one of an event quantity condition and a time condition or a combination thereof.(Munoz-Paragraph 50, traffic shaping algorithms control the quality of service (QoS) for a given type of traffic, the volume of traffic sent in a specified period (e.g., bandwidth throttling), the maximum rate at which traffic is sent (e.g., rate limiting))
Regarding Claim 20
DiFerdinando-Munoz-Lellouch disclosed (re. Claim 20) setting, by the traffic manager, one of the plurality of queues to be an unlimited queue; and transmitting, by the traffic manager, the notification packet to the processor through the unlimited queue.(DiFerdinando-Paragraph 168, When this condition occurs (i.e. when the number of packets in FIFO 570 exceed the threshold), the I/O SFM makes a request to a designated DDR SFM. Each I/O SFM transfers packets to a DDR SFM and a dedicated Hyper Cylinder within the DDR SFM.)
Claim(s) 8,18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over DiFerdinando (USPGPUB 2022/0321499) further in view of Munoz (USPGPUB 2013/0128896) further in view of Lellouch (USPGPUB 2025/0247391) further in view of Barton (USPGPUB 2023/0353534)
Regarding Claim 8,18
DiFerdinando-Munoz-Lellouch disclosed (re. Claim 8,18) wherein the operation of removing the duplicate event from the at least one new update event comprises the following operations: recording, by the learning controller, a type event and a time interval corresponding to each of the at least one new update event; and for each of the plurality of type events, removing, by the learning controller,the duplicate event corresponding to the time interval in the at least one new update event to update the at least one new update event.
Barton Figure 4,Paragraph 29,Paragraph 43 disclosed wherein assigning each of the one or more wireless client devices to a classification (i.e., a bin) based on a MAC address rotation behavior type of the one or more wireless client devices to maintain a count of wireless client devices assigned to a respective classification among a plurality of classifications (bins), wherein each classification (bin) has a rotation timer or window. Counts of wireless client devices for each of the plurality of classifications (bins) are evaluated to determine the impact of MAC address rotation. Again, the rotation timer or window may be a specified time window or may be learned based on observations made from MAC address rotations of one or more clients over a period of time.
Barton disclosed (re. Claim 8,18) wherein the operation of removing the duplicate event from the at least one new update event comprises the following operations: recording, by the learning controller, a type event and a time interval corresponding to each of the at least one new update event (Barton-Figure 4,Paragraph 29,Paragraph 43,assigning each of the one or more wireless client devices to a classification (i.e., a bin) based on a MAC address rotation behavior type of the one or more wireless client devices to maintain a count of wireless client devices assigned to a respective classification among a plurality of classifications (bins), wherein each classification (bin) has a rotation timer or window. Counts of wireless client devices for each of the plurality of classifications (bins) are evaluated to determine the impact of MAC address rotation. Again, the rotation timer or window may be a specified time window or may be learned based on observations made from MAC address rotations of one or more clients over a period of time.)
DiFerdinando,Munoz and Barton are analogous art because they present concepts and practices regarding MAC address learning mechanisms. Before the time of the effective filing date of the claimed invention it would have been obvious to combine Barton into DiFerdinando-Munoz. The motivation for the said combination would have been to implement network entities/processes to put protection mechanisms in place (throttling DHCP and other requests) to prevent the flood of infrastructure updates and enable orchestrating the MAC address rotations in ways that allow for a natural, smoother rotation to happen without causing noticeable resource impact on the network devices and processes. (Barton-Paragraph 46,Paragraph 47)
DiFerdinando-Munoz disclosed (re. Claim 8,18) for each of the plurality of type events, removing, by the learning controller, the duplicate event (Lellouch-Paragraph 49,Paragraph 78,system can analyze the received MAC addresses to determine one or more MAC addresses that are repeated in the received data. At step 130, the system can label the repeated MAC addresses and repeated MAC addresses can be deleted.) corresponding to the time interval in the at least one new update event to update the at least one new update event. (Barton-Figure 4,Paragraph 29,Paragraph 43,assigning each of the one or more wireless client devices to a classification (i.e., a bin) based on a MAC address rotation behavior type of the one or more wireless client devices to maintain a count of wireless client devices assigned to a respective classification among a plurality of classifications (bins), wherein each classification (bin) has a rotation timer or window. Counts of wireless client devices for each of the plurality of classifications (bins) are evaluated to determine the impact of MAC address rotation. Again, the rotation timer or window may be a specified time window or may be learned based on observations made from MAC address rotations of one or more clients over a period of time.)
Claim(s) 11-14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over DiFerdinando (USPGPUB 2022/0321499) further in view of Munoz (USPGPUB 2013/0128896) further in view of Gally (US Patent 6980547)
Regarding Claim 11
Claim 11 (re. device) recites substantially similar limitations as Claim 1. See rejection for Claim 1.
While DiFerdinando-Munoz substantially disclosed the claimed invention DiFerdinando-Munoz does not disclose (re. Claim 11) a media access control address table updating device, comprising: a stacking port,
receiving, by the stacking port, a congestion signal, wherein the congestion signal indicates a queue status corresponding to the first media access control address table updating device.
Gally Column 3 Lines 5-10 disclosed wherein the switching chip 120 is shown to be connected to three network ports, with stack port 131 connecting the switching system 100 and the switching system 200, and stack port 133 connecting the switching system 100 and the switching system 300.
Gally disclose (re. Claim 11) a media access control address table updating device, comprising: a stacking port (Gally-Column 3 Lines 5-10,the switching chip 120 is shown to be connected to three network ports, with stack port 131 connecting the switching system 100 and the switching system 200, and stack port 133 connecting the switching system 100 and the switching system 300.)
DiFerdinando,Munoz and Gally are analogous art because they present concepts and practices regarding MAC address learning mechanisms. Before the time of the effective filing date of the claimed invention it would have been obvious to combine Gally into DiFerdinando-Munoz. The motivation for the said combination would have been to eliminate the need for having a CPU in every platform while allowing a single logical platform that facilitates a single point of management such that packets belonging to protocols other than IP and IPX will be switched in hardware at wire speeds using the Layer 2 switching algorithm. (Gally-Column 2 Lines 30-35,Column 5 Lines 5-10)
DiFerdinando-Munoz-Gally disclosed (re. Claim 11) receiving, by the stacking port, (Gally-Column 3 Lines 5-10,the switching chip 120 is shown to be connected to three network ports, with stack port 131 connecting the switching system 100 and the switching system 200, and stack port 133 connecting the switching system 100 and the switching system 300.) a congestion signal, wherein the congestion signal indicates a queue status corresponding to the first media access control address table updating device ( DiFerdinando-Paragraph 165, back pressure processing SFMs 701-706 is configured to take in multiple flows of data packets from a designated number of I/O SFMs that are experiencing a back-pressure situation, whereby the Ingress RAM (570) of the I/O SFM has accumulated packets beyond a designated threshold depth)
Regarding Claim 12
DiFerdinando-Munoz-Gally disclosed (re. Claim 12) receiving, by the learning controller, at least one new update event from the plurality of network ports; (Munoz-Paragraph 37, Typical received packets might be provided to access control lists (ACLs) module 204 and might perform bridging, policing, and correlation for received packets. Bridging logic module 206 determines where to transmit the data packet and typically implements address learning and aging) and in response to the traffic manager stopping transmitting the notification packet corresponding to the notification event to the first media access control address table updating device, stopping, by the learning controller, updating the media access control address table, and stopping transmitting the notification event corresponding to the at least one new update event to the packet generator. (Munoz-Paragraph 37,If FIFO 208 backs up, bridging logic module 206 ceases to learn new addresses and ages out old addresses, thus ensuring the addresses stored in different memories of network processor 100 remain synchronized)
Regarding Claim 13
DiFerdinando-Munoz-Gally disclosed (re. Claim 13) generating, by the packet generator, a plurality of notification packets based on at least one packet generation condition, wherein the at least one packet generation condition comprises at least one of an event quantity condition and a time condition or a combination thereof. (Munoz-Paragraph 50, traffic shaping algorithms control the quality of service (QoS) for a given type of traffic, the volume of traffic sent in a specified period (e.g., bandwidth throttling), the maximum rate at which traffic is sent (e.g., rate limiting))
Regarding Claim 14
DiFerdinando-Munoz-Gally disclosed (re. Claim 14) setting, by the traffic manager, one of the plurality of queues to be an unlimited queue; and transmitting, by the traffic manager, the notification packet to the processor through the unlimited queue. (DiFerdinando-Paragraph 168, When this condition occurs (i.e. when the number of packets in FIFO 570 exceed the threshold), the I/O SFM makes a request to a designated DDR SFM. Each I/O SFM transfers packets to a DDR SFM and a dedicated Hyper Cylinder within the DDR SFM.)
Claim(s) 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over DiFerdinando (USPGPUB 2022/0321499) further in view of Munoz (USPGPUB 2013/0128896) further in view of Gally (US Patent 6980547) further in view of Lellouch (USPGPUB 2025/0247391)
Regarding Claim 15
DiFerdinando Paragraph 146 disclosed wherein the system operates to filter repeating MAC source addresses by comparing against the last three MACs received. The MAC learning is performed in K cycles (where K=4) and collects up to N MAC source addresses, while stopping storing of MAC source addresses when the table is full.
DiFerdinando-Munoz disclosed (re. Claim 15) receiving, by the learning controller, at least one new update event (DiFerdinando-Paragraph 144, each line card feeds back to the Motherboard via an onboard microprocessor. A running list of new MAC addresses, MAC Learning, is sensed on the ports. The Motherboard, in turn, forms and manages a routing table based on the ML and pushes down through the Ethernet pathways updated router tables, MAC Propagation, continuously, periodically) and updating, by the learning controller, the media access control address table based on the at least one new update event, (DiFerdinando-Paragraph 144, each line card feeds back to the Motherboard via an onboard microprocessor. A running list of new MAC addresses, MAC Learning, is sensed on the ports. The Motherboard, in turn, forms and manages a routing table based on the ML and pushes down through the Ethernet pathways updated router tables, MAC Propagation, continuously, periodically) and transmitting a plurality of new notification events corresponding to the at least one new update event to the packet generator. (DiFerdinando-Paragraph 144, each line card feeds back to the Motherboard via an onboard microprocessor. A running list of new MAC addresses, MAC Learning, is sensed on the ports. The Motherboard, in turn, forms and manages a routing table based on the ML and pushes down through the Ethernet pathways updated router tables, MAC Propagation, continuously, periodically)
While DiFerdinando-Munoz substantially disclosed the claimed invention DiFerdinando-Munoz does not disclose (re. Claim 15) removing, by the learning controller, a duplicate event from the at least one new update event to update the at least one new update event.
Lellouch Paragraph 78 disclosed wherein the system can analyze the received MAC addresses to determine one or more MAC addresses that are repeated in the received data. At step 130, the system can label the repeated MAC addresses and repeated MAC addresses can be deleted.
Lellouch disclosed (re. Claim 15) removing, by the learning controller, a duplicate event from the at least one new update event to update the at least one new update event.(Lellouch-Paragraph 49,Paragraph 78,system can analyze the received MAC addresses to determine one or more MAC addresses that are repeated in the received data. At step 130, the system can label the repeated MAC addresses and repeated MAC addresses can be deleted.)
DiFerdinando,Munoz and Lellouch are analogous art because they present concepts and practices regarding MAC address learning mechanisms. Before the time of the effective filing date of the claimed invention it would have been obvious to combine Lellouch into DiFerdinando-Munoz. The motivation for the said combination would have been such that system can be configured to add a new asset and later determine if the new asset is the same as an existing asset, at which point the new asset and existing asset can be merged. Earlier consolidation can be beneficial as it can improve performance and the overall experience of a system, for example by provided real time or nearly real time information about the assets on a network.(Lellouch-Paragraph 50)
Claim(s) 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over DiFerdinando (USPGPUB 2022/0321499) further in view of Munoz (USPGPUB 2013/0128896) further in view of Gally (US Patent 6980547) further in view of Lellouch (USPGPUB 2025/0247391) further in view of Barton (USPGPUB 2023/0353534)
Regarding Claim 16
DiFerdinando-Munoz-Lellouch disclosed (re. Claim 16) wherein the operation of removing the duplicate event from the at least one new update event comprises the following operations: recording, by the learning controller, a type event and a time interval corresponding to each of the at least one new update event; and for each of the plurality of type events, removing, by the learning controller,the duplicate event corresponding to the time interval in the at least one new update event to update the at least one new update event.
Barton Figure 4,Paragraph 29,Paragraph 43 disclosed wherein assigning each of the one or more wireless client devices to a classification (i.e., a bin) based on a MAC address rotation behavior type of the one or more wireless client devices to maintain a count of wireless client devices assigned to a respective classification among a plurality of classifications (bins), wherein each classification (bin) has a rotation timer or window. Counts of wireless client devices for each of the plurality of classifications (bins) are evaluated to determine the impact of MAC address rotation. Again, the rotation timer or window may be a specified time window or may be learned based on observations made from MAC address rotations of one or more clients over a period of time.
Barton disclosed (re. Claim 16) wherein the operation of removing the duplicate event from the at least one new update event comprises the following operations: recording, by the learning controller, a type event and a time interval corresponding to each of the at least one new update event (Barton-Figure 4,Paragraph 29,Paragraph 43,assigning each of the one or more wireless client devices to a classification (i.e., a bin) based on a MAC address rotation behavior type of the one or more wireless client devices to maintain a count of wireless client devices assigned to a respective classification among a plurality of classifications (bins), wherein each classification (bin) has a rotation timer or window. Counts of wireless client devices for each of the plurality of classifications (bins) are evaluated to determine the impact of MAC address rotation. Again, the rotation timer or window may be a specified time window or may be learned based on observations made from MAC address rotations of one or more clients over a period of time.)
DiFerdinando,Munoz and Barton are analogous art because they present concepts and practices regarding MAC address learning mechanisms. Before the time of the effective filing date of the claimed invention it would have been obvious to combine Barton into DiFerdinando-Munoz. The motivation for the said combination would have been to implement network entities/processes to put protection mechanisms in place (throttling DHCP and other requests) to prevent the flood of infrastructure updates and enable orchestrating the MAC address rotations in ways that allow for a natural, smoother rotation to happen without causing noticeable resource impact on the network devices and processes. (Barton-Paragraph 46,Paragraph 47)
DiFerdinando-Munoz disclosed (re. Claim 16) for each of the plurality of type events, removing, by the learning controller, the duplicate event (Lellouch-Paragraph 49,Paragraph 78,system can analyze the received MAC addresses to determine one or more MAC addresses that are repeated in the received data. At step 130, the system can label the repeated MAC addresses and repeated MAC addresses can be deleted.) corresponding to the time interval in the at least one new update event to update the at least one new update event. (Barton-Figure 4,Paragraph 29,Paragraph 43,assigning each of the one or more wireless client devices to a classification (i.e., a bin) based on a MAC address rotation behavior type of the one or more wireless client devices to maintain a count of wireless client devices assigned to a respective classification among a plurality of classifications (bins), wherein each classification (bin) has a rotation timer or window. Counts of wireless client devices for each of the plurality of classifications (bins) are evaluated to determine the impact of MAC address rotation. Again, the rotation timer or window may be a specified time window or may be learned based on observations made from MAC address rotations of one or more clients over a period of time.)
Conclusion
Examiner’s Note: In the case of amending the claimed invention, Applicant is respectfully requested to indicate the portion(s) of the specification which dictate(s) the structure relied on for proper interpretation and also to verify and ascertain the metes and bounds of the claimed invention.
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/GREG C BENGZON/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2444
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