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 .
General Remarks
This communication is considered fully responsive to Applicant’s Application filed 05/29/2025.
Application filed: 05/29/2025
Applicant’s PgPUB: 2025/0293974
Claims:
Claims 1-20 are pending.
Claims 1, 16 and 20 are independent.
Claims 1, 2, 4-6, 8-10, 12, 13 and 15-20 are amended.
IDS:
New IDS:
IDS filed 04/06/2026 has been considered.
IDS filed 06/16/2025 has been considered.
Continuity/Priority Data:
This Application is a continuation of International Patent Application Publication No. PCT/CN2023/105747 field 07/04/2023.
International Patent Application Publication No. PCT/CN2023/105747 claims priority Chinese Patent Application No. CN202211545216.7 filed 11/30/2022.
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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 2, 12, 16 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/163997 A1 to Sauer et al. (“Sauer”).
As to claim 1, Sauer discloses:
a communication method, wherein the method is performed by a first communication apparatus, comprising:
obtaining first overlay tunnel information, wherein the first overlay tunnel information is associated with a first overlay tunnel created by the first communication apparatus (Fig. 1, Fig. 4, Fig. 5, ¶0032, ¶0063, ¶0064 – Sauer teaches encapsulated packet which includes egress packet (P1) and an outer header (O1) addressed from source to destination and includes said source/destination information (i.e., overlay tunnel information). ¶0038 – Sauer teaches At 410-415 in FIG. 4, host 210A may establish multiple (N) logical overlay tunnels 101-103 with respective EDGE nodes 111-113 to facilitate logical overlay network traffic forwarding); and
sending a first protocol packet to a second communication apparatus, wherein the first protocol packet comprises identification information of the first communication apparatus and the first overlay tunnel information (Fig. 3, Fig. 5, ¶0028 – Sauer teaches At 310 in FIG. 3, host-A 210A may generate and send probe packets (see 141-143 in FIG. 1) over multiple logical overlay tunnels 101-103 via which destination 104 is reachable from host-A 210A; ¶0032, ¶0063, ¶0064 – Sauer teaches encapsulated packet which includes egress packet (P1) and an outer header (O1) addressed from source to destination and includes said source/destination information (i.e., overlay tunnel information)).
As to claim 2, Sauer discloses:
method according to claim 1, and
wherein the first overlay tunnel information comprises an IP address of a local transport network port (TNP) of the first overlay tunnel and an IP address of a peer TNP of the first overlay tunnel (Fig. 1, 170, O1, P1, X1, ¶0036, ¶0047 – Sauer teaches use of SIP (source) and DIP (destination) (also, OUTER_DIP, OUTER_SIP) which are IP addresses of the source and destinations of the overlay tunnel).
As to claim 12, Sauer discloses:
method according to claim 1, and
wherein the first overlay tunnel comprises a SD-WAN overlay tunnel (¶0019 – Sauer teaches virtualization of networking services in SDN environment 100, logical networks (also referred to as overlay networks or logical overlay networks) may be provisioned).
As to claim 16, Sauer discloses:
a communication method,
wherein the method is performed by a second communication apparatus, comprising:
receiving a first protocol packet sent by a first communication apparatus, wherein the first protocol packet comprises identification information of the first communication apparatus and first overlay tunnel information associated with a first overlay tunnel created by the first communication apparatus (Fig. 3, Fig. 5, ¶0028 – Sauer teaches At 310 in FIG. 3, host-A 210A may generate and send probe packets (see 141-143 in FIG. 1) over multiple logical overlay tunnels 101-103 via which destination 104 is reachable from host-A 210A; ¶0032, ¶0063, ¶0064 – Sauer teaches encapsulated packet which includes egress packet (P1) and an outer header (O1) addressed from source to destination and includes said source/destination information (i.e., overlay tunnel information)); and
obtaining the first overlay tunnel information from the first protocol packet (¶0065 – Sauer teaches At 650 in FIG. 6, in response to receiving the encapsulated packet, EDGE1 111 may perform decapsulation to remove the outer header (O1) and process the egress packet (P1) according to any suitable networking service(s). This denotes the destination can extract information from the packet such the tunnel information sent via the packet (P1/O1)).
As to claim 20, similar rejection as to claim 1.
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 may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim 3 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/163997 A1 to Sauer et al. (“Sauer”) in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2018/0375763 A1 to Brissette et al. (“Brissette”).
As to claim 3, Sauer discloses:
method according to claim 2,
Brissette discloses what Sauer does not expressly disclose.
Brissette discloses:
wherein the first overlay tunnel information further comprises a first overlay tunnel segment identifier (SID) that is in a of the first communication apparatus and that is allocated to the first overlay tunnel (¶0048, Fig. 3C of Brissette).
Sauer and Brissette are analogous arts because they are from the same field of endeavor with respect to overlay networking.
Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate a locator as discussed in Brissette with overlay networking system as discussed in Sauer by adding the functionality of Brissette to the system/method of Sauer in order to demonstrate how to include a locator with a SID (Brissette, ¶0048).
Claim 4 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/163997 A1 to Sauer et al. (“Sauer”) in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2018/0375763 A1 to Brissette et al. (“Brissette”) in further view of International Application Publication No. WO 2021135420 A1 to Jun et al. (“Jun”).
As to claim 4, Sauer and Brissette discloses:
method according to claim 3,
Jun discloses what Sauer and Brissette does not expressly disclose.
Jun discloses:
wherein the first overlay tunnel SID comprises an End.X SID (¶0100, ¶0140, ¶0141 – Jun teaches the locally generated SID, such as End.X SID).
Sauer, Brissette and Jun are analogous arts because they are from the same field of endeavor with respect to overlay tunnels.
Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate End.X SID as discussed in Jun with locator as discussed in Brissette with overlay networking system as discussed in Sauer by adding the functionality of Jun to the system/method of Sauer and Brissette in order to demonstrate usage of a particular type of SID (Jun, ¶0100).
Claims 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/163997 A1 to Sauer et al. (“Sauer”) in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2018/0375763 A1 to Brissette et al. (“Brissette”) in further view of U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2008/0178288 A1 to Alperovitch et al. (“Alperovitch”).
As to claim 5, Sauer and Brissette discloses:
method according to claim 3,
Alperovitch discloses what Sauer and Brissette does not expressly disclose.
Alperovitch discloses:
comprising:
obtaining the Locator from an internet service provider (ISP) according to a dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) (¶0034 – Alperovitch teaches many ISPs 200 use dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) to assign IP addresses dynamically to entities 130b requesting a connection.).
Sauer, Brissette and Alperovitch are analogous arts because they are from the same field of endeavor with respect to networking.
Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate address assignment as discussed in Alperovitch with locator as discussed in Brissette with overlay networking system as discussed in Sauer by adding the functionality of Alperovitch to the system/method of Sauer and Brissette in order to demonstrate usage of DHCP to acquire addresses from an IPS (Alperovitch, ¶0034).
Claims 6, 7 and 9-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/163997 A1 to Sauer et al. (“Sauer”) in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2008/0212495 A1 to Stirbu (“Stirbu”).
As to claim 6, Sauer discloses:
method according to claim 1,
Stirbu discloses what Sauer does not expressly disclose.
Stirbu discloses:
comprising:
receiving a second protocol packet sent by the second communication apparatus, wherein the second protocol packet comprises identification information of the second communication apparatus and second overlay tunnel information, and the second overlay tunnel information is associated with a second overlay tunnel created by the second communication apparatus (Fig. 7 – Stirbu teaches the establishment of two tunnels (A>B, B>C) and then updating the device A with device B information).
Sauer and Stirbu are analogous arts because they are from the same field of endeavor with respect to overlay networks.
Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate tunnel creation as discussed in Stirbu with overlay networking system as discussed in Sauer by adding the functionality of Stirbu to the system/method of Sauer in order to set up a first tunnel between a first device and a remote access relay and set up a second tunnel between the remote access relay and a remote access server (Stirbu, ¶0011).
As to claim 7, Sauer and Stirbu discloses:
method according to claim 6, and
Sauer discloses:
wherein the second overlay tunnel information comprises an IP address of a local TNP of the second overlay tunnel and an IP address of a peer TNP of the second overlay tunnel (Fig. 1, 170, O1, P1, X1, ¶0036, ¶0047 – Sauer teaches use of SIP (source) and DIP (destination) (also, OUTER_DIP, OUTER_SIP) which are IP addresses of the source and destinations of the overlay tunnel).
As to claim 9, Sauer and Stirbu discloses:
method according to claim 6, and
Sauer discloses:
further comprising:
obtaining overlay topology information based on the first overlay tunnel information and the second overlay tunnel information (Fig. 1, Routing Info, 150 – Sauer shows routing information of tunnel information (i.e. overlay tunnel information)).
As to claim 10, Sauer and Stirbu discloses:
method according to claim 9, and
Sauer discloses:
wherein further comprising:
calculating an overlay route to the second communication apparatus based on the overlay topology information (¶0031 – Sauer teaches logical overlay tunnel selection may be performed based on the routing information).
As to claim 11, Sauer and Stirbu discloses:
method according to claim 10, and
Sauer discloses:
wherein the overlay route is a software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) overlay route (¶0019 – Sauer teaches virtualization of networking services in SDN environment 100, logical networks (also referred to as overlay networks or logical overlay networks) may be provisioned; ¶0031 – Sauer teaches logical overlay tunnel selection (i.e., overlay route) may be performed based on the routing information).
Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/163997 A1 to Sauer et al. (“Sauer”) in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2008/0212495 A1 to Stirbu (“Stirbu”) in further view of International Application Publication No. WO 2022012689 A1 to Hu et al. (“Hu”).
As to claim 8, Sauer and Stirbu discloses:
method according to claim 6,
Hu discloses what Sauer and Stirbu do not expressly disclose.
Hu discloses:
wherein the second overlay tunnel information further comprises a second overlay tunnel SID that is within Locator of the second communication apparatus and that is allocated to the second overlay tunnel (¶0216 – Hu teaches the first SID may be the VPN SID allocated under the locator network segment of the second network device).
Sauer, Stirbu and Hu are analogous arts because they are from the same field of endeavor with respect to networking.
Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate locator/SID setup as discussed in Hu with tunnel creation as discussed in Stirbu with overlay networking system as discussed in Sauer by adding the functionality of Hu to the system/method of Sauer and Stirbu in order to demonstrate how a SID and locator are setup together (Hu, ¶0216).
Claims 13-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/163997 A1 to Sauer et al. (“Sauer”) in view of International Application Publication No. WO 2022012689 A1 to Hu et al. (“Hu”).
As to claim 13, Sauer discloses:
method according to claim 1,
Hu discloses what Sauer does not expressly disclosed.
Hu discloses:
wherein further comprising:
sending a third protocol packet to a third communication apparatus, wherein the third protocol packet comprises the identification information of the first communication apparatus and the first overlay tunnel information (¶0093 – Hu teaches obtaining, by the second intermediate network device, a communication with the third sub-network device. The first segment identifier SID corresponding to the network prefix; the second intermediate network device publishes a second route advertisement packet, and the second route advertisement packet includes the third subnet prefix, the first SID and the first algorithm identifier , the first SID corresponds to the first algorithm identifier.).
Sauer and Hu are analogous arts because they are from the same field of endeavor with respect to networking.
Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate locator/SID setup as discussed in Hu with overlay networking system as discussed in Sauer by adding the functionality of Hu to the system/method of Sauer in order to demonstrate how a SID and locator are setup together (Hu, ¶0216).
As to claim 14, Sauer and Hu discloses:
method according to claim 13, and
Hu discloses:
wherein the third protocol packet is an interior gateway protocol (IGP) packet (¶0105 – Hu teaches use of IGP). The suggestion/motivation and obviousness rejection is the same as in claim 13.
Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/163997 A1 to Sauer et al. (“Sauer”) in view of International Application Publication No. WO 2022012689 A1 to Hu et al. (“Hu”) in further view of U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2008/0212495 A1 to Stirbu (“Stirbu”).
As to claim 15, Sauer and Hu discloses:
method according to claim 13,
Stirbu discloses what Sauer and Hu do not expressly discloses.
Stirbu discloses:
further comprising:
receiving a fourth protocol packet sent by the third communication apparatus, wherein the fourth protocol packet comprises identification information of the third communication apparatus and third overlay tunnel information associated with a third overlay tunnel created by the third communication apparatus (Fig. 7 – Stirbu teaches the establishment of two tunnels (A>B, B>C) and then updating the device A with device B information. Examiner Note: it is well understood that the process shown can be repeated for additional tunnels).
Sauer, Hu and Stirbu are analogous arts because they are from the same field of endeavor with respect to networking.
Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate tunnel creation as discussed in Stirbu with locator/SID setup as discussed in Hu with overlay networking system as discussed in Sauer by adding the functionality of Stirbu to the system/method of Sauer and Hu in order to set up a first tunnel between a first device and a remote access relay and set up a second tunnel between the remote access relay and a remote access server (Stirbu, ¶0011).
Claims 17-19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2023/163997 A1 to Sauer et al. (“Sauer”) in view of U.S. Patent No. 11,563,601 B1 to Nithyananda et al. (“Nithyananda”).
As to claim 17, Sauer discloses:
method according to claim 16,
further comprising:
obtaining overlay topology information based on the first overlay tunnel information and second overlay tunnel information (Fig. 1, Routing Info, 150 – Sauer shows routing information of tunnel information (i.e. overlay tunnel information)).
Nithyananda discloses what Sauer does not expressly disclose.
Nithyananda discloses:
associated with a second overlay tunnel created by the second communication apparatus (Fig. 1, Abstract, col. 3 ll. 66-67, col. 4 ll. 1-6 – Nithy teaches creating tunnels by multiple devices)
Sauer and Nithyananda are analogous arts because they are from the same field of endeavor with respect to overlay networks.
Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate tunnel creation as discussed in Nithyananda with overlay network system as discussed in Sauer by adding the functionality of Nithyananda to the system/method of Sauer in order to setup on-demand tunnel creation and deletion between sites in a software-defined networking in wide area network (SD-WAN) environment (Nithyananda, col. 1 ll. 55-67).
As to claim 18, Sauer and Nithyananda discloses:
method according to claim 17, and
Sauer discloses:
further comprising:
calculating an overlay route to the first communication apparatus based on the overlay topology information (¶0031 – Sauer teaches logical overlay tunnel selection may be performed based on the routing information).
As to claim 19, Sauer and Nithyananda discloses:
method according to claim 17, and
Sauer discloses:
wherein the second overlay tunnel comprises a software-defined wide area network (SD-WAN) overlay tunnel (¶0019 – Sauer teaches virtualization of networking services in SDN environment 100, logical networks (also referred to as overlay networks or logical overlay networks) may be provisioned).
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to TAYLOR A ELFERVIG whose telephone number is (571)270-5687. The examiner can normally be reached Monday (10:00 AM CST) - Friday (4:00 PM CST).
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/TAYLOR A ELFERVIG/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2445
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