DETAILED ACTION
This is in response to the application filed on September 8th 2025, in which claims 1-20 are presented for examination.
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 .
Double Patenting
A rejection based on double patenting of the “same invention” type finds its support in the language of 35 U.S.C. 101 which states that “whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process... may obtain a patent therefor...” (Emphasis added). Thus, the term “same invention,” in this context, means an invention drawn to identical subject matter. See Miller v. Eagle Mfg. Co., 151 U.S. 186 (1894); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Ockert, 245 F.2d 467, 114 USPQ 330 (CCPA 1957).
A statutory type (35 U.S.C. 101) double patenting rejection can be overcome by canceling or amending the claims that are directed to the same invention so they are no longer coextensive in scope. The filing of a terminal disclaimer cannot overcome a double patenting rejection based upon 35 U.S.C. 101.
Claims 1-20 are provisionally rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as claiming the same invention as that of claims 1-20 of copending Application No. 19/321,725 (reference application). This is a provisional statutory double patenting rejection since the claims directed to the same invention have not in fact been patented.
Claims 1-20 of this application are patentably indistinct from claims 1-20 of Application No. 19/321,725. Pursuant to 37 CFR 1.78(f), when two or more applications filed by the same applicant or assignee contain patentably indistinct claims, elimination of such claims from all but one application may be required in the absence of good and sufficient reason for their retention during pendency in more than one application. Applicant is required to either cancel the patentably indistinct claims from all but one application or maintain a clear line of demarcation between the applications. See MPEP § 822.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to as failing to comply with 37 CFR 1.84(p)(4) because reference characters "202", “204” and "206" have all been used to designate “network monitoring” (Figs. 2 and 3). However, the specification describes these as “network monitoring 202”, “monitoring submodule 204” and “local monitoring 206”. Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
The drawings are objected to as failing to comply with 37 CFR 1.84(p)(5) because they do not include the following reference sign(s) mentioned in the description: 1210, 1208 (Figs. 12A-B). Also, the section of the disclosure describing these drawings uses two numbers to refer to the same part: “NCF 1212 and an NOTM 1214” and then later “NCF 1204 and the NOTM 1206”. Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
The drawings are objected to as failing to comply with 37 CFR 1.84(p)(5) because they do not include the following reference sign(s) mentioned in the description: 3308, 3310, 3312 (Fig. 33). Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
The drawings are objected to as failing to comply with 37 CFR 1.84(p)(5) because they include the following reference character(s) not mentioned in the description: 3301, 3303, 3307. Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d), or amendment to the specification to add the reference character(s) in the description in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(b) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 5-8 and 11-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yan et al. US 11,968,088 B1 in view of Huang et al. US 2023/0283530 A1.
Regarding claim 1, Yan discloses: A method executed by one or more processors of a network control function (NCF) that operate an integrated control path for a target network device (network configuration system – abstract, Fig. 1), the method comprising:
receiving a request that identifies a network management task and associated service targets (intent request represents a network management task and contains service targets – see Fig. 2, Fig. 4 step 410 and col. 1 ln. 40-45, col. 5 ln. 7-15, col. 9 ln. 35-50);
forming a token set comprising schema-defined tokens that represent network context (use tokens to capture input/intent – col. 2 ln. 63 – col. 3 ln. 13 and Fig. 2, col. 7 ln. 47 – col. 8 ln. 4) wherein the network context includes the service targets (intent is natural language configuration request includes information about network – abstract, Figs. 2, 4 and col. 5 ln. 7-15);
assigning positional encodings to the token set to generate an ordered token sequence (transformer encodes input into vectors/embeddings, this is an ordered sequence – see Fig. 2, col. 4 ln. 40-45 and col. 8 ln. 5-15);
invoking a transformer model to process the ordered token sequence and to generate a configuration patch (generate network configuration – Figs. 1, 4);
validating the configuration patch via a schema-constrained decoder that enforces a device grammar (perform verification including checking syntax – see col. 1 ln. 48-52, Fig. 4, col. 10 ln. 5-10);
applying the configuration patch to the target network device (deploy configuration – Fig. 4 step 460);
reading back applied device state … from the target network device to obtain a read-back state (detect errors / perform reachability check – col. 3 ln. 40-45, and Fig. 4 step 470, and Fig. 6);
determining whether the [state] deviates from the service targets (verify deployment – Fig. 4, col. 7 ln. 33-46); and
generating a further configuration patch that modifies only a bounded subset of parameters relative to the read-back state responsive to determining that the telemetry deviates from the service targets (iteratively update configuration based on specified checks – Figs. 1 and 4, col. 10 ln. 48-55 and col. 11 ln. 19-54).
Yan does not explicitly disclose receiving at least one or more of device capability, policy, topology, or telemetry but this is taught by Huang as a network automation configuration information system that considers device capability, network policy, and monitors telemetry (see abstract, paragraphs 10-11, 30 and 38, and Fig. 1). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Yan with the device capability and/or policy or telemetry taught by Huang. Huang suggests using service configuration information to perform network monitoring allows intent-based networking, which is a primary purpose of Yan (see paragraphs 10-12 and 17-18).
Regarding claim 5, Yan discloses computing a difference between an intended state and the read-back state (determine failed deployment – col. 3 ln. 36-45, Figs. 4, 6 and col. 12 ln. 38-60).
Regarding claim 6, Yan discloses validating the configuration path comprises verifying token types, field ranges, and command order against a device grammar (verify configuration again syntax – Fig. 4, col. 10 ln. 5-20).
Regarding claim 7, Yan discloses the configuration patch comprises an ordered sequence of device-specific commands in a syntax selected from command link interface, yet another next generation (YANG) modelling language, JSON format, or API calls (configuration is a sequence of commands based on network specific syntax – see col. 5 ln. 29-45; the model uses at least JSON and APIs – see col. 4 ln. 60-65 and 11 ln. 26-36).
Regarding claim 8, Yan discloses executing rollback guards responsive to a failed precondition (verify network configuration – abstract, Fig. 4; update configuration in response to failure – abstract, Fig. 4; this is equivalent to a rollback responsive to a failed precondition). Also, performing a rollback of a configuration change is very well-known in the art.
Regarding claim 11, it is a system claim that corresponds to the method of claim 1. Yan also discloses a system with one or more processors (Fig. 7, col. 12 ln. 62-67) for performing the method. Therefore, it is rejected for the same reasons.
Regarding claims 12-15, they correspond to claims 5-8 respectively; thus they are also rejected for the same reasons.
Regarding claim 16, it is a non-transitory medium that corresponds to the method of claim 1. Therefore, it is rejected for the same reasons.
Regarding claims 17-20, they also correspond to claims 5-8 respectively; thus they are also rejected for the same reasons.
Claim(s) 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yan and Huang in view of Briongos et al. US 2024/0061938 A1.
Regarding claim 9, Yan does not explicitly disclose attaching provenance metadata comprising a hash, timestamp, and model version identifier to each configuration patch. But this is taught by Briongos as a software update system (abstract) wherein patches are packaged with meta-data including version numbers, timestamp, identifiers and hashes (paragraph 85, Fig. 5). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of Yan and Huang with the metadata taught by Briongos for the purpose of updating a configuration. Metadata is very well-known in the art and yields predictable results. This is merely the combination of a well-known technique according to its established function in order to yield a predictable result.
Claim(s) 4 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yan Huang in view of Waplington US 2025/0150340 A1.
Regarding claim 4, Yan teaches tokens represent user input/intent as discussed above. Yan does not explicitly disclose assigning positional encodings further comprises assigning weight values that bias attention towards tokens but this is taught by Waplington as a transformer includes layers where tokens have self-attention mechanisms such as weight to signify importance (paragraph 175). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of Yan and Huang with the positional encoding and weight taught by Waplington. Waplington suggests this improves a model’s performance (paragraph 175).
Yan does not explicitly disclose tokens representing congestion, device proximity or available bandwidth, but this is taught by Huang (bandwidth KPI – paragraph 65). Managing congestion, bandwidth and configuring devices based on proximity are all very well-known concepts in the art. Thus, this would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention because this is merely the combination of a well-known technique according to its established function in order to yield a predictable result.
Regarding claim 10, Yan does not explicitly disclose the transformer model enforces per-token positional encodings that preserve dependency among … tokens but this is taught by Waplington as discussed above (positional encoding – paragraph 175). The motivation to combine is the same as that given above. Yan does not explicitly disclose telemetry tokens but this is taught by Huang as explained above. Yan and Huang both disclose considering network policy during network configuration (Huang – paragraph 40; Yan – Fig. 1, col. 7 ln. 21-24).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2-3 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims, and upon overcoming the double patenting rejections.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: While some features from claim 2 are known in the art (see pertinent art), the entire subject matter of claim 2, when considered as a whole with the limitations from claim 1, distinguish over the art. Claim is allowable based on its dependency.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Ageeswaran et al. US 2025/0232561 A1 discloses machine learning, transformers for large models, using tokens as input which are embedded into vectors (paragraphs 1-3).
Sharpe et al. US 2025/0265414 A1 discloses classifying token sequences (abstract), transforming sequence data into embeddings vectors (abstract, paragraphs 1, 4-5, 12), and generating similarity score and comparing to a threshold (claim 8).
Thomas US 2022/0350966 A1 discloses deploying and validating network configurations (abstract, Figs. 1-2, paragraph 20).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JASON D RECEK whose telephone number is (571)270-1975. The examiner can normally be reached Flex M-F 9-5.
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/JASON D RECEK/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2458
