Cisco Technology, Inc.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Jan 26, 2022

2021000304 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 26, 2022)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE United States Patent and Trademark Office Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS P.O. Box 1450 Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450 www.uspto.gov APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 16/138,650 09/21/2018 Clarence Filsfils 596854 (1017750-US.01) 1020 115932 7590 01/26/2022 Cisco Technology, Inc. c/o Polsinelli PC PO Box 140310 Kansas City, MO 64114-0310 EXAMINER PATEL, PARTHKUMAR ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2468 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 01/26/2022 ELECTRONIC Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding. The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication. Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the following e-mail address(es): CiscoMail@polsinelli.com patentdocketing@polsinelli.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte CLARENCE FILSFILS, ZAFAR ALI, and FRANK BROCKNERS Appeal 2021-000304 Application 16/138,650 Technology Center 2400 Before MINN CHUNG, AMBER L. HAGY, and SCOTT RAEVSKY, Administrative Patent Judges. HAGY, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1, 3-9, 11-17, 19, and 20, which are all of the pending claims.2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. 1 “Appellant” herein refers to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42(a). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Cisco Technology, Inc. Appeal Br. 2. 2 Claims 2, 10, and 18 have been canceled. Appeal Br. 9, 10, 12 (Claims App.). Appeal 2021-000304 Application 16/138,650 2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER Appellant’s disclosure is directed to “in-situ collection of operational and telemetry information in a data network. More specifically it is directed to a scalable implementation of in-situ Operation, Administration and Maintenance data probing and collection in a Segment Routing domain.” Spec. ¶ 1. Claims 1, 9, and 17 are independent. Claim 1, reproduced below, illustrates the claimed subject matter: 1. A method comprising: encoding an in-situ Operation, Administration, and Maintenance (iOAM) instruction as a local argument in a function field defining an end portion of one or more segment identifiers selected from a plurality of segment identifiers in a segment identifier list of a segment routing header in a first packet, the one or more segment identifiers corresponding to one or more segment routing nodes selected for iOAM data collection, the encoding performed on the end portion of the one or more segment identifiers; sending the first packet to the one or more segment routing nodes based on the segment routing header; receiving a second packet containing the iOAM data from the one or more segment routing nodes selected for the iOAM data collection; and processing the iOAM data from the one or more segment routing nodes selected for the iOAM data collection. Appeal Br. 9 (Claims App.). Appeal 2021-000304 Application 16/138,650 3 REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is: Name3 Reference Date Youn US 2008/0138084 A1 June 12, 2008 Kompella US 2011/0222412 A1 Sept. 15, 2011 Jocha US 2013/0010600 A1 Jan. 10, 2013 Giladi US 2014/0101445 A1 April 10, 2014 Bragg US 2014/0177638 A1 June 26, 2014 Van Der Merwe US 2015/0365288 A1 Dec. 17, 2015 Pignataro US 2017/0250907 A1 Aug. 31, 2017 REJECTIONS Claims 1, 9, and 17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over Pignataro, Kompella, and Giladi. Final Act. 5-15. Claims 3, 4, 11, 12, 19, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over Pignataro, Kompella, Youn, and Giladi. Final Act. 16- 19. Claims 5 and 13 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over Pignataro, Kompella, Jocha, and Giladi. Final Act. 19-20. Claims 6 and 14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over Pignataro, Kompella, Jocha, Van Der Merwe, and Giladi. Final Act. 20-21. Claims 7, 8, 15, and 16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over Pignataro, Kompella, Bragg, and Giladi. Final Act. 21- 24. 3 All references are identified herein by the first-named inventor only. We use the inventor’s last name as stated on the reference, and we decline to use the short-hand names adopted by the Examiner (as further indicated herein). Appeal 2021-000304 Application 16/138,650 4 OPINION We review the appealed rejection for error based upon the issues identified by Appellant, and in light of the contentions and evidence produced thereon. Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential). Arguments not made are forfeited.4 Unless otherwise indicated, we adopt the Examiner’s findings in the Final Office Action and the Answer as our own and add any additional findings of fact for emphasis. We address the Examiner’s rejections below. The Examiner finds Pignataro discloses the “sending” limitation and most of the “encoding” limitation of claim 1. Final Act. 5-6 (citing Pignataro ¶¶ 49, 50, 56, 57, 71-74, Fig. 1).5 The Examiner finds Pignataro does not disclose the “receiving” and “processing” limitations of claim 1, but relies on Kompella for those limitations. Id. at 6-7 (citing Kompella ¶ 7).6 The Examiner also relies on Giladi as disclosing “the encoding performed on an end portion.” Id. at 7-8 (citing Giladi ¶¶ 9, 19, 28). The Examiner also makes findings regarding the motivation of the ordinarily skilled artisan to have combined the teachings of the cited references. See id. at 7-8. The Examiner makes similar findings regarding independent 4 See In re Google Tech. Holdings LLC, 980 F.3d 858, 863 (Fed. Cir. 2020) (“Because Google failed to present these claim construction arguments to the Board, Google forfeited both arguments.”); 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv) (2019) (“Except as provided for in §§ 41.41, 41.47 and 41.52, any arguments or authorities not included in the appeal brief will be refused consideration by the Board for purposes of the present appeal.”). 5 The Examiner refers to Pignataro as “Carlos.” E.g., Final Act. 5. As noted above, we decline to adopt that shorthand reference. 6 The Examiner refers to Kompella as “Komp.” E.g., Final Act. 6. As noted above, we decline to adopt that shorthand reference. Appeal 2021-000304 Application 16/138,650 5 claims 9 and 17. See id. at 8-15. The Examiner adds the Youn reference for the rejection of dependent claims 3, 4, 11, 12, 19, and 20. See id. at 16-19. The Examiner adds the Jocha reference for the rejection of dependent claims 5 and 13. See id. at 19-20. The Examiner adds the Jocha and Van Der Merwe references for the rejection of claims 6 and 14. See id. at 20-21. The Examiner adds the Bragg reference for the rejection of dependent claims 7, 8, 15, and 16. See id. at 21-24. We have reviewed the Examiner’s findings and determine that they are supported by the teachings of the cited references. Appellant argues that the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 9, and 17 is in error because Pignataro fails to meet the “encoding” limitation. Appeal Br. 5. The entirety of Appellant’s argument is reproduced below: Pignataro illustrates an OAM extension header 400 with “a “Next Header” field 402, a “Header Extension Length” field 404, and a variable length field comprising “an OAM type” field 406, a set of flags field 408, a “Recordation Pointer” field 410, a “Maximum Node Data” field 412, a set of reserved fields 414, a node data[n] fields 416 (shown as 416a, 416b, and 416c), and “OAM Option” field 418.” See Pignataro, Fig. 4, Spec, para. 0056. This is not the same as “encoding an in-situ Operation, Administration, and Maintenance (iOAM) instruction as a local argument in a function field defining an end portion of one or more segment identifiers selected from a plurality of segment identifiers in a segment identifier list of a segment routing header in a first packet, the one or more segment identifiers corresponding to one or more segment routing nodes selected for iOAM data collection, the encoding performed on the end portion of the one or more segment identifiers” per independent claims 1, 9, and 17. Thus, Pignataro fails to meet the aforementioned recitation. Id. Appeal 2021-000304 Application 16/138,650 6 Appellant’s conclusory assertion that the disclosure of Pignataro is “not the same as” the disputed limitation is unsupported and insufficient to rebut the Examiner’s findings. Other than the naked assertion that Pignataro fails to disclose the recited limitation (Appeal Br. 5), Appellant does not address the Examiner’s findings, e.g., explain why Pignataro’s teachings, as cited by the Examiner, fail to teach or suggest the claimed limitation. Appellant has, therefore, not rebutted the Examiner’s findings. See In re Lovin, 652 F.3d 1349, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2011) (“[W]e hold that the Board reasonably interpreted Rule 41.37 to require more substantive arguments in an appeal brief than a mere recitation of the claim elements and a naked assertion that the corresponding elements were not found in the prior art.”). Appellant’s contentions as to the teachings of the other references cited against the independent claims are equally conclusory, and, hence, equally unavailing of demonstrating Examiner error. See Appeal Br. 5-6. We, therefore, sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent claims 1, 9, and 17. Appellant’s contentions as to the dependent claims amount to the conclusory assertions that the dependent claims are patentable for the same reasons as the independent claims, coupled with contentions that the additional references cited for the various groupings of dependent claims “fail[] to remedy the aforementioned deficiencies of Pignataro, Kompella, and Giladi.” See id. at 6-8. Because, as stated above, we are not persuaded of deficiencies in the Examiner’s findings regarding Pignataro, Kompella, or Giladi, we also sustain the Examiner’s rejections of the dependent claims. Appeal 2021-000304 Application 16/138,650 7 CONCLUSION The Examiner’s 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejections of claims 1, 3-9, 11-17, 19, and 20 are sustained. DECISION SUMMARY In summary: Claim(s) Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1, 9, 17 103 Pignataro, Kompella, Giladi 1, 9, 17 3, 4, 11, 12, 19, 20 103 Pignataro, Kompella, Youn, Giladi 3, 4, 11, 12, 19, 20 5, 13 103 Pignataro, Kompella, Jocha, Giladi 5, 13 6, 14 103 Pignataro, Kompella, Jocha, Van Der Merwe, Giladi 6, 14 7, 8, 15, 16 103 Pignataro, Kompella, Bragg, Giladi 7, 8, 15, 16 Overall Outcome 1, 3-9, 11- 17, 19, 20 TIME PERIOD FOR RESPONSE No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv). AFFIRMED