Ex Parte Amante

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Aug 16, 2017

14089547 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 16, 2017)

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.
14/089,547 11/25/2013 Shane Amante 0438-US-Ul 6604
83579 7590 08/18/2017
LEVEL 3 COMMUNICATIONS, LLC
Attn: Patent Docketing
1025 Eldorado Blvd.
Broomfield, CO 80021
EXAMINER
SCHEIBEL, ROBERT C
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2467
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
08/18/2017 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):
patent, docketing @ leve!3. com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte SHANE AMANTE
Appeal 2017-005327
Application 14/089,547
Technology Center 2400
Before JOHNNY A. KUMAR, JASON J. CHUNG, and
JASON M. REPKO, Administrative Patent Judges.
KUMAR, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal 2017-005327
Application 14/089,547
STATEMENT OF CASE
Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of
claims 1—27. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
Illustrative Claim
Illustrative claim 1 under appeal reads as follows:
1. An apparatus comprising:
a network controller comprising at least one processor
and at least one memory to store a routing configuration
application that is executed by the at least one processor to:
analyze a plurality of interconnections between a
plurality of forwarding switches of a communication network to
identify a network topology of the communication network,
determine at least one label switched path (LSP) between
the forwarding switches, the LSP comprising one or more next
hop routes each defining a forwarding address associated with
one forwarding switch to an adjacent forwarding switch;
transmit the next hop routes to the forwarding switches,
the forwarding switches using the next hop routes to route
packets through the network according to a multiprotocol label
switching (MPLS) protocol; and
re-calculating the at least one LSP in response to
receiving from one of the plurality of forwarding switches a
notification of a failure of the at least one LSP.
1 Appellant identifies Level 3 Communications, LLC, as the real party in
interest (Br. 2).
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Appeal 2017-005327
Application 14/089,547
Rejections on Appeal
Claims 1—3 and 9 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as
being anticipated by Abu-Hamdeh (US 2009/0232029 Al, Sept. 17, 2009).
Final Act. 3—5.
Claims 12—14 and 20 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a)
as being unpatentable over Abu-Hamdeh in view of Lee ’322
(US 2006/0171322 Al, Aug. 3, 2006). Final Act. 6-8.
Claims 22 and 23 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Abu-Hamdeh in view of Vasseur
(US 2007/0165515 Al, July 19, 2007). Final Act. 8-10.
Claim 4 is rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Abu-Hamdeh in view of Zhou (US 2012/0236730 Al,
Sept. 20, 2012). Final Act. 10.
Claim 11 is rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Abu-Hamdeh in view of Lee ’673 (US 2014/0098673 Al,
Apr. 10,2014). Final Act. 11.
Claim 15 is rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Abu-Hamdeh in view of Lee ’322 and Zhou. Final Act.
11-12.
Claim 24 is rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Abu-Hamdeh in view of Vasseur and Zhou. Final Act.
12-13.
Claims 5—7 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Abu-Hamdeh in view of Filsfils (US 2007/0091796 Al,
Apr. 26, 2007). Final Act. 13—14.
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Application 14/089,547
Claims 16—18 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Abu-Hamdeh in view of Lee ’322 and Filsfils. Final Act.
14— 15.
Claims 25—27 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Abu-Hamdeh in view of Vasseur and Filsfils. Final Act.
15- 17.
Claim 8 is rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Abu-Hamdeh in view of Da Silva (US 8,767,735 B2,
July 1, 2014). Final Act. 17.
Claim 19 is rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Abu-Hamdeh in view of Lee ’322 and Da Silva. Final
Act. 17-18.
Claim 10 is rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Abu-Hamdeh in view of He (US 2008/0310430 Al,
Dec. 18,2008). Final Act. 18-19.
Claim 21 is rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Abu-Hamdeh in view of Lee ’322 and He. Final Act. 19.
Appellant’s Contentions
1. Appellant contends that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim l2
under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) because:
Abu-Hamdeh does not disclose anything about “forwarding
switches [notifying] of a failure,” let alone “re-calculating the at
least one LSP in response to receiving from one of the plurality
2 The patentability of claims 2—11 is not argued separately from that of claim
1. See Br. 9—10, 14—16. Except for our ultimate decision, claims 2—11 are
not discussed further herein.
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Appeal 2017-005327
Application 14/089,547
of forwarding switches a notification of a failure of the at least
one LSP,[]” as recited in claim 1.
Br. 7-9.
2. Appellant contends that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 123
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 because:
while Lee disclosed TTL value of the reachability probe packet
600, it does not disclose wrapping the “TTL exceeded packet.”
Lor example, paragraph 0043 merely disclosed transmitting
TTL exceeded in transit E 610 is send to the sender end S 620.
Br. 11.
3. Appellant contends that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 224
under 35 U.S.C. § 103 because:
Appellants note that the combination of the references still does
not disclose “transmit the next hop routes to the forwarding
switches in response to a query from the forwarding switches
after the forwarding switches have received packets, the
forwarding switches using the next hop routes to route the
packets through the network according to a multiprotocol label
switching (MPLS) protocol,” as recited in claim 22.
Br. 13.
Issues on Appeal
Did the Examiner err in rejecting claim 1 as being anticipated?
Did the Examiner err in rejecting claims 12 and 22 as being obvious?
3 The patentability of claims 13—21 is not separately argued from that of
claim 12. See Br. 12, 14—16. Except for our ultimate decision, claims 13—21
are not discussed further herein.
4 The patentability of claim 23—27 are not separately argued from that of
claim 22. See Br. 14—15. Except for our ultimate decision, claims 23—27 are
not discussed further herein.
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Appeal 2017-005327
Application 14/089,547
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejections in light of Appellant’s
arguments that the Examiner has erred. We disagree with Appellant’s
conclusions. Except as noted herein, we adopt as our own: (1) the findings
and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the action from which the appeal is
taken (Final Act. 3—19); and (2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the
Examiner’s Answer (Ans. 2—7) in response to the Appellant’s Appeal Brief.
We concur with the conclusions reached by the Examiner. We highlight the
following.
As to Appellant’s above contention 1, we are not persuaded the
Examiner erred. We agree with the Examiner that Abu-Hamdeh teaches all
the claim elements of claim 1. Final Act. 3^4; Ans. 2-4 (citing
Abu-Hamdeh 188). In particular, we agree with the Examiner that
Abu-Hamdeh specifically discloses “physical link failure
conditions” as a change event. Examiner asserts that a
notification of a physical link failure on a link over which an
LSP runs is reasonably interpreted as “a notification of a failure
of the at least on LSP” as this physical link failure is a failure of
the LSP.
Id. at 3.
As to Appellant’s above contention 2, the Examiner finds,
wrapping a packet in a UDP tunnel is known in the art as
adding a tunnel header to a packet (or encapsulating the packet)
before sending the packet. Lee discloses using a TTL exceeded
packet, a tunnel and UDP. The TTL exceeded packet is used to
reliably determine network reachability and receivability as
disclosed throughout (see the abstract, for example). The
network in Lee clearly utilizes a UDP tunnel as noted by the
use of UDP throughout and the tunnel header in paragraph
0033, for example. Tunnels enable packets to be transmitted
more reliably regardless of the underlying protocols. It would
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Application 14/089,547
have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to utilize
TTL exceeded packets to accurately determine network
reachability and to further encapsulate or wrap the TTL
exceeded packets in a UDP tunnel to improve the reliability of
the transmission of this packet regardless of the underlying
protocols.
Ans. 4—5 (emphasis added).
We see no error in this unrebutted finding.
As to Appellant’s above contention 3, we disagree. Appellant merely
recites the language of claim 22 and asserts the cited prior art reference does
not teach or suggest the claim limitations. Without more, this fails to
constitute an adequate argument on the merits. See 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.37(c)(l)(iv); In reLovin, 652 F.3d 1349, 1357 (Fed. Cir. 2011).
DECISION
We affirm the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1—3 and 9 as being
anticipated under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b).
We affirm the Examiner’s rejections of claims 4—8 and 10—27 as
being unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv).
AFFIRMED
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