Ex Parte Lakshman et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardOct 10, 2012

11147937 (P.T.A.B. Oct. 10, 2012)

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. 11/147,937 06/08/2005 Tirunell V. Lakshman Lakshman 43-64-36 (LCNT/1 7977 46363 7590 10/11/2012 WALL & TONG, LLP/ ALCATEL-LUCENT USA INC. 25 James Way Eatontown, NJ 07724 EXAMINER CHENG, CHI TANG P ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2463 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 10/11/2012 PAPER 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. PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE _____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD _____________ Ex parte TIRUNELL V. LAKSHMAN, KRISHAN K. SABNANI, and THOMAS Y. WOO _____________ Appeal 2010-005285 Application 11/147,937 Technology Center 2400 ______________ Before ALLEN R. MacDONALD, DAVID M. KOHUT, and JOHNNY A. KUMAR, Administrative Patent Judges. KOHUT, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2010-005285 Application 11/147,937 2 This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the Examiner’s Final Rejection of claims 1-8. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm the Examiner’s rejection of these claims. INVENTION The invention is directed to a network architecture with control elements (CEs) that can send messages through forwarding elements (FEs) or private messages directly to each other. Spec. 2. Claim 1 is representative of the invention and is reproduced below: 1. A network architecture, comprising: a data plane being a network for carrying data traffic, the data plane including a plurality of interconnected forwarding elements (FEs); a control plane being another network for control traffic that is separate from the data plane, the control plane including a plurality of interconnected control elements (CEs), each CE controls at least two of the (FEs), each CE is dynamically bound to it’s controlled (FEs); a interface between the data plane and control plane using a protocol; wherein communication between the (CEs) is private; and a Network Element (NE) comprising a logical grouping of FEs and the respective CEs controlling those FEs wherein degrees of distributed control is implemented by varying how FEs are clustered and how CEs aggregate control. REFERENCES Deval US 2004/0264384 A1 Dec. 30, 2004 Golla US 2005/0050136 A1 Mar. 3, 2005 Khosravi US 2005/0190783 A1 Sep. 1, 2005 Appeal 2010-005285 Application 11/147,937 3 (filed Feb. 27, 2004) REJECTIONS AT ISSUE Claims 1-8 are rejected as unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being obvious over the combination of Golla, Deval, and Khosravi. Ans. 4- 9. ISSUES Did the Examiner err in finding that the combination of Golla, Deval, and Khosravi teaches or suggests that the communication between CEs is private? ANALYSIS Claim 1 Claim 1 requires that the communication between the control elements (CEs) be private. Appellants argue that the references cited by the Examiner, and in particular Golla, do not teach or suggest this limitation because the Examiner has misinterpreted Appellants’ claim language. App. Br. 10. Appellants argue that Appellants’ Specification requires that private communication between CEs is accomplished by “a separate control plane network (controller network) that has controllers that communicate with each other (CE-CE communication) over a physically separate network (known as out-of-band control) with no control packets traversing the data path.” App. Br. 11. We agree with the Examiner that “the claims are interpreted in light of the specification. . . [and] limitations from the specification are not read into the claims.” (citing In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 26 USPQ2d 1057 (Fed. Cir. 1993); Ans. 13. Thus, we agree with Appeal 2010-005285 Application 11/147,937 4 the Examiner that Figure 4 of Golla teaches control plane card 402-1 communicating privately with control plane card 402-2 either through bus 416 or update agent 414. Ans. 11. However, even if the Appellants’ Specification were to require a separate network where CEs communicate directly with no outside involvement in order to communicate privately, the Examiner finds that Golla’s Figure 1 teaches just that. Ans. 12. In particular, the Examiner finds that Golla’s Figure 1 shows a control plane network 104a, which is a separate network, that contains nodes (NODE-1 through NODE-N) which can communicate directly with each other and only through the control plane network 104a. Ans. 12. Thus, we agree with the Examiner that Golla teaches private communication between CEs. Appellants make additional arguments with respect to claim 1 in the Reply Brief on pages 3-8. However, these arguments were not provided prior to the Reply Brief, are not timely presented, and are therefore not properly before us. See Ex parte Borden, 93 USPQ2d 1473, 1474 (BPAI 2010) (Informative) (“the reply brief [is not] an opportunity to make arguments that could have been made in the principal brief on appeal to rebut the Examiner’s rejections, but were not.”). For the reasons stated supra, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1. Claims 2-8 Regarding claims 2-8, Appellants’ arguments present the same issues discussed above with respect to claim 1. App. Br. 12-14; Reply Br. 8-9. Therefore, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claims 2-8 for the reasons discussed supra with respect to claim 1. Appeal 2010-005285 Application 11/147,937 5 CONCLUSION The Examiner did not err in finding that the combination of Golla, Deval, and Khosravi teaches or suggests that the communication between CEs is private. SUMMARY The Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1-8 is affirmed. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv). AFFIRMED ke