Ex Parte Olakangil

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Apr 29, 2016

13196782 (P.T.A.B. Apr. 29, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE 13/196,782 08/02/2011 47394 7590 05/03/2016 PARKER JUSTISS, P,CJALCATEL-LUCENT PO BOX 832570 RICHARDSON, TX 75083 FIRST NAMED INVENTOR Joseph F. Olakangil 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 ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 807923-US-NP 4482 EXAMINER WEI, SIREN ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2467 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 05/03/2016 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): docket@pj-iplaw.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte JOSEPH OLAKANGIL Appeal2014-007608 Application 13/196,782 1 Technology Center 2400 Before CAROLYN D. THOMAS, JEFFREYS. SMITH, and TERRENCE W. MCMILLIN, Administrative Patent Judges. MCMILLIN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of the final rejection of claims 1-20. Final Act. 1. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ). We AFFIRM. 1 According to Appellant, the real party in interest is Alcatel-Lucent USA, Incorporated (App. Br. 3). Appeal2014-007608 Application 13/196,782 REJECTIONS ON APPEAL Claims 1-3, 5, 6, 8, 11-13, 15, 16, and 18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being obvious over McNeill et al. (US 6,167,052; Dec. 26, 2000), Almog et al. (US 2005/0047329 Al; Mar. 3, 2005) and Porter et al. (US 7,051,334 Bl; May 23, 2006). Final Act. 2. Claims 4, 7, 10, 14, 17, and 20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being obvious over McNeill, Almog, Porter, and Sampath et al. (US 2003/0174719 Al; Sept. 18, 2003). Final Act. 9. Claims 9 and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being obvious over McNeill, Almog, Porter, and Kwan et al. (2004/0255154 Al; Dec. 16, 2004). Final Act. 11-12. THE CLAIMED INVENTION The present invention generally relates to "virtual local area networks and, more specifically, to a network packet processing system and a method of network packet processing." Spec. ,-r 2. Independent claim 1 is directed towards a method and independent claim 11 is directed towards a system. App. Br. 16, 17. Claim 1 recites: 1. A method of network packet processing, comprising: providing indirectly linked source and destination virtual local area networks (VLAN s) that are connected through a network routing device; defining an access control list (ACL) specifying network traffic between the source and destination VLAN s; generating metadata for a network packet to be routed between the source and destination VLANS, wherein the metadata: 2 Appeal2014-007608 Application 13/196,782 captures pre-routing source VLAN information from the network packet; and remains with the network packet only when the network packet is within a network routing device; and applying the ACL for routing the network packet employing the pre-routing source VLAN information from the metadata and post- routing destination VLAN information from the network packet. ANALYSIS \Ve have revie\ved the Examiner's rejections in light of Appellant's arguments that the Examiner ened. \Ve are not persuaded that Appellant identifies reversible enor. Upon consideration of the arguments presented in the Appea1 Brief and Reply Brief~ we agree with the Exarniner that all the pending daims are unpatentable over the cited combination of references. \Ve adopt as our own the findings and reasons set forth in the rejection from which this appeal is taken and in the Examiner's i\nswer. \Ve provide the findings primarily for emphasis. Appellant contends the rejection of claim 1 was improper because "modifying cited portions of McNeill with cited portions of Almog changes principle of operation of McNeill," and "would render McNeill unsatisfactory for its intended purpose." App. Br. 5, 9. More specifically, Appellant argues "the modification of the cited portions of McNeill with the cited portions of Almog to remove metadata from a packet arriving at a network device ... clearly changes the principle of operation ofMcNeill" because the "cited portion of McNeill teach an ACL of a receiving network device requires an IP address to determine allowability of the packet" and "that an IP address is required in communications between different 3 Appeal2014-007608 Application 13/196,782 domains." App. Br. 9. Appellant also argues "the modification of the cited portions of McNeill with the cited portions of Almog ... to remove the IP address from the packet sent from station 124.1 before it is sent (to conserve memory space ... ) would not allow the packet to be routed to station 124.3 (e.g., by the interveningnetworkdevice-e.g., router 130.1)." App. Br. 10; See Reply Br. 34. Appellant further argues the metadata of Almog includes both source and destination VLAN addresses and the removal of this metadata renders the packet addressless. Reply Br. 4. The Examiner responds: ... the Almog reference only teaches wherein a packet has extra metadata attached during its time within a router, and that this metadata is added and deleted without affecting the packet itself. .. Almog also teaches the metadata being deleted when a packet is routed/sent.. . Therefore.. . only the extra metadata which was generated for this packet will be deleted, and this will not affect the packet itself, because the metadata is a distinct, temporary addition rather than an original part of the packet. In other words; by combining this metadata functionality of Almog into the network device of McNeil!, any packet leaving a network device will not be "addressless, " as any network device which receives this packet can simply analyze the packet and generate the extra metadata for A CL usage while the packet is in the device, then delete this extra metadata when it sounds out the packet (because it has no need of the metadata anymore); the packet itself is unaffected and thus may be analyzed again by other network devices for their own ACL usage. Ans. 4-5 (emphasis added). We agree with the Examiner. Almog provides for adding "metadata as a result of the module processing the packet. This metadata may then be used by subsequent modules that process the packet." Almog i-f 52. Almog describes the addition of the metadata upon the "[f]ilter module 230 may analyze the packet and may embed metadata into the received packet." Id. McNeill is concerned with facilitating network 4 Appeal2014-007608 Application 13/196,782 connectivity, and utilizing ACLs to allow traffic between sub-networks. See McNeill col. 2, 11. 13-35. Specifically, McNeill describes testing packets upon receipt, and Ahnog describes adding metadata upon arrival of a packet, by embedding the metadata after analysis of the packet; both McN eill and Almog describe packet processing upon receipt of the packet, wherein McNeill provides for ACL utilization and Almog provides for the addition of metadata (provided from the analysis of the packet and data that is part of the packet) to be used only while processing the packet. See McNeill col. 9, 11. 1-7; see also Almog i-fi-169-70, 117-118. Contrary to Appellant's assertions, the Examiner relies on the metadata added and later deleted, having analyzed the packet data that is not deleted, for packet processing in Almog, to be used in the packet processing using ACLs of McNeill. Appellant does not explain why, if packet processing including adding, utilizing, and then deleting metadata, is used, McNeill could not process packets and use ACLs to allow traffic in a network. We are not persuaded that adding, utilizing, and deleting metadata, during packet processing and upon packet arrival, would prevent the testing of a packet (packet processing) upon packet receipt of McNeill. Therefore, we are not persuaded that the proposed modifications would change the principle of operation of McNeill, and we are not persuaded that the proposed modification would render McNeill unsatisfactory for its intended purpose. Accordingly, we sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of independent claim 1, as well as the rejection of dependent claims 2, 3, 5, 6, and 8, not separately argued. App. Br. 12. 5 Appeal2014-007608 Application 13/196,782 \Vith regard to independent c 1ai m 11, Appellant argues that these claims are patentable for the same reasons as claim L i\pp. Br. 11----12. Accordingly~ we sustain the rejection of independent claim 11 for the same reasons set forth above with respect to claim 1 ~ as well as the rejections of dependent claims 12, 13, 15, 16, and 18, not separately argued. App. Br. 12. Appellant has not provided separate arguments for patentability for dependent claims 4, 7, 9, 10, 14, 17, 19, and 20. App. Br. 12-14. Accordingly, we sustain the rejections of dependent claims 4, 7, 9, 10, 14, 17, 19, and 20. DECISION The rejections of claims 1-20 are 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 6