Juniper Networks, Inc.Download PDFPatent Trials and Appeals BoardMay 26, 20212020001228 (P.T.A.B. May. 26, 2021) Copy Citation 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. 14/885,210 10/16/2015 Kireeti KOMPELLA Juniper-22-1CON4 2485 109043 7590 05/26/2021 Juniper c/o Pokotylo Patent Services 621 Shrewsbury Avenue Suite 226 Shrewsbury, NJ 07702 EXAMINER SURVILLO, OLEG ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2442 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 05/26/2021 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): eofficeaction@appcoll.com john@pokopat.com stephanie@pokopat.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte KIREETI KOMPELLA Appeal 2020-001228 Application 14/885,210 Technology Center 2400 Before JEAN R. HOMERE, ST. JOHN COURTENAY III, and LARRY J. HUME, Administrative Patent Judges. HOMERE, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL I. STATEMENT OF THE CASE1 Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant2 appeals from the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–19 and 21 which constitute all of the claims pending. Appeal Br. 2. Claim 20 has been canceled. Id. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. 1 We refer to the Specification, filed Oct. 16, 2015 (“Spec.”); Final Office Action, mailed Aug. 16, 2018 (“Final Act.”); Appeal Brief, filed June 17, 2019 (“Appeal Br.”); Examiner’s Answer, mailed Oct. 02, 2019 (“Ans.”)Reply Brief, filed December 2, 2019 (“Reply Br.”). 2 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “Applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42(a). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Juniper Networks, Inc. Appeal Br. 2. Appeal 2020-001228 Application 14/885,210 2 II. CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER According to Appellant, the claimed subject matter relates a method and system for fast liveness detection without making changes to packets sent or received by any routing protocol between two devices. Spec. 12. In particular, the claimed subject matter concerns detecting errors in connections, protocols, and/or data plane components. Spec. 2. Figure 2, reproduced below, is useful in understanding the claimed subject matter: Figure 2 illustrates operations and information that may be used to monitor protocols. APFL operations 240 may be a utility that may be used by one or more protocol operations 260, interface forwarding liveness operations 270, or both. APFL operations 240 use hello interval information 210, protocols, Appeal 2020-001228 Application 14/885,210 3 interfaces, or both using aggregated liveness 230, (dead interval, neighbor node) pair information 220, and APFL neighbor information 250 to determine liveness of various peer protocols, forwarding liveness of interfaces of various neighbor nodes, or both. Configuration operations 205 may be used to configure hello interval information 210, protocols, interfaces, or both using aggregated liveness 230, and (dead interval, neighbor node) pair information 220. Claims 1, 10, and 19 are independent. Claim 1 is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. For use with a system including a data forwarding node of a data communications network and a neighbor data forwarding node of the data communications network, a method comprising: a) receiving, by the data forwarding node, status information from a local routing protocol running on the data forwarding node; b) composing, using the data forwarding node, a message including explicit status information about the local routing protocol based on the received status information; c) sending, using the data forwarding node, the message towards the neighbor data forwarding node which runs a routing protocol with which the local routing protocol of the data forwarding node peers; d) periodically repeating acts (a)-(c) in accordance with a send time interval; e) receiving, by the neighbor data forwarding node, the message; and f) making routing decisions, by the neighbor data forwarding node, using the status information. Appeal 2020-001228 Application 14/885,210 4 III. REFERENCES The Examiner relies upon the following references as evidence.3 Name Reference Date Nguyen US 7,120,688 B1 Oct. 10, 2006 Sandick Fast Liveness Protocol (FLIP) Memo, Internet Draft, Feb. 2020 Feb. 2000 Applicant’s Admitted Prior Art (AAPA) Spec. ¶¶ 4-7; Fig. 1 IV. REJECTIONS4 The Examiner rejects claims 1, 2, 5, 7–11, 14, and 16–19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatenable over the combined teachings of Applicant’s Admitted Prior Art (AAPA) and Nguyen. Final Act. 7. The Examiner rejects claims 3, 4, 6, 12, 13, 15, and 21 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatenable over the combined teachings of AAPA, Nguyen, and Sandick. Final Act. 10. V. ANALYSIS We consider Appellant’s arguments seriatim, as they are presented in the Appeal Brief, pages 8–20.5 We are unpersuaded by Appellant’s contentions. Except as otherwise indicated herein below, we adopt as our own the findings and reasons set forth in the Final Action, and the 3 All reference citations are to the first named inventor only. 4 The Examiner withdrew earlier §101 and §112, 2nd paragraph rejections. See Advisory Action, Dec. 20, 2018. 5 We have considered in this Decision only those arguments Appellant actually raised in the Briefs. Arguments not made are forfeited. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv) (2017). Appeal 2020-001228 Application 14/885,210 5 Examiner’s Answer in response to Appellant’s Appeal Brief. Final Act. 7– 10; Ans. 3–5. However, we highlight and address specific arguments and findings for emphasis as follows. Appellant argues that the Examiner errs in finding that Nguyen teaches or suggests “a message . . . including explicit status information about the routing protocol,” as recited in independent claim 1. Appeal Br. 10–11. In particular, Appellant argues that the Examiner’s rationale for modifying AAPA in view of Nguyen is insufficient and the applications in Nguyen “have nothing to do with routing protocols.” Id. at 11, 13. Further, Appellant argues that “the SPAs in Nguyen do not appear to concern routing protocols to allow data forwarding devices such as routers ‘to make routing decisions,’ which are used to forward data packets through a communications network.” Id. at 13. Appellant’s arguments are not persuasive of reversible Examiner error because Appellant is arguing the references separately. One cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references. In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986). The Examiner cites to Appellant’s own Specification as prior art, not to Nguyen, for teaching or suggesting the disputed claim limitation “status information from a local routing protocol” as this disputed limitation is recited in limitation (a) of claim 1. See Final Act. 7, citing to Spec. at pars. 4–7, Fig. 1. The Examiner cites to Nguyen’s heartbeat message containing status information about a single SPA (service package application), for particularly teaching or suggesting a message including status information Appeal 2020-001228 Application 14/885,210 6 recited in limitation (b) of claim 1. Final Act. 8, citing Nguyen, col. 5, ll. 9– 32. We are not persuaded by Appellant's arguments because we are of the view that composing a message including the AAPA-known status information about an AAPA-known local routing protocol would have merely been a “predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions.” KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 417 (2007). Further, we find the Examiner provided sufficient evidence of a predictable result from combining the familiar elements of AAPA and Nguyen, and Appellant has not provided any evidence of secondary considerations, such as unexpected results. On this record, we find Appellant has not shown that the invention as recited in claim 1 is anything “more than the predictable use of prior art elements according to their established functions” so as to be non-obvious under the guidance of KSR at 417. Appellant further argues one of ordinary skill in the art would not have modified the AAPA Hello messages to include status information as proposed by the Office “because doing so would reduce the efficiency of such Hello message . . . without increasing their effectiveness.” Appeal Br. 14. It is our view that the Examiner's proffered combination of the respective cited features of AAPA and Nguyen would have realized a predictable result--and thus it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Nguyen’s messages to include such known information. See KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 401 (2007) (“[A] combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results.”). Appeal 2020-001228 Application 14/885,210 7 “[W]hen a patent ‘simply arranges old elements with each performing the same function it had been known to perform’ and yields no more than one would expect from such an arrangement, the combination is obvious.” KSR, 550 U.S. at 417 (quoting Sakraida v. Ag Pro, Inc., 425 U.S. 273, 282 (1976)). Further, in KSR, 550 U.S. at 418, the Court stated that when considering obviousness that “the analysis need not seek out precise teachings directed to the specific subject matter of the challenged claim, for a court can take account of the inferences and creative steps that a person of ordinary skill in the art would employ.” When there is a design need or market pressure to solve a problem and there are a finite number of identified, predictable solutions, a person of ordinary skill has good reason to pursue the known options within his or her technical grasp. See id. at 421. Furthermore, for a prima facie case of obviousness to be established, the reference need not recognize the same problem solved by the Appellant. See In re Kemps, 97 F.3d 1427, 1430 (Fed. Cir. 1996). “[N]either the particular motivation nor the avowed purpose of the [Appellant] controls” when performing an obviousness analysis. KSR, 550 U.S. at 419 (2007). This reasoning is applicable here. In reviewing the record, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred because Appellant does not point to any evidence of record that shows combining the teachings of AAPA and Nguyen in the manner proffered by the Examiner (Final Act. 7–8) would have been “uniquely challenging or difficult for one of ordinary skill in the art” or would have “represented an unobvious step over the prior art.” Leapfrog Enters., Inc. v. Fisher-Price, Inc., 485 F.3d 1157, 1162 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (citing KSR, 550 U.S. at 418). Appeal 2020-001228 Application 14/885,210 8 Appellant has not identified knowledge gleaned only from the present application that was not within the level of ordinary skill at the time the claimed invention was made. See In re McLaughlin, 443 F.2d 1392 (CCPA 1971). Moreover, Appellant has not provided any objective indicia of nonobviousness (e.g., unexpected results), which our reviewing court guides “operates as a beneficial check on hindsight.” Cheese Sys., Inc. v. Tetra Pak Cheese & Powder Sys., Inc., 725 F.3d 1341, 1352 (Fed. Cir. 2013). The Examiner has articulated his reasoning for combining the prior art teachings. See Final Act 8 (“to augment the transmitted message of AAPA by including additional information, thus, facilitating exchange of data between devices in a message”) and Ans. 4 (“it allows receiving[sic] status information without making inferences based on unanswered sequence of Hello messages whether neighbor device is up or down, thus, alleviating uncertainties”). We find one of ordinary skill in the art would have understood that a data communications message may be composed to include explicit status information about the local routing protocol. Thus, we find the Examiner set forth a sufficient rational underpinning explaining why an artisan would have combined the teachings of AAPA and Nguyen. See Final Act. 8, Ans. 4. Therefore, on this record, and based upon a preponderance of the evidence, we are not persuaded of Examiner error and so we sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claim 1. Regarding dependent claim 2, Appellant contends AAPA does not teach that a “dead interval is communicated from one data forwarding node to its neighbor.” Appeal Br. 16–18. Appellant further argues Nguyen does Appeal 2020-001228 Application 14/885,210 9 not teach “that a dead interval is communication from one data forwarding node to its neighbor.” Appeal Br. 18. The Examiner finds Nguyen’s status of “Out of Service,” set only after three iterations of checking the last update time, teaches or at least suggests the disputed “sending . . . a dead time interval towards the neighbor data forwarding node.” Final Act. 8, citing Nguyen, col. 4, l. 65 – col. 5, l. 2. We are not persuaded by Appellant’s arguments because we agree with the Examiner that under a broad but reasonable interpretation, Nguyen’s “out of service” status at least suggests a “dead time interval.” See Nguyen, col. 4, l. 65 – col. 5, l. 2. Appellant does not point to the Specification for a definition of this phrase that would be inconsistent with the Examiner’s broad but reasonable interpretation. Therefore, on this record, and based upon a preponderance of the evidence, we are not persuaded of Examiner error and so we sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of dependent claim 2. Regarding dependent claim 8, Appellant similarly argues Nguyen’s “out of office” status does not teach or suggest the disputed limitation “(A) local routing protocol not reporting.” Appeal Br. 19. We are not persuaded by Appellant’s arguments because we agree with the Examiner that under a broad but reasonable interpretation Nguyen’s “out of service” status at least suggests “local routing protocol not reporting.” See Nguyen, col. 4, l. 65 – col. 5, l. 2. Appellant does not point to the Specification for a definition of this phrase that would contradict or be inconsistent with the Examiner’s broad but reasonable interpretation. Appeal 2020-001228 Application 14/885,210 10 Therefore, on this record, and based upon a preponderance of the evidence, we are not persuaded of Examiner error and so we sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of dependent claim 8. Regarding the rejections of claims 3–7, 9–19, and 21, because Appellant does not present separate patentability arguments or reiterates substantially the same arguments as those previously discussed for the patentability of claim 1 above, claims 3–7, 9–19, and 21 fall therewith. See 37 C.F.R. § 41.37(c)(1)(iv). VI. CONCLUSION We affirm the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1–19 and 21 as being unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). In summary: Claim(s) Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1, 2, 5, 7–11, 14, 16–19 103 AAPA, Nguyen 1, 2, 5, 7–11, 14, 16–19 3, 4, 6, 12, 13, 15, 21 103 AAPA, Nguyen, and Sandick 3, 4, 6, 12, 13, 15, 21 Overall Outcome 1–19, 21 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). See 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(f). AFFIRMED Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation