Nicira, Inc.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

May 24, 2021

2020000312 (P.T.A.B. May. 24, 2021)

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.
14/788,573 06/30/2015 Andrew Babakian N301 (C152) 4713
109858 7590 05/24/2021
ADELI LLP
P.O. Box 516
Pacific Palisades, CA 90272
EXAMINER
PATEL, DHARMESH J
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2465
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/24/2021 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):
ipadmin@vmware.com
mail@adelillp.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD

Ex parte ANDREW BABAKIAN

Appeal 2020-000312
Application 14/788,573
Technology Center 2400

Before MAHSHID D. SAADAT, JASON J. CHUNG, and
MICHAEL T. CYGAN, Administrative Patent Judges.

CYGAN, 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 1–20. Appeal Br. 23. We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE.

1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in
37 C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies the real parties in interest as VMware,
Inc., and Nicira, Inc. Appeal Br. 2.
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Application 14/788,573

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CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER
The claimed subject matter relates to optimizing ingress traffic for
data centers. Spec. ¶ 3. Site-specific grouping constructs are created for
virtual machines that run applications that are advertised to external
networks. Id. Each site-specific grouping construct includes a list of the
virtual machines currently located at the site as well as a unique identifier of
the site. Id. When a virtual machine moves from a first site to a second site,
the identifier of the virtual machine is removed from the first site and added
to the second site, and advertised by the second site’s routing peer. Id. ¶ 4.
The claims relate to data compute nodes (DCNs), which may be virtual
machines, physical hosts, containers that run on top of a host operating
system, or hypervisor kernel network interface modules. Id. ¶ 98.
Independent claim 1 is illustrative:
1. A method of ingress traffic optimization in a datacenter
comprising a plurality of sites, each site associated with a
different network, the method comprising:
placing a unique identifier of each of a first set of data compute
nodes (DCNs) located at a first site in a first route
advertisement group associated with the first site;
retrieving the Internet protocol (IP) addresses of each DCN in
the first set using the unique identifier of the DCN, the IP
address of a first DCN in the first set comprising a network
address corresponding to a first network associated with the
first site;
advertising the IP addresses of the DCNs in the first route
advertisement group to a routing peer associated with the first
site;
determining that the first DCN has moved from the first site to
a second site, the second site associated with a second network
having a second network address different than the first
network address;
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in response to the determining, placing the unique identifier of
the first DCN in a second route advertisement group associated
with the second site; and
advertising the IP address of the first DCN along with the IP
addresses of a second set of DCNs in the second route
advertisement group to a routing peer associated with the
second site.
Appeal Br. 24 (Claims App.).

REFERENCES
Name Reference Date
Guichard et al.
(“Guichard”)
US 2006/0184999 A1 Aug. 17, 2006
Gage US 2011/0310812 A1 Dec. 22, 2011
Cohn et al.
(“Cohn”)
US 2014/0237100 A1 Aug. 21, 2014

REJECTIONS
Claims 1, 4–6, 8–11, 14–16, and 18–20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as being obvious over the combined teachings and suggestions of
Guichard and Cohn.
Claims 2, 3, 7, 12, 13, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being obvious over the combined teachings and suggestions of Guichard,
Cohn, and Gage.

OPINION
Appellant argues that the Examiner’s rejections of the claims are in
error because the combination of references does not teach or suggest each
element of the claims. We begin with claim 1.
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A. Claim 1
Claim 1 recites, inter alia, “placing a unique identifier of each of a
first set of data compute nodes (DCNs) located at a first site in a first route
advertisement group associated with the first site.” The Examiner finds this
limitation to be taught by Guichard. Final Act. 2–3, 6–7; Ans. 4–5. The
Examiner states:
The encryption information is distributed by identifying Subnet
prefixes reachable on a first customer site and by identifying,
with security group identifiers, security groups the subnet
prefixes belong to. The first Customer Edge (CE) device in the
first customer site receives an advertisement from a Customer
(C) device in the first customer site indicating links, the Subnets
to be encrypted, and the security group identifiers. The CE
device propagates the prefixes and the security group identifiers
across a service provider network to a second CE device located
in a second customer site.
Final Act. 7. The Examiner further characterizes Guichard as describing that
“the encryption information is distributed by identifying subnet prefixes
reachable on a first customer site (i.e. retrieving IP addresses of the customer
site nodes based on unique identity of nodes) and by identifying, with
security group identifiers, security groups the subnet prefixes belong to.”
Ans. 4.
Appellant argues, “the security group identifier does not map to any
element of the claim,” because claim 1 recites “a unique identifier of each of
a first set of DCNs [Data Compute Nodes],” and not a “security group
identifier for a security group that includes a set of host computers”
(emphasis omitted). Appeal Br. 11. Appellant argues that Guichard’s
security group is a designation that encryption is necessary, and such
designation is shared by any subnets associated with the security group
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identifier. Id. at 12. Appellant argues that such an identifier does not relate
to unique identifiers of each of a set of DCNs.
Appellant further argues that the Examiner incorrectly characterizes
Guichard’s identifying subnets as retrieving IP addresses of customer site
nodes based on a unique identity of nodes. Reply Br. 3. Appellant further
argues that the Examiner misleadingly correlates Guichard’s identification
of subnet prefixes for the sets of nodes at a first site with the claimed
identification of unique identifiers for each data compute node. Id.
Appellant further argues that Guichard’s advertisement to a second site is
not the same as the recited route advertisement group into which identifiers
for each data compute node are placed. Id.
We are persuaded by Appellant. The Examiner does not specify
adequately which elements of Guichard meet corresponding elements of the
limitation at issue. For example, the limitation requires, “placing a [set of]
unique identifier[s].” However, the Examiner does not explain sufficiently
whether this “placing” is met by receipt of identifiers at a first customer site
or at a second customer site. Nor is it clear whether the Examiner maps the
“unique identifiers” to the subnet prefixes or to the security identifiers, or to
both. Further, the Examiner does not identify specifically what element of
Guichard corresponds to the claimed “data compute nodes,” or what element
of Guichard corresponds to the “route advertisement group.”
At best, the Examiner has shown Guichard to teach the advertisement
of a subnet (10.2.1.X) associated with a customer device having equipment
(at nodes 10.2.1.1, 10.2.1.2, and 10.2.1.3) attached thereto. Final Act. 7;
Guichard ¶¶ 27, 42, Fig. 1. The Examiner also shows Guichard to advertise
security groups, where each subnet is associated with a security group. Final
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Act. 2; Guichard ¶ 22, Fig. 2A. However, the Examiner does not explain
sufficiently how Guichard’s security group identifier is uniquely identified
with a data compute node such that Guichard teaches or suggests the
claimed “unique identifier[s] [for] each of a first set of data compute nodes.”
In the absence of such explanation, we will not resort to speculation or
assumptions to cure the deficiencies in the Examiner’s fact finding and/or
reasoning. See Application of Warner, 379 F.2d 1011, 1017 (CCPA 1967);
Ex parte Braeken, 54 USPQ2d 1110, 1112 (BPAI 1999) (unpublished)
(“The review authorized by 35 U.S.C. [§] 134 is not a process whereby the
examiner . . . invite[s] the [B]oard to examine the application and resolve
patentability in the first instance.”).
Accordingly, we are persuaded that from the cited portions relied
upon by the Examiner, Guichard’s security group identifier has not been
shown, by a preponderance of the evidence, to teach or suggest the requisite
limitation of claim 1. Consequently, we are persuaded of error in the
Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claim 1, and reverse the Examiner’s
obviousness rejection of claim 1.
B. Claims 4–6, 8–11, 14–16, and 18–20
Claims 4–6, 8–11, 14–16, and 18–20 are rejected over the same
combination of Guichard and Cohn as relied upon in the rejection of claim 1.
Just as recited in claim 1, claim 11 recites “placing a unique identifier of
each of a first set of data compute nodes (DCNs) located at a first site in a
first route advertisement group associated with the first site.” For the same
reasons as expressed in determining that the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1
was in error, supra, we determine that the Examiner’s rejection of claim 11
is in error.
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Claims 4–6, 8–10, 14–16, and 18–20 depend either from claim 1 or
claim 11. For the same reasons as expressed above, we determine that the
Examiner’s rejection of those claims is in error. Accordingly, we reverse the
Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claims 4–6, 8–11, 14–16, and 18–20.
C. Claims 2, 3, 7, 12, 13, and 17
Claims 2, 3, 7, 12, 13, and 17 are rejected over the above-discussed
combination of Guichard and Cohn, further in view of Gage. Gage is
directed towards techniques for a wireless device having separate IP
addresses for separate radio access networks, to improve the continuity of
data flow to that wireless device by tying the packet flow to the information
being exchanged and not to the IP address of the communicating end points.
Gage ¶¶ 7, 8, 12. Gage’s technique involves storing a portion of information
at a datagram forwarding point node subject to caching policies, such that
the datagram forwarding point node can forward an information
advertisement signal, as part of a handover of a wireless device from one
access point node to another, to each of its neighbor nodes for the purpose of
updating an information advertisement signal.
The Examiner relies upon Gage for teaching that “the DCN [data
compute node] satisfies a set of criteria for being placed in a route
advertisement group.” Final Act. 13 (citing Gage ¶¶ 118, 123). We note
that the two cited paragraphs of Gage appear to describe separate
embodiments, the embodiment of Figure 10 describing “recovering a lost
downlink information datagram in a wireless communication system 1000,”
and the embodiment of Figure 11 describing “performing a handover during
downlink user plane data dissemination in a wireless communication system
1100.” Gage ¶¶ 118, 121. The embodiment of Figure 10 describes
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organizing datagram forwarding point nodes and storing a portion of
information in a node according to policies or rules so that such information
is not lost during transmission. Id. ¶ 118. The embodiment of Figure 11
describes a datagram forwarding point node recording an identifier of a
neighbor interface module from which it received an information signal, and
forwarding that information advertisement signal to neighbor datagram
forwarding point nodes. Id. ¶ 123. To the extent that the Examiner relies
upon Gage, the Examiner does not point to any teaching in Gage that teaches
or suggests the limitations in claim 1 that we have determined not to be
taught by Guichard or Cohn, i.e., placing a set of unique identifiers for each
of a first set of data compute nodes in a route advertisement group.
Consequently, the rejections of claims 2, 3, 7, 12, 13, and 17 suffer
the same deficiencies that we identified in the rejection of claim 1.
Accordingly, we reverse the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of claims 2,
3, 7, 12, 13, and 17.

CONCLUSION
For the above-described reasons, we reverse the Examiner’s rejections
of claims 1–20 as being obvious over the applied references under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103, as detailed below.

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DECISION SUMMARY
In summary:
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1, 4–6, 8–
11, 14–
16, 18–20
103(a) Guichard, Cohn 1, 4–6, 8–
11, 14–
16, 18–20
2, 3, 7,
12, 13, 17
103(a) Guichard, Cohn,
Gage
2, 3, 7,
12, 13, 17
Overall
Outcome
1–20

REVERSED