Ex Parte Bentley et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Nov 30, 2017

14135880 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 30, 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.
14/135,880 12/20/2013 Jon Bentley 648.0195 2258
93379 7590 12/04/2017
Setter Rnehe T T P
EXAMINER
14694 Orchard Parkway VAN, JENKEY
Building A, Suite 200
Westminster, CO 80023 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2477
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/04/2017 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):
s arah @ setterroche. com
pair_avaya@ firsttofile.com
u spto @ setterroche .com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte JON BENTLEY, PARAMESHWARAN KRISHNAN,
JEAN MELOCHE, and PETER TARLE
Appeal 2017-007370
Application 14/135,880
Technology Center 2400
Before NATHAN A. ENGELS, JAMES W. DEJMEK, and
MICHAEL M. BARRY, Administrative Patent Judges.
BARRY, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of
claims 1, 3—11, 14—17, and 19, which are all of the pending claims. Claims
2, 12, 13, 18, and 20 have been canceled. App. Br. 11, 13, 14 (Claims
App’x). We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
1 Appellants identify Avaya Inc. as the real party in interest. App. Br. 2.
Appeal 2017-007370
Application 14/135,880
Introduction
Appellants describe the invention as relating to “adaptive modification
of class of service -for supporting bandwidth over-allocations.” Spec 11.
Embodiments provide “a method for handling bandwidth in a network . . .
comprising determining if bandwidth in an high priority queue is saturated,
determining if bandwidth in a lower priority is available, and redirecting at
least a portion of traffic in said high priority queue to said lower priority
queue.” Id. 1 6. Claim 1 is illustrative:
1. A method for handling bandwidth in a network, said
method comprising:
marking audio IP packets in said network for a high
priority queue;
marking video IP packets in said network for a lower
priority queue;
determining if bandwidth in said high priority queue is
saturated;
determining if bandwidth in said lower priority is
available;
redirecting at least a portion of traffic in said high priority
queue to said lower priority queue, wherein said redirecting
comprises remarking IP packets;
renegotiating at least a portion of said video IP packets in
said lower priority queue to allow more available bandwidth in
said lower priority queue;
wherein said redirecting and said renegotiating is spread
over a plurality of streams.
App. Br. 11 (Claims App’x).
Rejections and References
1. Claims 1, 4, 6, 7, 9, 11, 14, 17, and 19 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over Zavalkovsky (US 6,822,940 Bl;
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Application 14/135,880
Nov. 23, 2004) and Diepstraten (US 2004/0092278 Al; May 13, 2004).
Final Act. 7—19.
2. Claim 3 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable
over Zavalkovsky, Diepstraten, and Liu (US 2002/0167586 Al; Nov. 14,
2002). Id. at 19.
3. Claim 5 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable
over Zavalkovsky, Diepstraten, and Krause (US 2004/0213150 Al; Oct. 28,
2004). Id. at 20.
3. Claims 10, 15, and 16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
unpatentable over Zavalkovsky, Diepstraten, and Dacosta (US 2005/
0163059 Al; July 28. 2005). Id. at 21-22.
ISSUE
Based on Appellants’ arguments, the issue is whether the Examiner
errs in finding the combination of Zavalkovsky and Diepstraten teaches or
suggests “redirecting at least a portion of traffic in said high priority queue
to said lower priority queue,” as recited in independent claim 1 and as
recited commensurately in independent claims 11 and 17. App. Br. 7—8.
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1 in light of
Appellants’ contentions of reversible error. We disagree with Appellants’
conclusions. Instead, we adopt the Examiner’s findings and reasons as set
forth in the Final Rejection and Answer. We highlight the following for
emphasis.
Appellants contend the Examiner errs in finding Zavalkovsky teaches
or suggests “redirecting at least a portion of traffic in said high priority
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Application 14/135,880
queue to said lower priority queue,” as recited in claim 1, because, according
to Appellants, “Zavalkovsky merely discloses that traffic entering network
element 400 will begin being placed in a newly associated buffer rather than
in a previously associated buffer but does not discuss what happens to traffic
already in that previously associated buffer.” Reply Br. 2. Therefore,
Appellants contend, “Zavalkovsky does not disclose that traffic in (not
merely directed to) the previously associated buffer at network element 400
would be redirected to the newly associated buffer.” Id.', see also App.
Br. 7-8.
Appellants’ argument is unpersuasive. We agree with the Examiner
that Zavalovsky’s disclosure of updating the resource mapping for data flow
packets from a GOLD service level buffer to a SILVER service level buffer
teaches, or at least fairly suggests, the disputed “redirecting” step. See final
Act. 7—10 (citing Zavalkovsky, figs. 2, 4A—B, 8:18—22, 9:49-67, 10:1—32,
11:11—35, 45—52, 11:63—12:28); see also Ans. 20-23 (additionally citing
Eig. 4B, 7:30-53, 8:42-60, 9:17-35).
Zavalkovsky discloses, inter alia, a “buffers space” used for
implementing quality of service (QoS) policies for flows of packets in a
network. Zavalkovsky, Fig. 4A, 11:11—13, Abstract. Zavalkovsky gives an
example of GOLD, SILVER, and BRONZE service level buffers for
buffering flow packets with high, lower, and lowest priority, respectively.
See id. at 8:8—21, 11:13—24, Fig. 4A. Zavalkovsky further discloses that
when an undesirable amount of flow packets associated with the GOLD
service level are being dropped, the number of flow packets associated with
the GOLD service level should be reduced. Id. at 11:45—48, 55—62.
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Application 14/135,880
Zavalkovsky illustrates a procedure for reassigning flow packets to
different service levels in Figure 4B as follows:
FI6.43
42ft
DSCP SERVICE LEVEL BUFFER
56-63 GOLD 404
45-54 SILVER 406
0-44 BRONZE 403
m
APPLICATION FLOW DSCP
SERVICE LEVEL j BUFFER
VOIP 63 GOLD 404
HTTP 55
eao j
404
EMAIL 2:5 BRONZE 408
&4.
APPLICATION FLOW DSCP SERVICE LEVEL BUFFER
VOIP 63 GOLD 404
HTTP 50 SILVER 406
EMAIL 25 BRONZE 408
Figure 4B illustrates the remapping of flow packets from a GOLD
service level buffer to a SILVER service level buffer.
In the resource mapping procedure illustrated in Figure 4B, table 420
shows an initial resource mapping of differentiated service codepoint
(“DSCP”) values to service levels and service levels to buffers.
Zavalkovsky, 11:53—55. Table 422 depicts an initial resource mapping
including HTTP flow packets assigned to the GOLD service level and
mapped to buffer 404. Id. at 12:2—9. Subsequently, as depicted in updated
table 424, the HTTP flow packets’ DSCP value has been changed from 55 to
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Application 14/135,880
50, indicating reassignment of the flow packets to the lower priority
SILVER service level and a remapping of the packets from buffer 404 to
buffer 406. Id. at 11:63-66, 12:14—20.
Contrary to Appellants’ contentions, we agree with the Examiner that
Zavalkovsky’s remapping of HTTP flow packets from the GOLD service
level buffer to the SILVER service level buffer teaches or suggests
redirecting traffic that is in a high priority queue to a lower priority queue.
Although we agree with Appellants that Zavalkovsky’s remapping technique
could be applied only to HTTP flow packets that have been assigned to—but
not yet reached—the initial service level buffer, the ordinarily skilled artisan
would have understood the cited disclosures of Zavalkovsky also teach or
suggest remapping HTTP flow packets when they are already in the initial
service level buffer, waiting to be processed. See, e.g., Zavalkovsky
Figs. 4A-4B, 8:42-60, 11:11-35, 45-52, 11:63-12:28; see also id. at 12:44—
50 (“by updating resource mapping 430 to update the mapping of flows
associated with the BRONZE service level from buffer 406 to buffer 408,
the number of flows .. . associated with buffer 406 may be dynamically
changed to ... to provide the desired amount of bandwidth for flows
associated with the SILVER service level”), 13:32—35 (“if the dropped
packet threshold has been exceeded, then an interface is overloaded and one
or more flows are reassigned to different service levels to relieve the
overload condition”). In other words, the skilled artisan would have
understood Zavalkovsky’s teaching of relieving an overloaded buffer by
reassignment to teach or suggest moving packets out of the overloaded
buffer. Id. at 13:32—35. Appellants present do not provide persuasive
evidence to the contrary. See App. Br. 7—8; Reply Br. 2—3.
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Application 14/135,880
We note the cited disclosures of Zavalkovsky are similar to
Appellants’ disclosure that “if bandwidth in the expedited forwarding queue
is being saturated, or exceeding a predetermined or dynamically determined
limit (e.g., because of over-allocation), a portion of the traffic is re-marked
to the assured forwarding queue. . . . based on the priority of the traffic.”
Spec. 128. Further, like the cited disclosures in Zavalkovsky, Appellants
describe that “[pjacket re-marking may involve re-writing the DSCP bits in
the packet.” Spec. 128; accord Spec. p. 18 (claims 6 and 7 as filed recite,
respectively, “said process of redirecting at least a portion of traffic in said
high priority queue comprises re-marking priority settings” and “said
process of re-marking at least a portion of said traffic comprises re-writing
DSCP bits in packets of said traffic”).
Accordingly, we sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection of independent
claim 1. We also, accordingly, sustain the § 103 rejections of independent
claims 11 and 17 and dependent claims 3—10, 14—16, and 19, for which
Appellants present no substantive arguments separate from those presented
for claim 1. See App. Br. 8—9; Reply Br. 3.
DECISION
For the above reasons, we affirm the rejections of claims 1, 3—11, 14—
17, and 19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103.
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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