Ex Parte Menon et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Mar 5, 2012

10884681 (B.P.A.I. Mar. 5, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte SUNIL MENON, DAMIAN HORNER, ANIL A. KURIAKOSE,
SWAMY MANDAVILLI, and ROBERT STRAHAN
____________

Appeal 2010-001569
Application 10/884,681
Technology Center 2400
____________

Before JOHN A. JEFFERY, CARLA M. KRIVAK, and BRADLEY W.
BAUMEISTER, Administrative Patent Judges.

JEFFERY, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
rejection of claims 1-31. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We
affirm.

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants’ invention determines status of Virtual Private Networks
based on the severity of infrastructure and reachability faults. See generally
Spec. 3-4. Claim 1 is illustrative:
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1. A method for determining status of a private virtual network,
comprising:

classifying reachability faults of a virtual routing address into a
plurality of first levels; wherein the virtual routing address logically groups
interfaces used by a router used by the private virtual network; the private
virtual network includes a plurality of virtual routing addresses;

classifying infrastructure faults of the virtual routing address into a
plurality of second levels; and

determining the status of the private virtual network based on one or a
combination of the plurality of first and second levels of the plurality of
virtual routing addresses.

The Examiner relies on the following as evidence of unpatentability:
Tyrrell US 5,185,736 Feb. 9, 1993
Horton, III US 5,515,384 May 7, 1996
Dobbins US 5,751,971 May 12, 1998
Gonda US 6,662,221 B1 Dec. 9, 2003

THE REJECTIONS
1. The Examiner rejected claims 1-3, 8-10, 15-18, and 21-31 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Gonda and Dobbins. Ans. 3-15.1
2. The Examiner rejected claims 4, 5, 11, 12, and 19 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Gonda, Dobbins, and Horton. Ans. 15-17.
3. The Examiner rejected claims 6, 7, 13, and 14 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) as unpatentable over Gonda, Dobbins, and Tyrrell. Ans. 17-19.

1 Throughout this opinion, we refer to (1) the Appeal Brief filed December
9, 2008; (2) the Examiner’s Answer mailed April 3, 2009 (supplemented
September 18, 2009); and (3) the Reply Brief filed May 30, 2009.
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4. The Examiner rejected claim 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
unpatentable over Gonda, Dobbins, Horton, and Tyrrell. Ans. 19-20.

THE OBVIOUSNESS REJECTION OVER GONDA AND DOBBINS
The Examiner finds that Gonda’s method of determining status of a
private virtual network has every recited feature of representative claim 1
except for (1) classifying infrastructure faults, and (2) determining the
private virtual network’s status based on one or a combination of the plural
levels of reachability and infrastructure faults. Ans. 3-5, 8-10, 21-24.2 The
Examiner, however, cites Dobbins as teaching these features in concluding
that the claim would have been obvious. Id.
Appellants argue that while Gonda and Dobbins may determine the
status of individual network elements, they do not determine the status of the
private virtual network as a whole—a determination that is said to require at
least one extra calculation. App. Br. 11-13. Appellants further contend that
this determination must be based on multiple pluralities of levels of
respective reachability and infrastructure faults—not just two levels. Reply
Br. 1-2. Appellants add that Dobbins’ “internalError” operational status
does not teach hardware-based infrastructure faults. App. Br. 13; Reply Br.
2-3. Appellants also argue claim 25 as noted below. The issues before us,
then, are as follows:

2 Since the Examiner’s rejection fragments the analysis pertaining to claim 1
over various non-consecutive pages of the Answer (i.e., pages 3-5 and 8-10)
by inserting analysis for other claims therebetween, we cite those pages in
connection with our discussion of claim 1 for clarity.
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ISSUES
Under § 103, has the Examiner erred by finding that Gonda and
Dobbins collectively would have taught or suggested:
(1) determining a private virtual network’s status based on one or a
combination of plural levels of reachability and infrastructure faults as
recited in claim 1?
(2) a virtual routing address logically groups at least a first PE-CE
interface as recited in claim 25?

ANALYSIS
Claims 1-3, 8-10, 15-18, and 21-24
Based on the record before us, we find no error in the Examiner’s
obviousness rejection of representative claim 1. The Examiner maps the
recited reachability and infrastructure faults to two respective interface (port)
operational status indications in Dobbins’ interface table 40, namely the
“linkDown” and “internalError” designations. Ans. 23-24. See Dobbins,
col. 6, ll. 14-16; col. 7, ll. 31-34, 48-49, 62, 65; Fig. 4 (describing and
showing the interface table).
We see no error in this mapping. Appellants’ Specification indicates
in connection with the disclosed fault classification scheme that (1)
“infrastructure” relates to hardware (e.g., network nodes, interfaces, etc.),
and (2) “reachability” relates to connectivity (e.g., connections between
various devices). Spec. 20:2-4.
Although Dobbins describes the “internalError” status somewhat
broadly as “unspecified internal problems” (Dobbins, col. 7, l. 65), we
nonetheless see no reason why this status does not at least suggest some sort
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of associated internal hardware problem to constitute an “infrastructure
fault” indication as the Examiner indicates. Ans. 23-24. We reach this
conclusion emphasizing that the interface table’s operational status is
associated with a particular interface of a router 11 (i.e., a piece of
hardware). See Dobbins, col. 7, ll. 37-39, 48-49 (noting that the
“OperStatus” field 46 defines the operational status of an associated router
interface (port) entry); see also id. col. 5, ll. 47-52; Fig. 2 (showing router 11
with interfaces 12A, 12B).
Nor do we find error in the Examiner’s mapping Dobbins’
“linkDown” status to a “reachability fault” indication, particularly since
Dobbins describes this status as “no physical connections on this interface”
(Dobbins, col. 7, l. 61; emphasis added)—a description that relates to
connectivity as the Examiner indicates. Ans. 24.
We further note that nothing in the claim precludes the two binary
“levels” corresponding to these respective fault indications: namely, their
presence and absence in Dobbins’ interface table. See Fig. 4. That is, each
reachability and infrastructure fault indication has a first “level” indicating
the fault’s presence (e.g., the existence of the “linkDown” status in Fig. 4),
and a second “level” corresponding to its absence. Appellants’ contention
that the prior art does not teach multiple pluralities of levels (Reply Br. 1-2)
is unavailing given these binary state-based levels associated with each fault
indication.
Lastly, we see no error in the Examiner’s position (Ans. 21-22) that
Gonda and Dobbins collectively at least suggest determining the private
virtual network’s status even assuming, without deciding, that the cited prior
art determines only the status of individual elements in the network as
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Appellants contend (App. Br. 11-13). Skilled artisans would recognize that
determining faults (and their associated levels) in a private virtual network’s
constituent components would, at least in part, determine the network’s
overall status. Leaving aside the fact that the status of critical network
components can directly affect the operational status of the overall network,
even faults in non-critical network components would yield an overall
network status, at least in terms of its constituent components.
In reaching this conclusion, we emphasize that nothing in claim 1
specifies how or what determines network status based on the recited levels,
let alone that an extra calculation is required beyond that for the individual
network elements as Appellants argue. See App. Br. 12-13. That is, the
claimed step of “determining the status of the private virtual network based
on one or a combination of the plurality of first and second levels of the
plurality of virtual routing addresses,” as presently written, reads on a
network administrator or other human making a mental determination of the
network’s overall status based upon the information pertaining to the
network components. As such, Appellants’ arguments are not
commensurate with the scope and breadth of the claim. We are therefore not
persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting representative claim 1, and
claims 2, 3, 8-10, 15-18, and 21-24 not separately argued with particularity.
Claims 25-31
We likewise sustain the Examiner’s rejection of representative claim
25 for the reasons noted above and by the Examiner. Ans. 6-10, 25-26.
Moreover, Appellants do not persuasively rebut the Examiner’s position
(Ans. 25-26) that the router interfaces in Dobbins’ Figure 2 are PE-CE
interfaces under the term’s broadest reasonable interpretation in light of the
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Specification which indicates that PE and CE routers are, at least
conceptually, at the “edges” of customer sites and a provider network,
respectively. See Spec. 3:8-12, 7:18-20, 8:12-13.
We are therefore not persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting
representative claim 25, and claims 26-31 not separately argued with
particularity.

THE OTHER OBVIOUSNESS REJECTIONS
We also sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejections of claims 4-7,
11-14, 19, and 20. Ans. 15-20. Despite nominally arguing these claims
separately, Appellants reiterate similar arguments made previously. App.
Br. 14-15. We are not persuaded by these arguments, however, for the
reasons previously discussed.

CONCLUSION
The Examiner did not err in rejecting claims 1-31 under § 103.

ORDER
The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1-31 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

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