Ex Parte Sharma et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardDec 22, 201613458137 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 22, 2016) 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. 13/458,137 04/27/2012 PUNEET SHARMA 82916241 1125 56436 7590 12/27/2016 Hewlett Packard Enterprise 3404 E. Harmony Road Mail Stop 79 Fort Collins, CO 80528 EXAMINER ROSE, DERRICK V ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2462 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 12/27/2016 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): hpe.ip.mail@hpe.com chris. mania @ hpe. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte PUNEET SHARMA, TIANXIONG JI, and ZHIKUI WANG Appeal 2015-005616 Application 13/458,137 Technology Center 2400 Before JOHN P. PINKERTON, MELISSA A. HAAPALA, and JOYCE CRAIG, Administrative Patent Judges. HAAPALA, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL This is a decision on appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a final rejection of claims 1—20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. We have reviewed Appellants’ contentions in the Briefs, the Examiner’s rejection, the Examiner’s response to Appellants’ contentions, and the evidence of record. We concur with Appellants’ conclusion that the Examiner errs in finding the combination of Tanaka (US 2013/0155862 Al; published June 20, 2013) and Sato (US 2012/0207026 Al; published Aug. Appeal 2015-005616 Application 13/458,137 16, 2012) teaches or suggests determining if the path [not included in a first set of virtual networks] can be added to an existing virtual network from the first set of virtual networks (“determining” limitation), as recited in independent claim 1. The Examiner relies on Tanaka to teach the “determining” limitation. Final Act. 4 (citing Tanaka 1 67); Ans. 8—9 (citing Tanaka Tflf 75—76). In particular, the Examiner finds path selection manager 804 described in Tanaka makes the recited determination. Final Act. 4. The Examiner also finds Tanaka addresses the “determine if the path can be added” limitation by its disclosure that path selection manager 804 determines whether other packets having a flow have been processed before, and if so, then extracting the VLAN against the available VLANS from the existing data stmcture and selecting the VLAN to be used for the packet and future packets. Ans. 8—9. We have reviewed the cited sections of Tanaka and agree with Appellants that these sections describe selecting an existing VLAN, and not determining if a path (not included in a first set of virtual networks) can be added to an existing virtual network. See App. Br. 10; Reply Br. 3. Tanaka describes path selection module 804 selects a path for a communication by consulting information stored in VLAN storage 806 (which sets forth all of the active VLANs within network 300) and selects one of the VLANs to use to transport the packet, thereby in effect selecting a path through the network Tanaka 1 67. Tanaka further describes that certain packets may be grouped together into a flow to use the same VLAN for all of the packets in that flow and that a flow data structure is used to indicate the available VLAN that was selected for processing packets in the flow. See Tanaka 174—77. Additionally, Tanaka describes that each existing VLAN defines a 2 Appeal 2015-005616 Application 13/458,137 (preexisting) different path through the network. Tanaka 1 67; see also Tanaka 141 (describing that each VLAN provides a different path from a source node to a destination node). The selection of an existing VLAN that defines a preexisting path for a source node to a destination node is not sufficient to teach making a determination whether a path not included in the set of VLANs (mapped to the set of virtual networks) can be added to an existing VLAN. For the foregoing reasons, Appellants persuade us the Examiner has not established the combination of Tanaka and Sato teaches or suggests the “determining” limitation. Accordingly, we do not sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of: (i) claim 1; (ii) independent claims 10 and 16, which contain a limitation substantially similar to the “determining” limitation and for which the Examiner relies on the same findings discussed supra (see Final Act. 4); and, (iii) their dependent claims 2—9, 11—15, and 17—20. DECISION We reverse the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1—20. REVERSED 3 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation