Jayant Jain et al.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Dec 18, 2019

14569358 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Dec. 18, 2019)

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.
14/569,358 12/12/2014 Jayant Jain N102.02 (B512) (P0299) 1079
109858 7590 12/18/2019
ADELI LLP
11859 Wilshire Blvd.
Suite 408
Los Angeles, CA 90025
EXAMINER
LALCHINTHANG, VANNEILIAN
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2414
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/18/2019 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 JAYANT JAIN, ANIRBAN SENGUPTA and
MOHAN PARTHASARATHY1
___________

Appeal 2018-001059
Application 14/569,358
Technology Center 2400

____________

Before CAROLYN D. THOMAS, CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR. and
NABEEL U. KHAN, Administrative Patent Judges.

WHITEHEAD JR., Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant is appealing the final rejection of claims 1–19 under
35 U.S.C. § 134(a). Appeal Brief 2. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C.
§ 6(b).
We affirm.

1 We use the word Appellant to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.42(a). Appellant identifies Nicira, Inc. which is a wholly owned
subsidiary of VMware of which Dell Technologies is a majority owner, as
the real party in interest. Appeal Brief 2.
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Introduction
According to Appellant, the invention is directed to providing “an
elastic architecture for providing a service in a computing system. To
perform a service on the data messages, the service architecture uses a
service node (SN) group that includes one primary service node (PSN) and
zero or more secondary service nodes (SSNs).” Specification ¶ 3.

Representative Claim
1. A non-transitory machine readable medium of a primary
service node (PSN), the medium storing a program for performing a service
on data messages, the program comprising sets of instructions for:
receiving a data message and identifying a service node (SN) in a SN
group to perform the service on the data messages that are in a same flow as
the received data message, said group comprising the PSN;
when the PSN is the identified SN for the received data message's
flow, performing the service on the received data message and on data
messages in the same flow as the received data message; and
when another SN is the identified SN for the received data message's
flow, directing the received data message to the other SN for the SN to
perform the service on the received data message.

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References
Name Reference Date
Srivastava US 2006/0233155 A1 October 19, 2006
Sen US 2007/0214282 Al September 13, 2007
Nandagopal et al. US 2011/0055845 Al March 3, 2011
Ueno US 2012/0023231 A1 January 26, 2012

Rejections on Appeal
Claims 1–9 and 14–16 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Nandagopal and Ueno. Final Action 5–18.
Claims 10–12 and 17–19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over Nandagopal, Ueno and Sen. Final Action 18–24.
Claim 13 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Nandagopal, Ueno and Srivastava. Final Action 24–26.

ANALYSIS
Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellant and the Examiner,
we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed June 28, 2017), the Reply Brief (filed
November 7, 2017), the Final Action (mailed October 6, 2016) and the
Answer (mailed September 7, 2017), for the respective details.
The Examiner finds that Nandagopal discloses a service node (SN) in
a service node group wherein “the PSN (Fig.1 primary load balancer LBA in
service group A and Fig.2 [0020] lines 8–12, load balancer LBA of FIG. 1,
multiple-load balancer 210 (i.e., primary service node).” Final Action 6
(emphasis removed).
Nandagopal’s Figure 1 is reproduced below:
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FIG. 1 illustrates a typical network arrangement 100 where client 102 requests
a service from server system 104. The latter includes service-chain selector
108 and three service groups A, B, and C. Service group A includes load
balancer LBA and four backend servers Al A2, A3, and A4. Service group B
includes load balancer LBB and two backend servers Bl and B2. Service group
C includes load balancer LBC and three backend servers Cl, C2, and C3.
Dotted lines connecting a load balancer to a backend server indicate that the
load balancer can route a packet to the backend server, depending on its share
of workload. Nandagopal ¶ 8.

Appellant argues, “the Office Action cites [Nandagopal’s] Figure 1 (a
prior art ‘typical arrangement’) and Figure 2 (a ‘network arrangement
embodying principles of the invention’) to identify the PSN.” Appeal Brief
8–9. Appellant contends, “[A]ny attempt to combine features of Figures 1
and 2 must explain how and why the prior art and the inventive embodiment,
which is explicitly distinguished from the prior art, would be combined.”
Appeal Brief 9. We find Appellant’s argument persuasive. The Examiner
improperly combines Nandagopal’s disclosure of a typical network
arrangement shown in Figure 1 with an embodiment of the invention shown
in Figure 2. See Final Action 6; Nandagopal ¶¶ 8, 20.
In fact, Nandagopal distinguishes Figure 1’s typical network
arrangement from an embodiment of the invention shown in Figure 2:
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In balancing the loads, balancer 210 [of FIG. 2] determines the
entire server path, i.e., the sequence of specific backend servers
in the respective clusters, through which packet 206 is to be
routed before it sends the packet to the server clusters for
processing thereof. Thus, unlike a typical load balancer, e.g.,
load balancer LBA of FIG. 1, which determines only the next hop
or server in the server path, multiple-load balancer 210
determines the entire server path for packet 206, e.g., server path
A4-B2-Cl in a single process.
Nandagopal ¶ 20 (emphasis added).
However, focusing on Nandagopal’s Figure 1 illustration of a typical
network arrangement 100, there is one load balancer, PSN or SN per service
group. Ueno addresses Nandagopal’s deficiency of having only one SN
instead of a group of SNs by disclosing a network system where “each of the
load balancers LBl and LB2 selects one of the plurality of subordinate real
servers 30 and distributes the received packet to the real server (the
processing is possible in any real server).” Ueno ¶ 125; see Final Action 7.
Ueno further discloses, “[T]he destination IP address is common among the
plurality of servers SV, and the single destination IP address is associated
with the two load balancers LBl and LB2. This is equivalent to that each
server SV is assigned to the two load balances LBl and LB2.” Ueno ¶ 125.
Accordingly, we agree with the Examiner that it would have been obvious to
one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Nandagopal’s network arrangement
100 to perform service2 of data messages that is in the same flow as a

2 “[T]he services can be any one of the traditional middlebox services, such
as load balancing, firewall, intrusion detection, intrusion protection, network
address translation (NAT), WAN (wide area network) optimizer, etc.”
Specification ¶ 10.

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received data message by using multiple load balancers (SNs) as disclosed
by Ueno. See Final Action 7, 8 and 16.
Applicant further contends in regard to Nandagoal, “The disclosed
server groups do not include the load balancer and the load balancer is not
disclosed as being capable of directing messages to itself. Thus, the
rejection fails to address the limitation that the PSN identifies itself as the
service node to perform a service.” Appeal Brief 9. Claim 1 only recites,
“when the PSN is the identified SN for the received data message’s flow,
performing the service on the received data message and on data messages
in the same flow as the received data message.” (emphasis added). It is
noted that claim 1 does not physically distinguish a PSN from a SN.
Accordingly, we find Appellant’s argument is not commensurate with the
scope of the claim. There is no requirement in claim 1 that the PSN directs
messages to itself nor is there a requirement that the PSN identifies itself.
Consequently, we sustain the Examiner’s obviousness rejection of
independent claims 1 and 14 argued together, as well as, the obviousness
rejections of dependent claims 2, 4–13 and 16–19 not argued separately. See
Appeal Brief 12–14. We note that while we affirmed the Examiner’s
rejection based upon the prior cited art of record, Nandagopal and Ueno, we
relied upon Nandagopal’s Figure 1 only and altered the rationale of the
obviousness rejection of independent claims 1 and 14. Accordingly, we
designate the rejection as a new ground of rejection pursuant to 37
C.F.R. § 41.50(b).
Dependent claims 3 and 15
Appellant contends that both claims 3 and 15, which dependend upon
independent claims 1 and 14 respectively, recite that “the service is a non-
load balancing service.” Appeal Brief 13. In claims 1 and 14, a service,
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which is unspecified, is performed on the received data message and on data
messages in the same flow as the received data message. Appellant argues
that “[Ueno’s] paragraph 59 discusses a relay processing device being one of
a load balancer or firewall, only the load balancing embodiment is used to
reject the limitations of claims 3 and 15.” Appeal Brief 13. Appellant
contends, “[E]ither LB2 is a SSN [secondary service node] and the service is
a load balancing service or the servers are the SSNs and the SN group is
providing the service of servers SV2-l to SV2-l0 (not the load balancing
service of LB2).” Appeal Brief 13–14. We do not find Appellant’s
argument persuasive because Ueno discloses, “The policy information POL
indicates a policy of the relay processing device 20 (load balancer, fire
wall).” Ueno does not draw the distinction that the processing device has to
offer one or the other service. The processing device can offer more than
one service. See Ueno ¶ 59. We sustain the Examiner’s obviousness
rejection of claims 3 and 15.

CONCLUSION
Claims
Rejected
35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–9, 14–16 103 Nandagopal, Ueno 1–9, 14–
16

10–12, 17–
19
103 Nandagopal, Ueno,
Sen
10–12, 17-
19

13 103 Nandagopal, Ueno,
Srivastava
13
Overall
Outcome
1–19

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This decision contains a new ground of rejection pursuant to 37
C.F.R. § 41.50(b). 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(b) provides that “[a] new ground of
rejection…, shall not be considered final for judicial review.”
37 C.F.R. § 41.50(b) also provides that the Appellant, WITHIN
TWO MONTHS FROM THE DATE OF THE DECISION, must exercise
one of the following two options with respect to the new ground of rejection
to avoid termination of the appeal as to the rejected claims:
(1) Reopen prosecution. Submit an
appropriate amendment of the claims
so rejected or new evidence relating
to the claims so rejected, or both, and
have the matter reconsidered by the
examiner, in which event the
proceeding will be remanded to the
examiner ....
(2) Request rehearing. Request that
the proceeding be reheard under §
41.52 by the Board upon the same
record ....

AFFIRMED