Ex Parte JoshiDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardDec 12, 201610674627 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 12, 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. 18156.0035.NPUS00 4709 EXAMINER VO, TED T ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2191 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 10/674,627 09/29/2003 7590 12/14/2016120954 SF General Polsinelli PC Three Embarcadero Center, Suite 1350 San Francisco, CA 94111 Prajakta S. Joshi 12/14/2016 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): adrury@polsinelli.com cadocket @ Polsinelli. com ASkovmand @ Polsinelli. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte PRAJAKTA S. JOSHI Appeal 2016-001034 Application 10/674,627 Technology Center 2100 Before CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., WILLIAM M. FINK, and AARON W. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judges. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2016-001034 Application 10/674,627 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of claims 75, 76, 78—83, 85—90, and 92—95, which are all of the pending claims. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. THE INVENTION The application “relates generally to load balancing among servers” and “[mjore particularly but not exclusively ... to providing network components with capability to detect mapping between public and private addresses and to provide the public addresses for use in load balancing.” (Spec. 1:5—8.) Claim 75, reproduced below, is representative: 75. A method of providing load balancing comprising: receiving, at a first network device to load balance, the first network device serving as a proxy to a domain name server, from a second network device that performs network switching for a site coupling at least one host server to a network, mapping in formation that provides a translation between a private virtual IP address, configured at the second network device and associated with at least one host server corresponding to the second network device, and a public virtual IP address associated with the second network device; and applying, by the first network device, a load balancing algo rithm associated with the public virtual IP address, wherein the load balancing algorithm comprises applying a metric associated with the private virtual IP address. 1 Appellant identifies Brocade Communications Systems, Inc. as the real party in interest. (See App. Br. 2.) 2 Appeal 2016-001034 Application 10/674,627 THE REFERENCES AND THE REJECTIONS Claims 75, 76, 78—83, 85—90, and 92—95 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Zisapel et al. (US 6,665,702 Bl; issued Dec. 16, 2003); Ceniza (US 2002/0186698 Al; published Dec. 12, 2002); Tony Bourke, Server Load Balancing (O’Reilly & Associates 2001); and Foundry Networks, White Paper, Server Load Balancing in Today’s Web-enabled Enterprises (Apr. 2002). (See Final Act. 2—6.) ANALYSIS Appellant argues the cited art does not teach or suggest the following limitation of claim 75: receiving, at a first network device to load balance . . . from a second network device that performs network switching for a site coupling at least one host server to a network, mapping information that provides a translation between a private virtual IP address, configured at the second network device and associated with at least one host server corresponding to the second network device, and a public virtual IP address associated with the second network device. (App. Br. 5.) The Examiner finds this limitation taught in Zisapel, as shown in Figure IB reproduced below: 3 Appeal 2016-001034 Application 10/674,627 Figure IB depicts a load balancing system in accordance with the invention of Zisapel In particular, the Examiner finds the claimed “first network device” limitation reads on Zisapel’s “LB1” and the claimed “second network device” limitation reads on Zisapel’s “LB2.” (See Ans. 7.) The Examiner further finds that “LB 1 receives the information that includes the address of Si: 200.100.1.1” and that “[g]iven by the reference #18 in FIG. IB, vip 200.100.1.0 is the public vip address of LB2, and vip 200.100.Id is a virtual IP address of an Si,” such that “[t]he mapping that is performed at LB2 that contains the information in reference #32: vip 200.100.1.1 of the Si and vip 100.100.1.0 of the first network LB 1.” (Ans. 7.) In other words, the Examiner finds that LB1 receives “200.100.1.1” and “100.100.1.0,” which together constitute the claimed “mapping information that provides a translation between a private virtual IP address, configured at the second network device and associated with at least one host server corresponding to the second network device, and a public virtual IP address associated with the second network device.” 4 Appeal 2016-001034 Application 10/674,627 Appellant argues that “Zisapel does not disclose the VIP addresses associated with LB2 are associated with at least one host server,” “[t]he proper interpretation of Zisapel is that LB2 has multiple VIP addresses,” and “Zisapel makes no mention of any VIP address of the host servers attached to LB2.” (Reply Br. 8.) We agree with Appellant. Zisapel’s LB1 forwards a client request to LB2 when no servers in LBl’s server farm are available. (Zisapel 13:48— 51.) In so doing, LB1 substitutes a virtual LB2 IP address (e.g., 200.100.1.1) for the original destination address of the original request. {Id. at 52—56.) Upon receiving the request, LB2 checks the triangulation mapping table 32 to find that the virtual IP address substituted by LB1 (e.g., 200.100.1.1) has been designated for LBl’s use and, as a result, LB2 uses the virtual address ofLBl (e.g., 100.100.1.0) as the source address for the response LB2 subsequently sends to the client, so that the client will not ignore the response as unsolicited. {Id. at 13:57—14:2.) Thus, contrary to the Examiner’s findings, the multiple vIP addresses of LB2 (e.g., 200.100.1.0 and 200.100.1.1) do not correspond to individual servers Sn; instead, those addresses all correspond to LB2 itself, as they are used to determine which LB1 forwarded the request in order for that LBl’s address to be used in responding to the client. Because LB2’s vIP addresses all correspond to LB2 itself, we find the Examiner has not shown that Zisapel discloses “mapping information that provides a translation between a private virtual IP address . . . associated with at least one host server corresponding to the second network device, and a public virtual IP address associated with the second network device” as required by claim 75. The mapping in Zisapel’s triangulation mapping 5 Appeal 2016-001034 Application 10/674,627 table 32 is between a public virtual IP address (e.g., 100.100.1.0) of a first network device LB1 and a public virtual IP address (e.g., 200.100.1.1) of a second network device LB2. For these reasons, we decline to sustain the rejection of claim 75 or the rejections of claims 76, 78—83, 85—90, and 92—95, all of which require the mapping discussed above that is not present in Zisapel. Because this issue is fully dispositive of the appeal, we do not reach Appellant’s other arguments. DECISION The rejections of claims 75, 76, 78—83, 85—90, and 92—95 are reversed. REVERSED 6 Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation