PTAB

IPR2017-01340

Cisco Systems Inc v. Egenera Inc

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Key Events
Petition
petition

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Service Clusters and Method in a Processing System with Failover Capability
  • Brief Description: The ’044 patent relates to processing systems with virtualized communication networks and storage for rapid deployment and reconfiguration. The technology provides a platform of processing nodes that can be configured via software to support processor failover, including transferring a failed processor's virtual MAC address and storage correspondence to a replacement processor.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Obviousness over Aziz and Ma - Claims 1, 3, 4, and 6 are obvious over Aziz in view of Ma.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Aziz (Patent 6,779,016) and Ma (Patent 6,856,591).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Aziz taught a platform for computer processing substantially similar to that claimed in the ’044 patent. Aziz described a "Computing Grid" with a plurality of processors, an internal communication network (VLAN switches), connectivity to an external network (Internet) and a storage area network (SAN), and a software "Control Plane" to configure virtual networks and storage. Aziz also disclosed failover logic, where a failed computing element in a Virtual Server Farm (VSF) is replaced by another from an "Idle Pool." Petitioner contended that Ma taught the missing element: a failover technique for clustered network devices that uses a "virtual MAC address." Upon failure, Ma’s system transferred the virtual MAC address of the failed device to a standby device to ensure seamless communication.
    • Motivation to Combine: Petitioner asserted that a Person of Ordinary Skill in the Art (POSITA) would recognize that Aziz’s failover method—replacing a failed processor with a new one having a different physical MAC address—would create a well-known "stale IP-MAC address mapping" problem for other devices on the network. This would cause communication delays and errors. Ma provided a known and conventional solution to this exact problem. A POSITA would combine Ma’s virtual MAC address failover technique with Aziz’s system to improve its reliability and avoid predictable communication disruptions, which was a simple application of a known technique to improve a similar device.
    • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have a high expectation of success, as applying Ma's MAC address migration technique to Aziz's processor failover was a straightforward implementation to solve a known problem with predictable results.

Ground 2: Obviousness over Aziz, Ma, and Von Eicken - Claims 2 and 5 are obvious over Aziz in view of Ma and further in view of Von Eicken.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Aziz (Patent 6,779,016), Ma (Patent 6,856,591), and Von Eicken ("Evolution of the Virtual Interface Architecture," a 1998 article).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: This ground built upon the combination of Aziz and Ma from Ground 1. Petitioner argued that claims 2 and 5 add the limitation of using "virtual interfaces" to define software communication paths among processors. Petitioner asserted that Von Eicken supplied this teaching. Von Eicken described the Virtual Interface Architecture (VIA), an industry standard for cluster networks that used "virtual interfaces" to create a user-level network interface. This technique bypassed the operating system kernel to reduce communication latency and increase network throughput.
    • Motivation to Combine: A POSITA would be motivated to substitute the standard network interfaces in the Aziz/Ma combination with the well-known, standardized, and commercially available virtual interfaces taught by Von Eicken. The motivation was to achieve the predictable benefits described in Von Eicken: lower latency and higher throughput. Petitioner argued this was a simple substitution of one known element (a standard network interface) for another (a VIA-based virtual interface) to obtain predictable results. The benefits were particularly relevant for the high-availability, scalable cluster systems described in Aziz.
    • Expectation of Success: The combination was asserted to be predictable and straightforward. Von Eicken’s VIA was designed as a "drop-in-replacement" for other network interfaces in cluster systems like Aziz's, and off-the-shelf hardware (e.g., "GigaNet's GNN1000" cards mentioned in Von Eicken) was available to implement it.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "personality": Petitioner argued that based on the ’044 patent's specification, the broadest reasonable interpretation of a processor's "personality" is its "configuration." The specification described that a processor can inherit a different personality by changing its configuration, making the terms interchangeable for claim construction purposes. This construction was central to the obviousness arguments for dependent claims 3 and 6, which required a replacement processor to inherit the "personality" of the failed processor.

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requested that the Board institute an inter partes review of claims 1-6 of the ’044 patent and cancel these claims as unpatentable.