PTAB

IPR2018-00371

Dell Inc v. Alacritech Inc

Log In
Key Events
Petition
petition Intelligence

1. Case Identification

2. Patent Overview

  • Title: Fast-Path Apparatus for Receiving Data Corresponding a TCP Connection
  • Brief Description: The ’036 patent describes a network interface device, referred to as an intelligent network interface card (INIC), designed to offload Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) processing from a host computer. The INIC employs a "fast path" where it processes network packets independently and a "slow path" where packets are passed to the host's conventional protocol stack, using a "connection context" to determine which path a given packet should take.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Claims 1-7 are obvious over Erickson in view of Tanenbaum96.

  • Prior Art Relied Upon: Erickson (Patent 5,768,618) and Tanenbaum96 (A. Tanenbaum, Computer Networks, 3rd ed. (1996)).
  • Core Argument for this Ground:
    • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Erickson taught the fundamental architecture for offloading network protocol processing to an I/O adapter, including the use of "fast" and "slow" paths. Erickson disclosed a system for offloading User Datagram Protocol (UDP)/IP processing and creating a connection context that included Media Access Control (MAC) and Internet Protocol (IP) layer information. However, Erickson provided less detail on TCP/IP. Petitioner asserted that Tanenbaum96, a foundational networking textbook, supplied the missing TCP-specific details. Tanenbaum96 explicitly taught "fast path" processing for TCP, including the use of a "connection record" (argued to be analogous to the ’036 patent’s "context") that contains TCP state information, IP addresses, and TCP ports. Tanenbaum96 also described using this record for "header prediction" to determine if a packet qualifies for fast path processing. Petitioner contended that combining Erickson's offloading hardware architecture with Tanenbaum96's well-known TCP fast path methods rendered the challenged claims obvious. The dependent claims were addressed by specific teachings: claims 2 and 3 (classifying packets and comparing to context) were taught by Tanenbaum96's header prediction; claim 4 (creating and prepending a header) was taught by Erickson's protocol scripts combined with Tanenbaum96's header creation; claim 5 (direct memory access) was explicitly taught by Erickson; and claims 6 and 7 (receive window and TCP ports) were standard elements of TCP context as taught by Tanenbaum96.
    • Motivation to Combine (for §103 grounds): Petitioner presented several motivations for a person of ordinary skill in the art (POSITA) to combine the references. First, Erickson explicitly referenced the Tanenbaum textbook for details on TCP/IP protocols, providing a direct suggestion to combine. Second, given the rising popularity of the internet and TCP/IP in the mid-1990s, a POSITA seeking to implement Erickson's fast-path offloading system would have been naturally motivated to apply it to TCP, the dominant protocol, and would have consulted a standard text like Tanenbaum96 for guidance.
    • Expectation of Success (for §103 grounds): Petitioner argued that a POSITA would have had a high expectation of success. The combination involved applying well-understood TCP fast-path principles from Tanenbaum96 to the known I/O adapter architecture of Erickson. This was portrayed as the combination of known methods to yield predictable results, namely, an improvement in network performance by offloading TCP processing.

4. Key Claim Construction Positions

  • "context for communication": Petitioner stated it would adopt the construction proposed by the Patent Owner in co-pending district court litigation, which defined the term as "data regarding an active connection." This construction was considered consistent with the teachings of the prior art, where both Erickson and Tanenbaum96 described storing pre-negotiated data and state information for an established connection.
  • "prepend": Appearing in claim 4, Petitioner argued this term should be construed to mean "add to the front." This construction was based on its plain meaning and an explicit definition found in the ’036 patent specification, which stated that a "packet control sequencer ... prepends (adds to the front) that status information to the packet."

5. Relief Requested

  • Petitioner requests the institution of an inter partes review and cancellation of claims 1-7 of Patent 7,237,036 as unpatentable.