Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. v. Parity Networks, LLC

1. Case Identification

• Patent #: 6,763,394
• Filed: November 14, 2018
• Petitioner(s): Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company, H3C Technologies Co., Limited, and New H3C Technologies Co., Ltd.
• Patent Owner(s): Parity Networks, LLC
• Challenged Claims: 1, 3, 7-10, 13, 14, 16, and 19

2. Patent Overview

• Title: Virtual Egress Packet Classification at Ingress
• Brief Description: The ’394 patent discloses systems and methods for improving network router efficiency by consolidating packet processing. It purports to solve the problem of latency and complexity from performing separate pass/drop determinations at both ingress and egress ports by implementing all such functionality at the ingress port.

3. Grounds for Unpatentability

Ground 1: Claims 1, 3, 7-10, 13, 14, 16, and 19 are obvious over Kadambi in view of Bechtolsheim.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Kadambi (Patent 6,104,696) and Bechtolsheim (Patent 6,377,577).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner argued that Kadambi taught the core concept of the ’394 patent: a network switch (router) that makes pass/drop and egress port determinations at an ingress port to eliminate the need for lookups at the egress port. Specifically, Petitioner asserted Kadambi disclosed a system with multiple lookup tables at the ingress submodule, including a first table with forwarding rules that determine a packet's destination port (the claimed "first lookup table including an egress port identity") and a second programmable rules table for filtering that operates without needing egress port numbers (the claimed "second lookup table...without egress port numbers"). Petitioner contended that Bechtolsheim, which taught hardware-based processing of Access Control Lists (ACLs) using content-addressable memory (CAM), supplied the well-known mechanism for implementing the rule-based comparisons described more generally in Kadambi.
  • Motivation to Combine: A Person of Ordinary Skill in the Art (POSITA) would combine Kadambi and Bechtolsheim to improve performance. Both references taught hardware-based solutions for packet routing. Petitioner argued a POSITA implementing Kadambi’s ingress-based routing architecture would have been motivated to incorporate Bechtolsheim’s specific, well-known, and faster hardware-based ACL/CAM implementation for the rule set comparisons to achieve predictable improvements in speed and efficiency.
  • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have had a reasonable expectation of success because combining the references involved applying a known hardware acceleration technique (Bechtolsheim's CAM-based ACLs) to a known router architecture (Kadambi's ingress-based processing) to achieve the predictable result of faster packet processing.

Ground 2: Claims 1, 3, 7-10, 13, 14, 16, and 19 are obvious over Kalapathy in view of Bechtolsheim.

• Prior Art Relied Upon: Kalapathy (Patent 6,810,037) and Bechtolsheim (Patent 6,377,577).
• Core Argument for this Ground:
  • Prior Art Mapping: Petitioner asserted that Kalapathy disclosed a more advanced architecture that also performed both ingress and egress functions at the ingress port. Kalapathy taught dividing a primary lookup table into multiple sub-tables that could be searched simultaneously, explicitly grouping ingress and egress functions together in its ingress-side controllers (EPICs/GPICs). Petitioner contended Kalapathy’s rules table, which included a "destination port" field, met the limitation of a "first lookup table including an egress port identity." Kalapathy’s disclosure of separate ingress functions and multiple sub-tables with discrete functionality inherently taught or made obvious the use of a "second lookup table" for ingress-only rules that do not require egress port numbers. As in Ground 1, Bechtolsheim was argued to supply the specific, well-known CAM-based hardware implementation for the rule sets described in Kalapathy.
  • Motivation to Combine: The motivation was similar to Ground 1. A POSITA seeking to optimize the high-performance, multi-table architecture of Kalapathy would be motivated to look to established hardware solutions for rule processing. A POSITA would combine Kalapathy with Bechtolsheim’s CAM-based ACL processing to implement the rule-set functionality in hardware, a known method for increasing speed and a key goal of both references.
  • Expectation of Success: A POSITA would have expected success in implementing Bechtolsheim’s hardware-based rule processing in Kalapathy’s system. The integration was presented as a straightforward application of a known technique to improve a known system, which would predictably result in faster and more efficient packet routing.

4. Arguments Regarding Discretionary Denial

• Petitioner argued against discretionary denial under 35 U.S.C. §314 and §325(d).
• §314 (General Plastic Factors): Petitioner contended that denial was inappropriate because this was its first petition challenging the ’394 patent. It further argued that the petition conserves Board resources by mirroring the grounds and evidence of a co-pending inter partes review (IPR) filed by Juniper Networks (IPR2018-01590) while challenging a smaller subset of claims, and that Petitioner would seek consolidation if instituted.
• §325(d): Petitioner asserted denial was unwarranted because the prior art references central to its petition (Kadambi, Kalapathy, and Bechtolsheim) were never cited or considered during the original prosecution of the ’394 patent. The art the examiner relied upon was argued to be materially different, meaning the current grounds presented new issues for consideration.

5. Relief Requested

• Petitioner requests institution of IPR and cancellation of claims 1, 3, 7-10, 13, 14, 16, and 19 of Patent 6,763,394 as unpatentable.