DETAILED ACTION
This Action is in consideration of the Applicant’s response on October 20, 2025. Claims 1, 9, and 10 are amended by the Applicant. Claims 1 – 10, where Claims 1, 9, and 10 are in independent form, are presented for examination.
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed on October 20, 2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant argued:
a) Regarding Claims 1, 9, and 10, Haggerty does not disclose or suggest a policy tree having mixed ranges for a number of policies in a policy tree.
The Office respectfully disagrees with Applicant’s assertions.
1. With regards to a), the Applicant incorrectly indicates that the prior Office Action cited paragraph [0061] of Haggerty to disclose the disputed limitation [See Remarks, Pg. 10, 2nd Para.]. The Office Action cites paragraphs [0051]-[0054], which states that the number of rules in the split rule subsets may not be equal to the number of rules in the original rule set because rules with ranges may require some rules to be added to both child nodes [Fig. 2; Para. 0051]. Additionally, Haggerty discloses the optimization of the tree based on rules that correspond to ranges in field values [Fig. 8; Para. 0047, 0051-2, 0063-4]. Therefore, Haggerty discloses of a policy tree having mixed ranges for a number of policies in a policy tree.
Claim Objections
2. Claims 1, 9, and 10 are objected to because of the following informalities: there is a grammatical error in “responsive to having mixed ranges for a number of policies in the policy tree at at least one traversal node of the policy tree” (emphasis added by Office). Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
Claim(s) 1 – 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by PGPub. 2016/0335298 (hereinafter “Haggerty”).
3. Regarding Claims 1, 9, and 10, Haggerty discloses a network gateway device for optimizing a policy tree search with hybrid ranges of policy sets while examining network traffic of a data communication network [Fig. 1; Para. 0044], the network gateway device comprising:
a processor [Fig. 1; Para. 0044];
a network interface, communicatively coupled to the processor [Fig. 1; Para. 0044]; and
a memory, communicatively coupled to the processor and storing source code [Fig. 1; Para. 0044], comprising:
a side node control module to enable a side node for a particular traversal node of a policy tree, responsive to having mixed ranges for a number of policies in the policy tree at at least one traversal node of the policy tree [Figs. 2, 3, and 8; Para. 0051-54, 0063-4; dividing each node into 2 child nodes];
a tree partitioning module to, responsive to enabling the side node at the at least one traversal node, partition the at least one traversal node into deeper traversal nodes and leaf nodes [Figs. 2 and 3; Para. 0051-54; dividing each node into 2 child nodes], and setting a limit on a number of leaf node policies [Para. 0054, 0072], wherein each traversal node above the limit is cut into a deeper level with a new traversal node, and wherein each traversal node at or below the limit is converted to a leaf node populated with a list of policies within the limit [Figs. 2 and 3; Para. 0051-54];
a policy module to receive a data packet from a session on the data communication network, the policy module to crawl traversal nodes of the policy tree based on one or more fields in the data packet, and once reaching a leaf node, linear searching a policy set corresponding to the leaf node to select a policy, and to apply the selected policy to the data packet [Para. 0045].
4. Regarding Claim 2, Haggerty discloses the limitations of Claim 1. Haggerty further discloses that the step of enabling the side nodes comprises enabling a side node for a particular node responsive to a width of a narrow range being smaller than a threshold times the node width [Figs. 2, 3, 7A, 7B, 8; Para. 0051-54, 0064; nodes are split to balance the number of rules in two child nodes by finding the median of the range for each rule/value], and a narrow policy count being greater than a threshold times the total policy count under the node [Para. 0054, 0072].
5. Regarding Claim 3, Haggerty discloses the limitations of Claim 1. Haggerty further discloses that the step of enabling the side node and partitioning the traversal node, are repeated recursively [Fig. 3; Para. 0054].
6. Regarding Claim 4, Haggerty discloses the limitations of Claim 1. Haggerty further discloses that the side node is only traversed once per tree search [Para. 0045].
7. Regarding Claim 5, Haggerty discloses the limitations of Claim 1. Haggerty further discloses that the policies of the policy set are sorted by priority [Para. 0045].
8. Regarding Claim 6, Haggerty discloses the limitations of Claim 1. Haggerty further discloses that the policies of the policy set are sorted by priority, and once reaching a policy match on all dimensions, any remaining policies from the policy set are ignored [Para. 0045].
9. Regarding Claim 7, Haggerty discloses the limitations of Claim 1. Haggerty further discloses that the hybrid ranges of policy sets comprises both wide ranges and narrow ranges [Fig. 8 and 9].
10. Regarding Claim 8, Haggerty discloses the limitations of Claim 1. Haggerty further discloses that the policy selection is based on one or more dimensions selected from: source IP address, destination IP address, protocol, source port, destination port, and user-defined features [Para. 0061].
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Contacts
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Tae K. Kim, whose telephone number is (571) 270-1979. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday - Friday (10:00 AM - 6:30 PM EST).
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Jorge Ortiz-Criado, can be reached on (571) 272-7624. The fax phone number for submitting all Official communications is (703) 872-9306. The fax phone number for submitting informal communications such as drafts, proposed amendments, etc., may be faxed directly to the examiner at (571) 270-2979.
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/TAE K KIM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2496