DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Claims 1-20 have been examined.
Response to Arguments
Double patenting rejection is withdrawn in response to Terminal Disclaimer filed on 6/17/25.
Applicant's arguments filed on 2/20/26 with regard to 35 U.S.C. 103 rejection have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1-20 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument. Specifically, Abadi is relied upon for disclosure of the amended limitations.
Additionally, In response to applicant's argument that the examiner's conclusion of obviousness is based upon improper hindsight reasoning, it must be recognized that any judgment on obviousness is in a sense necessarily a reconstruction based upon hindsight reasoning. But so long as it takes into account only knowledge which was within the level of ordinary skill at the time the claimed invention was made, and does not include knowledge gleaned only from the applicant's disclosure, such a reconstruction is proper. See In re McLaughlin, 443 F.2d 1392, 170 USPQ 209 (CCPA 1971).
Specifically, the combination of references disclose implementing subsets of a rule set by different information handling processing systems (Curcio: [0023]-[0024]: additional inspection of packet to determine if packet should be inspected based on other rules of the rule set), which may be due to system capacity or constraint as suggested by Jain (col. 7 ll. 15-30: processor capacity/constraint; Fig. 7 and col. 17 ll. 29-61: determine if execution of the rule set would exceed utilization capacity threshold of computing node, utilization includes computing resources, such as processor, memory, etc.). Therefore, the combination of references at least suggests the claimed limitations.
Applicant repeatedly argues that the prior art of record does not explicitly recite a “single rule” and “first set of qualifiers” and “second set of qualifiers.” However, based on the broadest reasonable interpretation consistent with the Specification, a rule set comprising subset of rules correspond to a single rule and set of qualifiers respectively since rule or rule set are representation of instructions expressed in different units. Furthermore, in many contexts as disclosed by Abadi, one with ordinary skill in the art would treat a rule set as a single, callable rule or “decision unit.” The rules within the set are executed together to produce a result, making the entire set behave as a single rule (e.g. composite rule), and subset of the rule as qualifier.
Accordingly, Applicant’s argument is not persuasive in light of above explanation.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Curcio et al. U.S. Pub. No. 20180115471 (hereinafter Curcio) in view of Abadi et al. U.S. 9,747,143 (hereinafter Abadi) and in view of Jain et al. U.S. Pat. No. 10,382,358 (hereinafter Jain).
As per claim 1, 8 and 14, Curcio discloses a method/system/method comprising:
receiving, at a second information handling system, data traffic from a first information handling system that is configured to add an indicator to the data traffic if the data traffic comprises data, associated metadata, or a combination thereof that matches a first set of one or more qualifiers (Curcio: [0011]-[0012]: generating a tag/indicator for first network device based on first subset of rules/qualifiers and first device tags the packets… the second device reads the tag and make decision regarding flow of the packet… send packet for deep packet inspection/ACL action; [0023]-[0024]: if there’s a match, perform additional packet inspection; [0012]: ACL list for packet inspection);
responsive to determining that the data traffic received from the first information handling system comprises the indicator, determining whether the data traffic from the first information handling system comprises data, associated metadata, or a combination thereof that matches a second set of one or more qualifiers, in which the indicator is one of the qualifiers in the second set (Curcio: [0023]-[0024]: additional inspection of packet to determine if packet should be inspected based on other rules of the rule set); and
responsive to the data traffic comprises data, associated metadata, or a combination thereof that matches the second set of one or more qualifiers, performing an associated action for the data traffic at the second information handling system (Curcio: [0024]: take security actions if the packet comprises data that match rules indicating malicious content).
Curcio discloses allocating subset of rules to different nodes for processing based on resource capacity. Curcio as modified does not explicitly disclose the first subset and second subset are portions of a single rule, which has been decomposed across the first information handling system and the second information handling system, wherein the single rule is sub-divided into the first set of one or more qualifiers and the second set of one or more qualifiers. However, Abadi discloses splitting a single rule into one or more rules or sub-rules so as to allocate the sub-rules to different platforms based on monitored available resources (Abadi: Fig. 1A; col. 4 lines 4-18: split single rule into sub-rules; col. 5 lines 6-28: optimized execution plan may be determined dynamically based on available resources, including bandwidth, processing power, available memory, or the like; col. 7 lines 4-35: Processing Rule 112 may be refactored into a chain of processing rules or sub-rules… Rule 114 can be divided into sub-rules and some of which can be executed on First Computing Platform and some can be executed on Second Computing Platform). It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art to split a rule into a rule set or sub-rules that correspond to different qualifiers to be executed by different computing platforms to optimize execution of the rule set while maintaining equivalent logic.
Curcio as modified does not explicitly disclose wherein the first set and second set of qualifiers, when formed into a single rule would exceed a threshold amount of memory and is therefore implemented as the first set of one or more qualifiers on the first information handling system and as the second set of one or more qualifiers on the second information handling system. However, Jain teaches or at least suggests determining processing capacity of a rule execution node to ensure that the execution of the rule set does not exceed threshold amount of memory (Jain: Fig. 1: tiered/hierarchical structure for enforcing rules by plurality of computing nodes; col. 7 ll. 15-30: processor capacity/constraint; Fig. 7 and col. 17 ll. 29-61: determine if execution of the rule set would exceed utilization capacity threshold of computing node, utilization includes computing resources, such as processor, memory, etc.). It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art to assign data rules based on processing capacity to ensure efficient processing of the rules as well known in the art.
As per claim 2, 9 and 15, Curcio as modified discloses the limitations of claims 1, 8 and 14 respectively. Curcio as modified further discloses wherein the data traffic is a packet (Curcio: [0012]: packet inspection).
As per claim 3, 10 and 16, Curcio as modified discloses the limitations of claims 2, 9 and 16 respectively. Curcio as modified further discloses wherein the indicator comprises a value from a plurality of possible values or compression of the first set of one or more qualifiers (Curcio: [0023]-[0024]: packets are tagged to indicate whether additional steps should be performed for packet inspection) .
As per claim 4, 11 and 17, Curcio as modified discloses the limitations of claims 3, 10 and 16 respectively. Curcio as modified further discloses wherein the indicator is a tag in a reserved field of the packet (Curcio: [0040]-[0041]).
As per claim 5, 12 and 18, Curcio as modified discloses the limitations of claims 2, 9 and 15 respectively. Curcio as modified further discloses wherein the indicator comprises a header that is added to the packet (Curcio: [0012]: the tag can be placed in a header of the packets and read by other network devices).
As per claim 6, 13 and 19, Curcio as modified discloses the limitations of claims 1, 8 and 14 respectively. Curcio as modified further discloses wherein: adding the indicator to the data traffic if the data traffic comprises data or has associated metadata that matches the first set of one or more qualifiers represents a rule for the first information handling system; and the first information handling system comprises a plurality of rules, in which each rule comprises its own set of one or more qualifiers and associated indicator (Curcio: [0023]-[0024]; [0029]).
As per claim 7, Curcio as modified discloses the method of claim 1. Curcio as modified further discloses wherein performing the associated action to the data traffic if the data traffic comprises data or has associated metadata that matches the second set of one or more qualifiers represents a rule for the second information handling system; and the second information handling system comprises a plurality of rules, in which each rule comprises its own set of one or more qualifiers and associated action or actions (Curcio: [0023]-[0024]; [0029]).
As per claim 20, Curcio as modified discloses the method of claim 14. Curcio as modified further discloses wherein at least the rule for the second information handling system is an Access Control List (ACL) rule (Curcio: [0023]-[0024]; [0029]).
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHIN HON (ERIC) CHEN whose telephone number is (571)272-3789. The examiner can normally be reached Monday to Thursday 9am- 7pm.
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/SHIN-HON (ERIC) CHEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2431