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 .
Claim Objections
Claim1 is objected to because of the following informalities: claim 1 recites “tproviding” in line 15, which would be “providing.” Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
With regard to claim 1, the instant claim includes a number of issues:
Line 5 and later lines present “the connector,” where it is unclear if this is each connector of the set of connectors or a single connector, where it appears that this should be each connector of the set of connectors;
Line 7 refers to “a given one of the connectors” as a destination for the routable path, where it is unclear if this should refer to each of the connectors or if a given connector is a single connector, where it appears that this should be each of the connectors of the set of connectors;
Line 9 refers to “for each given connector,” which in combination with the previous “given one of the connectors,” it is unclear if this is providing that each and every connector is limited by this recitation, only the “given one of the connectors,” or a subset of given connectors. It appears that this should be each connector of the set of connectors;
Lines 10-11 reciters “the IP addresses reachable within the location from the connector,” where it is unclear if this should be a location of the set of locations associated with each given connector, or if there is a singular location that has this property for all given connectors. It appears that this should be a location of the corresponding connector;
Lines 16 to 18 refer to a “first list of connectors,” where it is unclear if this list is from the set of connectors. It appears that the first list of connectors should be selected from the set of connectors;
Line 17 recites “together…,” where it is unclear if this is providing that the information comprises both the first list and the public IP addresses, or if the connectors can reach the internal enterprise application together with the public IP addresses (thus requiring the use of the addresses for the reachability). It appears that this should be a list of two items in the given information, where line breaks, indentation, and a simple “and” instead of together would clarify this;
In the last line, the claim recites “forwarding the connection request to a particular connector.” The instant claim is “operative at a location service,” where it is unclear if the forwarding is performed by the location service or not. In the claim, the connection request is never provided to the location service, so it is unclear how the location service can forward this information that was never sent to it. It appears that the second intermediate node should be forwarding the connection request responsive to some action by the location service.
With regard to claim 2, the instant claim presents “relative connectivity,” where it is unclear what constitutes a “relative connectivity.” It appears that the intention should be that the connectivity of each connector is being compared with the connectivity of each other connector, with the identifying being based on this comparison.
Claims 3-14 depend from claim 1, and are rejected for the same as claim 1. Claims 15-18 include details presented with regard to claim 1, and are rejected for many of the similar reasons.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
Claim(s) 19 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 11,533,307 (Mahajan) in view of US 2020/0358814 (Willey).
With regard to claim 20, Mahajan discloses a method of connection routing in an overlay network providing a Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) service to multiple tenants, wherein a tenant has an associated enterprise application that resides in multiple private geo-locations, the overlay network comprising a set of intermediary nodes, and a mapping service (Mahajan: Column 14, lines 49-61, Column 14, line 67 to Column 15, line 2, Column 15, lines 32-34, and Column 18, lines 5-18), comprising:
configuring a connector in each private geo-location (Mahajan: Column 14, lines 4-5, Column 14, lines 49-61 and Figure 1. Connectors for the apps can be provided and used, and thus were configured at some point, where the system of Mahajan operates with such apps at different locations.);
receiving information from each connector, the information comprising a public IP address of a device associated with the connector, and a set of internal IP addresses reachable within the geo-location from the connector (Mahajan: Column 14, lines 49-61, Column 15, lines 32-34, and Column 18, lines 5-18. Mahajan allows for the connecting of users to applications, where address information would be utilized to make the connection.);
responsive to receipt of a connection request from a client that is directed to the enterprise application, using the information received from the connectors to correlate the internal IP addresses associated with connectors that can reach the enterprise application, and using information to find a best-connected connector to handle the connection request (Mahajan: Column 14, lines 49-61, Column 14, line 67 to Column 15, line 2, Column 15, lines 32-34, and Column 18, lines 5-18. The best performance connection is found and made.);
using the mapping service to forward the connection request across one or more intermediary nodes to the best-connected connector (Mahajan: Column 14, lines 49-61, Column 14, line 67 to Column 15, line 2, Column 15, lines 32-34, and Column 18, lines 5-18); and
using the best-connected connector to establish an end-to-end connection between the client and the enterprise application (Mahajan: Column 14, lines 49-61, Column 14, line 67 to Column 15, line 2, Column 15, lines 32-34, and Column 18, lines 5-18).
Mahajan fails to disclose expressly, but Willey teaches that the information is the public IP addresses of the connectors (Willey: Paragraph [0008]). Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to utilize the IP address of the connector to select the best connector to utilize known information (IP address) to map to the best connector.
Allowable Subject Matter
If claims 1-18 were amended to correct the issues identified above, the claims would be found to be allowable, as the prior art of record fails to provide the specific actions taken with regard to the first and second query, where these reasons will be expanded upon at a time that the claims are in condition for allowance.
Conclusion
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SCOTT B. CHRISTENSEN
Examiner
Art Unit 2444
/SCOTT B CHRISTENSEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2444