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 .
Response to Amendment
This is a reply to the amendment filed on 07/06/2026, in which, claim(s) 1-36 are pending. Claim(s) 1, 7, 9, 15, 17 and 23 are amended. Claim(s) 25-36 are withdrawn from consideration. No claim(s) are cancelled or newly added.
Response to Arguments
Claim Rejections - 35 U.S.C. § 102 and 35 U.S.C. § 103:
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the rejection of claim(s) 1-24 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection.
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 of this title, 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.
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 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.
Claims 1-24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Thomas et al. (US 2021/0234901 A1) in view of Junsung Kim (US 2022/0201000 A1) further in view of Schumann, III et al. (US 2023/0246819 A1).
Regarding Claims 1, 9, and 17, Thomas discloses
determining, by a processor in a host computing device, one or more services that are to be exposed to the public internet ([0059], “The threat management facility 100 may provide many different services”);
generating, by the processor, a traffic policy information element (IE) that includes information identifying the determined services and ports associated with the determined services ([0128], “determine whether certain traffic flows meet one or more criteria for execution of the security tasks, e.g., when flows have certain characteristics such as origin IP, port, protocols used, etc. that are triggers for these tasks”, [0154], “the policy for traffic flow associated with known applications”);
Thomas does not explicitly teach but Kim teaches
digitally signing the generated traffic policy IE ([0108], “security policies… are stored in memory (which is accessible by the policy engine) as a digitally signed electronic file”); and
sending the digitally signed traffic policy IE to a default gateway ([0108], “security policies… are stored in memory (which is accessible by the policy engine) a digitally signed electronic file. The memory can be internal to the security gateway” as sending the signed policy to the gateway).
Thomas and Kim are analogous art as they are in the same field of endeavor of information security. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Kim with the disclosure of Thomas. The motivation/suggestion would have been to allow only authorized/valid communication traffic (Kim, [0023]).
The combined teaching of Thomas and Kim does not explicitly teach but Schumann, III teaches
to cause the default gateway, in response to validation of the digital signature, to propagate the digitally signed traffic policy IE for translation into one or more dynamic packet filters applied at network-boundary router interfaces to permit traffic for the determined services and drop traffic for services not identified in the traffic policy IE ([0007], “In response to receiving the packet including metadata specifying the identity context information and PKI information (as the digital signature), the router (as the default gateway) examines the metadata of the packet and cryptographically verifies the metadata based on the PKI information within the metadata. If verified, the router applies, based on the identity context information specified by the metadata, one or more policy rules (e.g., allow or deny access to a service) for the session associated with the packet”, [0035], “”, [0061], “routing component 250 may determine a service identifier based on a correspondence of a source address, source port, destination address, destination port, or protocol in services information 232”),
Thomas, Kim and Schumann, III are analogous art as they are in the same field of endeavor of information security. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Schumann, III with the combined teaching of Thomas and Kim. The motivation/suggestion would have been for providing public key infrastructure (PKI) based session authentication (Schumann, III, [0006]).
Regarding Claims 2, 10, and 18, the combined teaching of Thomas, Kim and Schumann, III teaches
monitoring for changes in service configurations and updating the traffic policy IE based on a current state of services provided by the host (Kim, [0087], “monitoring and managing all traffic that passes between the communication”, [0101], “The policy engine 714 checks that the configuration update is received from the trusted network server by authenticating update messages that are received based on the accompanying message signatures”).
Regarding Claims 3, 11, and 19, the combined teaching of Thomas, Kim and Schumann, III teaches
generating the traffic policy IE to include rules or parameters that direct the flow of network traffic, manage network resource access, prioritize specific traffic types, or safeguard against unauthorized or malicious activity (Thomas, [0114], “the one or more parameters can include an indication of network device processor utilization, network device memory utilization, or traffic flow type”).
Regarding Claims 4, 12, and 20, the combined teaching of Thomas, Kim and Schumann, III teaches
generating a digital signature by digitally signing the generated traffic policy IE using a private key of the host computing device (Kim, [0108], “a digitally signed electronic file”, [0116], “signed by the trusted network update server using the server's cryptographic key (e.g., private key)”).
Regarding Claims 5, 13, and 21, the combined teaching of Thomas, Kim and Schumann, III teaches
verifying the digital signature against a known certificate or public key to confirm an origin of the traffic policy IE (Kim, [0116], “the public key is bound to the server's identity in the digital certificate”).
Regarding Claims 6, 14, and 22, the combined teaching of Thomas, Kim and Schumann, III teaches
the default gateway propagating the digitally signed policy within the network for enforcement by network routers or switches (Kim, [0024], “the security gateway in a vehicle provides the functionality of a router, a switch”).
Regarding Claims 7, 15, and 23, the combined teaching of Thomas, Kim and Schumann, III teaches
wherein enforcement of the digitally signed policy by network routers or switches reduces volumetric distributed denial of service (DDoS) cyber-attacks in the network (Kim, [0096], “a frequency of messages received at the communications device 140 that is significantly higher than the mean value of received message frequency at the communications device 140, and beyond the standard deviation, could indicate a DDoS attack”, [0025], “By having the gateway check all traffic against existing security policies and expected traffic profiles, attacks against component devices in the vehicle, including the security gateway, can be prevented, leading to enhanced security”).
Regarding Claims 8, 16, and 24, the combined teaching of Thomas, Kim and Schumann, III teaches
Wherein: sending the digitally signed traffic policy IE to the default gateway comprises sending out the digitally signed traffic policy IE to the default gateway without the host computing device possessing knowledge of the network architecture for receiving protection against the cyber-attacks (Kim, [0096], “a frequency of messages received at the communications device 140 that is significantly higher than the mean value of received message frequency at the communications device 140, and beyond the standard deviation, could indicate a DDoS attack”, [0025], “By having the gateway check all traffic against existing security policies and expected traffic profiles, attacks against component devices in the vehicle, including the security gateway, can be prevented, leading to enhanced security”); and
sending the digitally signed traffic policy IE to the default gateway causes one or more network devices to automatically configure and enforce protective measures based on the digitally signed traffic policy IE to simplify endpoint security management and enhance network defenses (Kim, [0096], “a frequency of messages received at the communications device 140 that is significantly higher than the mean value of received message frequency at the communications device 140, and beyond the standard deviation, could indicate a DDoS attack”, [0025], “By having the gateway check all traffic against existing security policies and expected traffic profiles, attacks against component devices in the vehicle, including the security gateway, can be prevented, leading to enhanced security”).
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 CHENG-FENG HUANG whose telephone number is (571)272-6186. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday: 9 am - 5 pm.
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/CHENG-FENG HUANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2497
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