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 .
DETAILED ACTION
The instant application having Application No. 18/525,623 is presented for examination by the examiner. Claims 1, 8, 16, 19, and 20 have been amended. Claims 1-20 are pending.
Response to Amendment
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
Rejections under this statute have been overcome by amendment.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1, 9, and 16 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.
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 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 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.
Claims 1-7, 9-13, and 16-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over USP Application Publication 2019/0007394 to Patel et al., hereinafter Patel in view of USP 11,451,587 to Narayanaswamy et al., hereinafter Netskope.
As per claim 1, Patel teaches a security enforcement system (0034) comprising:
one or more processing resources (0035); and instructions that when executed by the one or more processing resources cause the security enforcement system to:
obtain a plurality of fingerprints generated based on a set of files stored in a cloud-native service (0029); and
perform, by a prevention service of the security enforcement system, protection on a file based at least in part on the plurality of fingerprints (0030), wherein the file is at rest on an endpoint protected by the security enforcement system or in transit through the security enforcement point (0032 and 0033).
Patel teaches a protection service where by the trustworthiness of application on a cloud are monitored and enforced. Patel is silent in explicitly teaching the fingerprints are data loss prevention (DLP) fingerprints and performing a DLP service on the file based on the DLP fingerprints.
Netskope teaches obtaining data loss prevention (DLP) fingerprints on files stored in the cloud (col. 8, lines 49-54 and col. 10, lines 24-30 and 40-43) and performing a DLP service on the file based on the DLP fingerprints (col. 9, lines 59-col. 10, line 3) Patel uses a CASB for the monitoring of data between the cloud and client. The CASB of Patel is capable and positioned to be able to checked files for DLP that flow through it. Netskope also teaching scanning files during to and from the cloud (col. 9, lines 59-65 and col. 11, lines 45-53). The claim is obvious because one of ordinary skill in the art can combine methods known before the effective filing date which produce predictable results. Making sure not only applications are not leaking data but the files that contain the data are not leaking increases the security of the system and yields a predictable result because CASB were known to perform the same functionality before the effective filing date.
As per claims 9 and 16, they are rejected for the same reasons as claim 1.
As per claims 2 and 10, the combined system of Patel and Netskope teaches the plurality of DLP fingerprints are locally generated by the DLP service by accessing the set of the files via an application programming interface (API) exposed by the cloud-native service (0011 and 0015).
As per claim 3, the combined system of Patel and Netskope teaches the plurality of DLP fingerprints are received by the security enforcement system directly from a cloud access security broker (CASB) or indirectly from the CASB via another security enforcement system (0011 and 0029), wherein the CASB is configurable to access the set of the files via an application programming interface (API) exposed by the cloud-native service and generate the plurality of DLP fingerprints (0011 and 0015).
As per claims 4 and 12, Patel teaches the plurality of DLP fingerprints are received by the security enforcement system directly or indirectly from the cloud-native service [fingerprint module 140 generates fingerprints; 0010 and 0011].
As per claims 5, 13, and 18, Patel teaches the cloud-native service comprises infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), software-as-a-service (SaaS) (0014 and 0039), platform-as-a- service (PaaS), or container-as-a-service (CaaS).
As per claim 6, Patel teaches the IaaS comprises an object storage service. This limitation is not required to be explicitly taught because it further defines one of the alternative options recited in claim 5.
As per claim 7, the combined system of Patel and Netskope teaches the SaaS comprises a file hosting service [Netskope: col. 8, lines 46-53] or a productivity platform. File hosting service is a type of SaaS.
As per claim 11, it is rejected for the same reasons as claim 3.
As per claim 17, it is rejected for the same reasons as claims 2, 3, and 4, being the combination of all those claims.
Claim(s) 8, 14, 15, 19, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Patel and Netskope as applied to claims 1, 9 and 16 above, and further in view of NPL entitled “Zero Trust, SASE and SSE: Foundational Concepts for Your Next-Generation Network” published 2022 by Garbers et al., hereinafter Garbers.
As per claim 8, Patel and Netskope are silent in explicitly teaching the security enforcement point comprises a security service edge (SSE) or a secure access service edge (SASE) platform. On the other hand, Garbers teaches SSE and SASE enforcements points. Specifically, SASE can provide CASB functions and SSE is a subset of SASE functionality (pgs. 2-4). These services build on security function that can monitor traffic in a ZTNA. They can be viewed as an evolution of the cloud security architecture that builds on security function such as CASB. Thus, they could have been implemented in the system of Patel and Netskope to build on the security of the CASB with predictable results. The claim is obvious because one of ordinary skill in the art can combine methods known before the effective filing date which produce predictable results.
As per claims 14, 15, 19, and 20, they are rejected for the same reasons as claim 8.
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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHAEL R. VAUGHAN whose telephone number is (571)270-7316. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday - Thursday, 7:30am - 5:00pm, EST. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Lynn Feild can be reached on (571) 272-2092. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MICHAEL R VAUGHAN/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2431