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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The seven page information disclosure statement filed 6/4/2024 fails to comply with 37 CFR 1.98(a)(2), which requires a legible copy of each cited foreign patent document; each non-patent literature publication or that portion which caused it to be listed; and all other information or that portion which caused it to be listed. It has been placed in the application file, but the following information referred to therein has not been considered: There are no submissions that correspond to items 1 and 2 listed on the second page of the seven page IDS submission noted above.
The eight page information disclosure statement filed 6/4/2024 fails to comply with 37 CFR 1.98(a)(2), which requires a legible copy of each cited foreign patent document; each non-patent literature publication or that portion which caused it to be listed; and all other information or that portion which caused it to be listed. It has been placed in the application file, but the following information referred to therein has not been considered: There are no submissions that correspond to item 1 listed on the second page of the eight page IDS submission noted above.
Additionally, there are no submissions that correspond to item 12 listed on the third page of the eight page IDS submission noted above.
Finally, there are no submissions that correspond to items 36 and 40 listed on the fifth page of the eight page IDS submission noted above.
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, 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 15 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Mani (Mani et al. "Securing Public Clouds using Dynamic Communication Graphs." Proceedings of the 22nd ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks. Page and line numberings added. (Year: 2023)) in view of DiValentin (US-20180077175-A1).
Regarding claim 15, Mani shows data processing system comprising: receiving telemetry data from a plurality of nodes (each represented in Mani by an IP + port number as discussed on pg. 5 R1-R41, as well as the discussion of “hall hosts” on pg. 5 R47-R52) of a cloud-based computing environment; (pg. 2 L9-L11, L36-L39 and pg. 5 R40-R42)
analyzing the telemetry data using a communication graph pipeline (pg. 6, Section 3.2 and pg. 6 R20-R22 and R49-R50) to generate a communication graph representing communication among the plurality of nodes of the cloud-based computing environment (pg. 1 L12-L16 and L40-L41); and analyzing the communication graph (pg. 2 L1-L10) using a role inference pipeline to infer roles of the plurality of nodes of the cloud-based computing environment included in the communication graph (pg. 3 L38-L42) and output inferred roles for the plurality of nodes (pg. 3 Fig. 1 and L44-L47), the role inference pipeline utilizing adjacency information (pg. 3 L40-L41 discussing “neighbors”), node features (e.g., features indicating communications patterns, as discussed on pg. 3 L40-L43), and partial labeling information ()pg. 3 L49-L50, suggesting such an inclusion when reciting “labels are a good start. . .” as well as Section 2.1 discussing use of labels/tags when advocating for the utility of micro segmentation) to infer roles for the plurality of nodes (pg. 3 Fig. 1 and L44-L47).
Mani does not show the hardware implementation details of the disclosed system, and thus lacks disclosure of:
a processor; and a memory storing executable instructions that, when executed, cause the processor alone or in combination with other processors to perform operations. DiValentin shows: a processor (Fig. 1 item 114); and a memory storing executable instructions that, when executed, cause the processor alone or in combination with other processors to perform operations (Fig. 1 items 118, 114, and 120). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention with the hardware implementation of DiValentin in order to provide an implementation hardware for the techniques disclosed in Mani, simplifying utilization of Mani’s disclosure.
Regarding claim 20, the above combination further shows wherein the memory further includes instructions configured to cause the processor alone or in combination with other processors to perform operations of: generating a visualization of the communication graph based on the inferred roles for the plurality of nodes (Mani, Fig. 1 and pg. 1 R9-R24).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1 - 14 are allowed. Claims 16 – 19 are objected to for their dependency on rejected claim 1, but would be allowable if rewritten in dependent for with all the features of their respective parent claim(s).
The following is an examiner’s statement of reasons for allowance: The prior art neither teaches nor suggests all the features recited in claims 1, 10, and 16. The above cited Mani NPL is the closest prior art to the features disclosed in claims 1, 10, and 16. While Mani recites language disclosing some of the features of claim 16, including: discussion of communication graphs (pg. 1 L40-L49), use of a role inference pipeline (pg. 3 L38-L42) and general discussion related to reduction of matrix dimensionality (Section 2.2 on pg. 4), Mani lacks sufficient detail regarding the use of adjacency matrices when analyzing network traffic in the manner claimed as well as the use of the above noted role inference pipeline when performing the particular dimensionality reduction steps claimed. Language including these features of claim 16 is similarly present in claims 1 and 10. Additional prior art relevant to the disclosure includes the prior art NPL provided by applicant, particularly Lakhina (Lakhina, Anukool, Mark Crovella, and Christophe Diot. "Mining anomalies using traffic feature distributions." ACM SIGCOMM computer communication review 35.4 (2005): 217-228); Lakhina being particularly relevant to the discussion regarding embedding analysis in claim 19, e.g., (see Lakhina, Section 4.3 on pg. 222, Fig. 6B, and Section 7.1 on pg. 225). Wang (Wang et al. English translation of CN_115622950_A_I. (Year: 2023)) is also relevant to applicants disclosure and the use of matrices when processing and analyzing network traffic. Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOHN M MACILWINEN whose telephone number is (571)272-9686. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 9:00 - 5:00.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Glenton B Burgess can be reached at (571) 272 - 3949. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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JOHN MACILWINEN
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2442
/JOHN M MACILWINEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2454