DETAILED ACTION
Applicant’s amendment filed 4/9/2026 has been fully considered.
Claims 1-20 are pending and have been examined.
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
The rejection under 35 USC § 112 is withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the prior art have been fully considered and are persuasive. The prior art rejection has been withdrawn.
Double Patenting
Claims 1-20 are provisionally rejected under the judicially created doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims of copending US patent application 18521351, and US Patent Nos. 11677717, 12101295, 12107827. Although the conflicting claims are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because they are analogous and broader as
“A method, comprising: receiving traffic at a first traffic interface at a first compute server of a distributed cloud computing network, wherein the first traffic interface is a layer 3 traffic interface, and wherein the received traffic is destined for a private application or service running on a server of the customer outside of the distributed cloud computing network; determining identity information associated with the received traffic including that the received first traffic is attributable to a customer of a unified network service provided through the distributed cloud computing network; determining, using one or more policies configured for the customer and the determined identity information associated with the received traffic, whether the received traffic is allowed to be transmitted to the private application or service; responsive to determining that the received traffic is allowed to be transmitted to the private application or service, determining a second traffic interface that interfaces with the server of the customer, wherein the second traffic interface is a layer 7 traffic interface, and wherein the determined second traffic interface is on a second compute server of the distributed cloud computing network; transmitting the received traffic from the first compute server to the determined second traffic interface on the second compute server; and transmitting, from the determined second traffic interface on the second compute server to the server of the customer, the received traffic” (claim 1, instant application) is analogous to
“A method, comprising: receiving traffic at a traffic interface of a compute server, wherein the traffic interface is one of a Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) tunnel interface, an encrypted tunnel interface, a Virtual Private Network (VPN) server interface, and an Internet Protocol Security (IPsec) tunnel interface; determining identity information associated with the traffic, wherein the identity information includes at least an identifier of a first customer to which the traffic is attributable, the first customer having a first isolated network stack at the compute server; determining, using one or more egress policies configured for the first customer and the identity information, whether the traffic is allowed to be transmitted to a target destination of the traffic, wherein the target destination of the traffic is a resource of a second customer having a second isolated network stack at the compute server; responsive to determining that the traffic is allowed to be transmitted to the target destination, transmitting the traffic and the identity information to the second isolated network stack; receiving the traffic at the second isolated network stack at the compute server; determining, using one or more ingress policies configured for the second customer and the identity information, whether the traffic is allowed to be transmitted to the target destination of the traffic; and responsive to determining that the traffic is allowed to be transmitted to the target destination, transmitting the traffic to the target destination” (claim 1, copending application 18521351) and is analogous to
“A method, comprising: receiving first traffic at a first traffic interface at a first compute server of a distributed cloud computing network, wherein the received first traffic is destined for a private application or service running on a server of a customer of a unified network service provided through the distributed cloud computing network, wherein the server is outside of the distributed cloud computing network, wherein the first traffic interface is an IPsec tunnel interface that interfaces with an IPsec tunnel from a router of the customer, wherein the IPsec tunnel interface is assigned an IP address that is an anycast IP address that is shared among the first compute server and a plurality of other compute servers of the distributed cloud computing network, and wherein a different one of the other compute servers of the distributed cloud computing network performed a handshake with the router including generating a set of one or more security associations for encrypting and decrypting; receiving the generated set of one or more security associations for encrypting and decrypting traffic on the IPsec tunnel interface, wherein the received first traffic is encrypted; decrypting the encrypted received first traffic using the set of one or more security associations; determining identity information associated with the received first traffic including that the received first traffic is attributable to the customer including identifying the customer based on the IPsec tunnel being associated with an account of the customer; determining, using one or more policies configured for the customer and the determined identity information associated with the received first traffic, whether the received first traffic is allowed to be transmitted to the private application or service including determining whether traffic received over the IPsec tunnel is allowed to access the private application or service; responsive to determining that the received first traffic is allowed to be transmitted to the private application or service, determining a second traffic interface that interfaces with the server of the customer, wherein the second traffic interface is a layer 7 traffic interface, and wherein the determined second traffic interface is on a second compute server of the distributed cloud computing network; transmitting the received first traffic from the first compute server to the determined second traffic interface on the second compute server; and transmitting, from the determined second traffic interface on the second compute server to the server of the customer, the received first traffic” (claim 1, patent 11677717) and is analogous to
“A method, comprising: receiving an IPSec tunnel request for establishing an IPSec tunnel from a customer router to an anycast IP address of a distributed cloud computing network, wherein a same anycast IP address is shared among a plurality of compute servers of the distributed cloud computing network; performing a handshake with the customer router from a first one of the compute servers of the distributed cloud computing network, wherein performing the handshake includes generating a set of one or more security associations for encrypting and decrypting IPSec traffic; propagating the generated set of security associations to each of the other plurality of compute servers of the distributed cloud computing network; receiving a first packet destined to the customer router at a second one of the compute servers of the distributed cloud computing network, wherein the first packet is received at a first traffic interface of the second compute server, and wherein the first traffic interface is a layer 2 or layer 3 tunnel interface connected with a different customer router; encrypting the first packet at the second one of the compute servers using the propagated generated set of security associations; and transmitting the encrypted first packet from the second one of the compute servers to the customer router” (claim 1, patent 12101295) and is analogous to
“A method, comprising: receiving first traffic at a first traffic interface at a first compute server of a distributed cloud computing network, wherein the received first traffic is destined for a private application or service running on a server of a customer of a unified network service provided through the distributed cloud computing network, wherein the server is outside of the distributed cloud computing network, wherein the first traffic interface is a generic routing encapsulation (GRE) interface that interfaces with a GRE tunnel from a router of the customer; determining identity information associated with the received first traffic including that the received first traffic is attributable to the customer based on the GRE tunnel being associated with an account of the customer; determining, using one or more policies configured for the customer and the determined identity information associated with the received first traffic, whether the received first traffic is allowed to be transmitted to the private application or service including determining whether traffic received over the GRE tunnel is allowed to access the private application or service; responsive to determining that the received first traffic is allowed to be transmitted to the private application or service, determining a second traffic interface that interfaces with the server of the customer, wherein the second traffic interface is a layer 7 traffic interface, and wherein the determined second traffic interface is on a second compute server of the distributed cloud computing network; transmitting the received first traffic from the first compute server to the determined second traffic interface on the second compute server; and transmitting, from the determined second traffic interface on the second compute server to the server of the customer, the received first traffic” (claim 1, patent 12107827).
This is a provisional obviousness-type double patenting rejection because the conflicting claims of the instant application have not in fact been patented.
The claims of the conflicting patents and/or applications contain every element of claims 1-20 of the instant application and thus anticipate the claims of the instant application. Claims 1-20 of the instant application therefore are not patently distinct from the copending application claims and as such are unpatentable for obvious-type double patenting. A later patent/application claim is not patentably distinct from an earlier claim if the later claim is anticipated by the earlier claim.
“A later patent claim is not patentably distinct from an earlier patent claim if the later claim is obvious over, or anticipated by, the earlier claim. In re Longi, 759 F.2d at 896, 225 USPQ at 651 (affirming a holding of obviousness-type double patenting because the claims at issue were obvious over claims in four prior art patents); In re Berg, 140 F.3d at 1437, 46 USPQ2d at 1233 (Fed. Cir. 1998) (affirming a holding of obviousness-type double patenting where a patent application claim to a genus is anticipated by a patent claim to a species with that genus). “ELI LILLY AND COMPANY v BARR LABORATORIES, INC., United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, ON PETITION FOR REHEARING EN BANC (DECIDED: May 30, 2001).
“Claim 12 and Claim 13 are generic to the species of invention covered by claim 3 of the patent. Thus, the generic invention is “anticipated” by the species of the patented invention. Cf., Titanium Metals Corp. v. Banner, 778 F.2d 775, 227 USPQ 773 (Fed. Cir. 1985) (holding that an earlier species disclosure in the prior art defeats any generic claim) 4. This court’s predecessor has held that, without a terminal disclaimer, the species claims preclude issuance of the generic claim. In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 944, 214 USPQ 761, 767 (CCPA 1982); Schneller, 397 F.2d at 354. Accordingly, absent a terminal disclaimer, claims 12 and 13 were properly rejected under the doctrine of obviousness-type double patenting.” (In re Goodman (CA FC) 29 USPQ2d 2010 (12/3/1993).
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: the remaining references put forth on the PTO-892 form are directed to providing network layer security in cloud computing environments. Wondra (11128491) disclosed a distributed cloud computing network for providing network layer performance and security. Branch (11425216) disclosed a method and system for intelligently routing traffic in a distributed computing network implementing VPN. Teng (9948552) disclosed a cloud-based services exchange for interconnecting multiple cloud service providers with multiple cloud service customer, which enable cloud customers to bypass the public Internet to directly connect to cloud services providers to improve performance and security of the connections.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to David García Cervetti whose telephone number is (571)272-5861. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 8AM-5PM.
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/David Garcia Cervetti/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2409
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