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. 18/991,978 is presented for examination by the examiner.
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d). The certified copy has been received.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-3, 8-10, and 14-16 are rejected under 35 U. S. C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter as being directed to an abstract idea without being integrated into a practical application or significantly more.
Regarding claims 1, 8, and 14, the claims are directed to an abstract idea as reciting the limitations “determining an amount of change, determining if amount of change is greater than a threshold, and detecting that an anomaly exists.” Broadly interpreted, the aforementioned steps are directed to mental processes as said steps could be performed in the human mind. Therefore, the claims recite an abstract idea.
Said abstract idea and/or judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application as the claim does not recite any other active steps that utilize a determination result into a practical application. It’s noted that the claims recite additional elements (i.e., media, processor, CRSM, etc.,). However, said additional elements are recited at a high-level of generality (i.e., as a generic processor performing a generic computer functions) such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception or abstract idea using a generic computer component. Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. A human looking at data with hop counts and RTT can detect when the numbers change by a given amount, i.e. 10%. The detecting does not do anything technical to the system. A person can decide an anomaly is occurring if the number change over the threshold. The system is not gathering the data or processing it in real time, nor is it performing actual steps to protect the system or fix the problem.
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional elements when considered both individually and as an ordered combination do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea. As mentioned above, although the claims recite additional elements, said elements taken individually or as a combination, do not result in the claim amounting to significantly more than the abstract idea because as the additional elements perform generic computer content distributing functions routinely used in information technology field. As discussed above, the additional elements recited at a high-level of generality such that they amount no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Therefore, the claim is directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Regarding claims 2-3, 9-10, and 15-16, they are also rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter for the same reasons addressed above as the claims recite an abstract idea and the claims do not positively recite any other operations that could be considered as the abstract idea is being integrated into a practical application or significantly more. The mitigation covers things that a human can do like tell someone about the problem. A human can also decide there is no anomaly when the numbers do not change much.
.
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 1-4, 8-11, and 14-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over USP Application Publication 2022/0027431 to Zheng et al., hereinafter Zheng in view of USP Application Publication 2017/0034721 to Yang et al., hereinafter Yang.
As per claims 1, 8, and 14, Zheng teaches a method comprising:
determining an amount of change between aggregate representational error data [UX/UEX; 0003]; for a network and number of hops data and average travel time data based on comparing the aggregate representational error data
determining whether the amount of change between the aggregate representational error data for the network and at least one of the number of hops data and the average travel time data is greater than a defined maximum amount of change threshold level [any respective metric can be monitored for meeting a predetermined threshold; 0129]; and
responsive to determining that the amount of change between the aggregate representational error data for the network and at least one of the number of hops data and the average travel time data is greater than the defined maximum amount of change threshold level, detecting that an anomaly exists in the network (0039 and 0110).
Zheng monitors the change in the metrics over time including total hop count and network latency (0129). These metrics can be aggregated into a score and when certain threshold changes occur the score degrades and the system is alerts. Zheng does not explicitly teach the aggregate representational error data indicates expected network behavior for the network regarding data packet number of hops and average travel time in the network with the number of hops data. Zheng monitors change but stops short of calling the historical average an expected network behavior. On the other hand, Yang performs network monitoring by deriving a predict value based on historical/past observation of network metrics compares what is presently observed (0016-0019). Yang uses Kalman filtering to predict the KQI values in incoming time slots. Zheng already teaches monitoring over time for changes. 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 2, 9, and 15, Zheng teaches determining that there is a security risk to the network based on the anomaly (0039, 0110); and performing a set of action steps to mitigate the security risk to the network (0126).
As per claims 3, 10, and 16, Zheng teaches responsive to determining that the amount of change between the aggregate representational error data for the network and the number of hops data and the average travel time data is not greater than the defined maximum amount of change threshold level, determining that no anomaly exists in the network [Zheng only preforms alerts when metrics have changed. If no metric changes, is changes less than the threshold, the score stays the same and that is a determination that no anomaly exists; 0127].
As per claims 4, 11, and 17, the combination of Zheng and Yang teaches analyzing operational time series data corresponding to a first number of hops and a first average travel time of a first plurality of data packets traversing the network from source devices to destination devices [Zheng: 0129] over a given time epoch using a set of Kalman filters [Yang: 0016, 0018, and 0020].
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-7, 12-13, and 18-20 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure is listed on the enclosed PTO-892 form.
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 - Friday, 9:30am - 5:30pm, 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.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/MICHAEL R VAUGHAN/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2431
Prosecution Insights