DETAILED ACTION
This office action is in response to the claims filed on 3/31/2025. Claim(s) 2-21 is/are pending and are 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 .
Priority/Benefit
Applicant’s priority claim is hereby acknowledged of CON of 18/379,711 10/13/2023 PAT 12200002, 18/379,711 is a CON of 17/568,399 01/04/2022 PAT 11818155, 17/568,399 is a CON of 16/945,087 07/31/2020 ABN, 16/945,087 is a CON of 15/978,150 05/13/2018 PAT 10735446, 15/978,150 is a CON of 15/363,871 11/29/2016 PAT 9973523, 15/363,871 is a CON of 14/457,060 08/11/2014 PAT 9507768, 14/457,060 has PRO 61/864,274 08/09/2013, which papers have been placed of record in the file.
Information Disclosure Statement PTO-1449
The Information Disclosure Statement(s) submitted by applicant on 4/1/2025 has/have been considered. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR § 1.97. Form PTO-1449 signed and attached hereto.
Examiner’s Note – Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-4 and 13-14 are objected to as being allowable, overcome the prior art and would otherwise be allowable if incorporated into the base claim along with any intervening claims. Similarly, claims 5-6 and 15-16 overcome the prior art and must overcome the double patenting rejection below.
Examiner’s Note – Distinct Subject Matter
The instant claims have an extensive patent family. Where a double patenting rejection has not been made, the instant claims are patentably distinct.
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the claims at issue are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); and In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on a nonstatutory double patenting ground provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with this application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The USPTO internet Web site contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit http://www.uspto.gov/forms/. The filing date of the application will determine what form should be used. A web-based eTerminal Disclaimer may be filled out completely online using web-screens. An eTerminal Disclaimer that meets all requirements is auto-processed and approved immediately upon submission. For more information about eTerminal Disclaimers, refer to:
http://www.uspto.gov/patents/process/file/efs/guidance/eTD-info-I.jsp.
Claim(s) 2, 5-6, 11-12, 15-16, and 21 is/are rejected on the grounds of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 4-5, 13-14, and 17 of application 18/379,711 now US Patent 12200002. Although the claims at issue are not identical in form, they are not patentably distinct from each other. In particular, the patented claims anticipate the instant claims.
Instant claim 2 is anticipated by patented claim 4. Instant claim 5 is anticipated by patented claim 5. Instant claim 6 is anticipated by patented claim 13. Instant claim 11 is anticipated by patented claim 13. Instant claim 12 is anticipated by patented claim 17. Instant claim 15 is anticipated by patented claims 5 and 14. Instant claim 16 is anticipated by patented claims 13 and 14. Instant claim 21 is anticipated by patented claims 13 and 14.
Claim(s) 2, 5, 11-12, 15 and 21 is/are rejected on the grounds of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1, 4, 6, and 12 of application 17/568,399 now US Patent 11818155. Although the claims at issue are not identical in form, they are not patentably distinct from each other. In particular, the patented claims anticipate the instant claims.
Instant claim 2 is anticipated by patented claim 1. Instant claim 5 is anticipated by patented claim 4. Instant claim 11 is anticipated by patented claim 12. Instant claim 12 is anticipated by patented claims 1 and 6. Instant claim 15 is anticipated by patented claims 4 and 6. Instant claim 21 is anticipated by patented claims 1 and 6.
Claim(s) 2, 5-6, 11-12, 15-16, and 21 is/are rejected on the grounds of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 5, 7, and 13 of application 15/978,150 now US Patent 10735446. Although the claims at issue are not identical in form, they are not patentably distinct from each other. In particular, the patented claims anticipate the instant claims.
Instant claim 2 is anticipated by patented claim 5. Instant claim 5 is anticipated by patented claims 5 and 13. Instant claim 6 is anticipated by patented claims 5 and 13. Instant claim 11 is anticipated by patented claims 5 and 13. Instant claim 12 is anticipated by patented claim 7. Instant claim 15 is anticipated by patented claims 7 and 13. Instant claim 16 is anticipated by patented claims 7 and 13. Instant claim 21 is anticipated by patented claims 7 and 13.
Claim(s) 2, 5, 11-12, 15, and 21 is/are rejected on the grounds of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1 and 7 of application 15/363,871 now US Patent 9973523. Although the claims at issue are not identical in form, they are not patentably distinct from each other. In particular, the patented claims anticipate the instant claims.
Instant claim 2 is anticipated by patented claim 1. Instant claim 5 is anticipated by patented claim 1. Instant claim 11 is anticipated by patented claim 1. Instant claim 12 is anticipated by patented claim 7. Instant claim 15 is anticipated by patented claim 7. Instant claim 21 is anticipated by patented claim 7.
Claim(s) 2, 5, 11-12, 15, and 21 is/are rejected on the grounds of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1 and 7 of application 14/457,060 now US Patent 9507768. Although the claims at issue are not identical in form, they are not patentably distinct from each other. In particular, the patented claims anticipate the instant claims.
Instant claim 2 is anticipated by patented claim 1. Instant claim 5 is anticipated by patented claim 1. Instant claim 11 is anticipated by patented claim 1. Instant claim 12 is anticipated by patented claim 7. Instant claim 15 is anticipated by patented claim 7. Instant claim 21 is anticipated by patented claim 7.
Claim(s) 2 and 12 is/are rejected on the grounds of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 3-5 and 17-19 of application 15/469,568 now US Patent 10,187,415. Although the claims at issue are not identical in form, they are not patentably distinct from each other. In particular, the patented claims anticipate the instant claims.
Instant claim 2 is anticipated by patented claims 3, 4, and 5. Instant claim 12 is anticipated by patented claims 17, 18, and 19.
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.
Claim(s) 2, 7-12, and 17-21 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Day (US 2006/0156404 A1), in view of Cobb (US 2011/0064267 A1) in view of Commons (US 2024/0220797 A1).
Regarding claims 2 and 12, Day teaches:
“A method for processing streams of data of one or more networked computer systems (Day, ¶ 54-55, computer implemented process), the method comprising: receiving an ordered stream of vectors associated with information security data obtained from one or more sensors monitoring a computer network (Day, Fig. 2, 3, ¶ 42-44, streams of network data are analyzed for potential attacks); generating a neuro model (Day, Fig. 2, 3, ¶ 44-47, streams of network security data are converted into vectors for further analysis. Day, Fig. 2, 3, ¶ 47-50, self-organizing map of clusters is used to detect attacks)”.
Day does not, but in related art, Cobb teaches: “normalized vectors (Cobb ¶ 44, teaches that vectors are normalized), generating a neuro-linguistic model by (Cobb ¶ 74-82, and teaches generating a neuro-linguistic model) assigning a unique symbol from a plurality of symbols to each cluster from a plurality of clusters formed by clustering the normalized vectors into groups (Cobb ¶ 74-75, generating a model from vector data by labeling clusters with letters, segmenting streams of labeled vectors into sequences of letters), building words by identifying and storing frequent combinations of symbols from the plurality of symbols (Cobb ¶ 83-87 teaches how these sequences are used to build a self-organizing map), and generating a syntax of phrases by analyzing relationships between words from the words (Cobb ¶ 83-87 teaches how these sequences are used to build a self-organizing map); dynamically updating the neuro-linguistic model by reinforcing frequently- occurring patterns of the words and decaying infrequent or obsolete patterns of the dictionary of words over time, thereby producing an updated neuro-linguistic model (Cobb, ¶ 51, 79, teaches probabilistic relationships to determine mapping of sequences and their respective clustering); and using the updated neuro-linguistic model to detect and alert on anomalies by comparing observed patterns to the syntax of phrases (Cobb ¶ 92-94, and Fig. 9, teaches detecting anomalies for sequences of clustered information when the standard deviation exceeds a specified amount in the sequence model and using the sequence method to generate alerts when anomalies occur)”.
At the time of the applicants’ earliest effective filing it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Day and Cobb, to modify the intrusion detection system of Day to include the sequence labeling model for event detection as taught in Cobb. The motivation to do so would be, as stated by Cobb, Abstract, would be to improve over typical classifiers to identify complex patterns of behavior in an unsupervised learning algorithm.
Day and Cobb do not, but in related art, Commons ¶ 159-160, 210, and 218-219 teaches utilizing a dictionary in neural network detection system.
At the time of the applicants’ earliest effective filing it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Day, Commons and Cobb, to modify the intrusion detection system of Day and Cobb to include the use of a dictionary system in a neural network anomaly detection system as taught in Commons. The motivation to do so constitutes applying a known technique to known devices and/or methods ready for improvement to yield predictable results.
Regarding claims 7 and 17, Day in view of Cobb in view of Commons teaches:
“The method of claim 2 (Day in view of Cobb in view of Commons teaches the limitations of the parent claims as discussed above), wherein the using the updated neuro-linguistic model to detect anomalies includes estimating a rareness of the observed patterns (Cobb, ¶ 92-93 teaches determining that a rare node in a self organizing map represents an anomaly)”.
Regarding claims 8 and 18, Day in view of Cobb in view of Commons teaches:
“The method of claim 2 (Day in view of Cobb in view of Commons teaches the limitations of the parent claims as discussed above), further comprising storing the updated neuro-linguistic model in a long-term memory (Commons, ¶ 216, 220, and 234 teaches an adaptive resonance network to implement the neural network)”.
Regarding claims 9 and 19, Day in view of Cobb in view of Commons teaches:
“The method of claim 8 (Day in view of Cobb in view of Commons teaches the limitations of the parent claims as discussed above), wherein the long-term memory is implemented using at least one of an adaptive resonance theory (ART) network (Commons, ¶ 216, 220, and 234 teaches an adaptive resonance network to implement the neural network)”.
Regarding claims 10 and 20, Day in view of Cobb in view of Commons teaches:
“The method of claim 2 (Day in view of Cobb in view of Commons teaches the limitations of the parent claims as discussed above), wherein the plurality of clusters includes fuzzy representations of linguistic data (Commons, ¶ 225 teaches that the neural network using words is a fuzzy system)”.
Regarding claims 11 and 21, Day in view of Cobb in view of Commons teaches:
“The method of claim 2 (Day in view of Cobb in view of Commons teaches the limitations of the parent claims as discussed above), wherein the relationships between the words from the dictionary of words are based on orderings of words from the dictionary of words (Cobb ¶ 83-87 teaches how these sequences are used to build a self-organizing map. Commons ¶ 159-160, 210, and 218-219 teaches utilizing a dictionary in neural network detection system)”.
Conclusion
In the case of amending the claimed invention, Applicant is respectfully requested to indicate the portion(s) of the specification which dictate(s) the structure relied on for proper interpretation and also to verify and ascertain the metes and bounds of the claimed invention.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure: See PTO-892.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Stephen T Gundry whose telephone number is (571) 270-0507. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9AM-5PM (EST).
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Amir Mehrmanesh can be reached at (571) 270-3351. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/STEPHEN T GUNDRY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2435
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