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
This is a reply to the application filed on 1/17/2025, in which, claims 21-40 are pending. Claims 21, 31, and 40 are independent.
When making claim amendments, the applicant is encouraged to consider the references in their entireties, including those portions that have not been cited by the examiner and their equivalents as they may most broadly and appropriately apply to any particular anticipated claim amendments.
Drawings
The drawings filed on 1/17/2025 are accepted.
Specification
The disclosure filed on 1/17/2025 is accepted.
Double Patenting
1. A rejection based on double patenting of the "same invention" type finds its support in the language of 35 U.S.C. 101 which states that "whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process ... may obtain a patent therefor ..." (Emphasis added). Thus, the term "same invention," in this context, means an invention drawn to identical subject matter. See Miller v. Eagle Mfg. Co., 151 U.S. 186 (1894); In re Ockert, 245 F.2d 467, 114 USPQ 330 (CCPA 1957); and In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970).
2. 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 obviousness-type double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims 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 conflicting 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.
Effective January 1, 1994, a registered attorney or agent of record may sign a terminal disclaimer. A terminal disclaimer signed by the assignee must fully comply with 37 CFR 3.73(b).
Claims 21, 33, and 40 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1, 14, and 20 of US 10122687 B2. Although the conflicting claims are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because all the limitations recited in the independent claims 21, 33, and 40 of the present application and are broader than limitations recited in independent claims 1, 14, and 20 of US 10122687 B2.
Claims 21, 33, and 40 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1, 14, and 20 of US 11140130 B2. Although the conflicting claims are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because all the limitations recited in the independent claims 21, 33, and 40 of the present application and are broader than limitations recited in independent claims 1, 14, and 20 of US 11140130 B2.
Claims 22-32 and 34-39 of the present application are not patentably distinct from respective claims 1-20 of US 11140130 B2 because the claims recite substantially the same features
Claims 21, 33, and 40 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1, 13, and 20 of US 12261824 B2. Although the conflicting claims are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because all the limitations recited in the independent claims 21, 33, and 40 of the present application and are broader than limitations recited in independent claims 1, 13, and 20 of US 12261824 B2.
Claims 22-32 and 34-39 of the present application are not patentably distinct from respective claims 1-20 of US 12261824 B2 because the claims recite substantially the same features.
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 21-40 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20110023118 A1 (hereinafter Wright) in view of US 20150356451 A1 (hereinafter Gupta).
As regards claim 21, Wright (US 20110023118 A1) discloses: A computer program product comprising computer executable code embodied on a non-transitory computer readable medium that, when executing on one or more computing devices, causes the one or more computing devices to perform the steps of: executing an endpoint in an enterprise network (Wright: ¶39-¶42, i.e., the threat management facility and the detection facility monitoring the endpoints; ¶47-¶48, i.e., the personal firewall and the network firewall)
providing a firewall deployed at a gateway for the enterprise network, the firewall in communication with the endpoint through the enterprise network, and the firewall configured to provide conditional, rule-based access to network resources by one or more applications executing on the endpoint; (Wright: ¶20, ¶39-¶42, ¶47-¶48, i.e., monitoring application execution)
on the endpoint, coloring a first application of the one or more applications with a color in response to a first observed action that includes an exposure to out-of-network data with a descriptor of a context for the first observed action (Wright: ¶20, ¶23, ¶57-¶65, collecting multiple observed behaviors (i.e., first, second, third) wherein each behavior is a particular gene associated with a malicious behavior, and tagging one or more genes as a phenotype i.e., descriptor, indicating malicious or suspicious application)
However, Wright does not but in analogous art, Gupta (US 20150356451 A1) teaches deriving and extracting various features related to applications including attribute features and behavioral features that include actions performed by the application and numbers of times the actions performed in order to classify applications whether they are benign, malicious, or performance degrading, thus teaching: the descriptor including one or more attributes selected for a relevance to threat detection; (Gupta: Abstract, Fig. 2, ¶4, ¶36-¶37, ¶56-¶75)
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Wright to include application attribute and behavioral features that include actions performed by the application and numbers of times the actions performed as taught by Gupta with the motivation to classify applications whether they are benign, malicious, or performance degrading (Gupta: Abstract, Fig. 2, ¶4, ¶36-¶37, ¶56-¶75)
Wright et al combination further discloses: in response to an action by the first application targeting a second application of the one or more applications, inheriting the color with the second application; (Wright: ¶17, ¶26-¶30, i.e., designating other applications based on interactions with the first application)
applying a rule dependent on the descriptor at the endpoint in response to a second observed action of the second application to detect a reportable event, the second observed action including a transmission, from the second application, of secure data; (Wright: ¶6-¶7, ¶17, ¶20-¶30, i.e., applying policy rules based on the identified behavior to mitigate the behavior, ¶32m ¶57-¶65, collecting multiple observed behaviors (i.e., first, second, third) wherein each behavior is a particular gene associated with a malicious behavior, and tagging one or more genes as a phenotype i.e., descriptor, indicating malicious or suspicious application. See also, Gupta: Abstract, Fig. 2, 10, ¶4, ¶8 ¶36-¶37, ¶56-¶75, ¶176-¶178, i.e., activities (i.e., actions) are monitored including the number of times, frequency, volume of the actions, the threshold)
communicating the reportable event through the enterprise network from the endpoint to the firewall; and (Wright: ¶20-¶21, ¶38, ¶39, ¶47)
limiting access by at least one of the one or more applications through the gateway to a network resource with the firewall based on the reportable event. (Wright: ¶20-¶21, ¶38, ¶39, ¶47-¶48)
Claims 33 and 40 recite substantially the same features recited in claim 21 above; and are rejected based on the aforementioned rationale in the rejection.
As regards claim 22, Wright et al combination discloses the computer program product of claim 21, wherein the endpoint includes a cloud-based processing resource. (Wright: Fig. 1, ¶20, ¶23, ¶36. See also, Gupta: ¶40, ¶72)
Claim 32 recites substantially the same features recited in claim 22 above; and is rejected based on the aforementioned rationale in the rejection.
As regards claim 23, Wright et al combination discloses the computer program product of claim 21, further comprising code that causes the one or more computing devices to perform the step of changing an access rule for the endpoint based upon the reportable event. (Wright: ¶28, ¶30)
Claim 33 recites substantially the same features recited in claim 23 above; and is rejected based on the aforementioned rationale in the rejection.
As regards claim 24, Wright et al combination discloses the computer program product of claim 21, wherein the endpoint is at least one of a web server or a client device. (Wright: Fig. 1, ¶17-21, ¶39-¶42, i.e., the threat management facility and the detection facility monitoring the endpoints; ¶47-¶48, i.e., the personal firewall and the network firewall)
Claim 34 recites substantially the same features recited in claim 24 above; and is rejected based on the aforementioned rationale in the rejection.
As regards claim 25, Wright et al combination discloses the computer program product of claim 21, wherein the rule depends on a plurality of observed actions on the endpoint. (Wright: ¶6-¶7, ¶20, ¶23, ¶26, i.e., applying policy rules based on the identified behavior to mitigate the behavior, ¶32m ¶57-¶65, collecting multiple observed behaviors (i.e., first, second, third) wherein each behavior is a particular gene associated with a malicious behavior, and tagging one or more genes as a phenotype i.e., descriptor, indicating malicious or suspicious application)
Claim 35 recites substantially the same features recited in claim 25 above; and is rejected based on the aforementioned rationale in the rejection.
As regards claim 26, Wright et al combination discloses the computer program product of claim 21, wherein the gateway connects the enterprise network to an external network. (Wright: Fig. 1, ¶20-¶22)
Claim 36 recites substantially the same features recited in claim 26 above; and is rejected based on the aforementioned rationale in the rejection.
As regards claim 27, Wright et al combination discloses the computer program product of claim 21, wherein the gateway manages connections to a remote resource for a plurality of endpoints of the enterprise network. (Wright: ¶39-¶42, i.e., the threat management facility and the detection facility monitoring the endpoints; ¶47-¶48, i.e., the personal firewall and the network firewall)
Claim 37 recites substantially the same features recited in claim 27 above; and is rejected based on the aforementioned rationale in the rejection.
As regards claim 28, Wright et al combination discloses the computer program product of claim 27, wherein the remote resource includes at least one of an application server, a file server, and a database server. (Wright: Fig. 1, ¶20-¶22, ¶39-¶48)
Claim 38 recites substantially the same features recited in claim 28 above; and is rejected based on the aforementioned rationale in the rejection.
As regards claim 29, Wright et al combination discloses the computer program product of claim 21, wherein the firewall includes an application firewall. (Wright: Fig. 1, ¶20-¶22, ¶39-¶48)
Claim 39 recites substantially the same features recited in claim 29 above; and is rejected based on the aforementioned rationale in the rejection.
As regards claim 30, Wright et al combination discloses the computer program product of claim 21, further comprising code that causes the one or more computing devices to perform the step of changing an access rule for the endpoint at the gateway based on the reportable event. ((Wright: ¶6-¶7, ¶20, ¶23, ¶26, i.e., applying policy rules based on the identified behavior to mitigate the behavior, ¶32m ¶57-¶65, collecting multiple observed behaviors (i.e., first, second, third) wherein each behavior is a particular gene associated with a malicious behavior, and tagging one or more genes as a phenotype i.e., descriptor, indicating malicious or suspicious application. See also, Gupta: Abstract, Fig. 2, ¶4, ¶8 ¶36-¶37, ¶56-¶75, ¶176-¶178, i.e., the threshold)
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SYED A ZAIDI whose telephone number is (571)270-5995. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday: 5:30AM-5:30PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jeffrey Nickerson can be reached at (469) 295-9235. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/SYED A ZAIDI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2432
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