DETAILED ACTION
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 .
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 7/23/2026 has been entered.
This Non-Final rejection is in response to the amendment filed on 7/23/2026. Claims 235-238, 240 – 251 and 253-254 are pending. Claims 239 and 252 are cancelled. Claims 1-234 remain cancelled. Claims 235, 248, and 254 are currently amended and are independent claims.
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, 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 235-238, 140-251, and 253-254 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sharma et al. (US 2020/0274783 A1, hereinafter Sharma) in view of Bryant et al. (US 2005/0063377 A1, hereinafter Bryant).
Regarding claim 248, Sharma teaches a system for performing client application-less operations for digital experience monitoring based on real user communications, [Par.[0040] cloud-based security system in Figure 1], the system comprising:
at least one processor configured to: monitor by at least one cloud-based networking component in a Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) network, network traffic associated with a plurality of applications running on a plurality of client devices connected to the SASE network, [claim limitation related to SASE aligns with the cloud-based security system in the reference; Figure 9, 821, 822,823 inline monitoring of network access of users using associated devices to execute applications; see associated description starting at Par.[0088]];
for each of the plurality of applications running on each of the plurality of client devices, based on the monitoring of the network traffic, determine, by the cloud-based networking component, a digital user experience score, [Figure 9, 824 for quantifying the digital user experience metrics obtained from monitoring];
transmit each of the digital user experience scores associated with each of the plurality of applications running on each of the plurality of client devices to at least one administrator of the SASE network, [Figure 9, 824, Par.[0106] for ‘network administrators can get UEX reports from the cloud service 802’; see also Par.[0111]];
Sharma does not teach wherein the monitoring of the network traffic is performed without installing monitoring applications on the plurality of client devices, and wherein the monitoring of the network traffic is performed externally to the plurality of client devices by at least one network-accessible component positioned at a network layer to observe communications associated with the plurality of applications, without executing monitoring logic on the plurality of client devices, [notice however, that Sharma alludes to a never inline manner monitoring in Par.[0069] suggesting that the inline monitoring setup described may be optionally outside the client];
Bryant in an analogous art teaches wherein the monitoring of the network traffic is performed without installing monitoring applications on the plurality of client devices, and wherein the monitoring of the network traffic is performed externally to the plurality of client devices by at least one network-accessible component positioned at a network layer to observe communications associated with the plurality of applications, without executing monitoring logic on the plurality of client devices, [Figure 1 shows a network-centric monitoring application, see also Figures 2A-2C, 3; Par.[0076] among others describes mapping traffic patterns (observing communications) between application programs that are available at the clients and servers and types of activities being conducted at the clients and servers; monitoring system in Figure 1 is located outside of a client device, for example see Figure 2C];
it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Sharma to adopt never inline monitoring and locate the monitoring logic externally to the plurality of client devices. The motivation/suggestion would have been to map traffic patterns between components in a network and provide information from the messages to other components in the network that may be interested in the information. A map of the data models and the endpoints that transmit packets conforming to each data model can also be generated and provided to the interested components. The information in the map can be used by the interested components to communicate with the endpoints. The system can also be configured to protect networks against the unique dangers and intrusions posed by particular types of content. For example, such a system can examine SOAP headers and XML tags, and based on the contents in messages, distinguish legitimate from unauthorized content, [Bryant: Par.[0056]].
Non-transitory CRM claim 235 and method claim 254 correspond to claim 248 and are rejected as above.
Regarding claim 236, Sharma and Bryant teach the computer readable medium of claim 235, and Sharma teaches wherein the network traffic includes a traffic history, [Par.[0112] describes metrics collected by monitoring and stored in a logging analysis system, over time epochs, meaning based on stored traffic history].
Regarding claim 237, Sharma and Bryant teach the computer readable medium of claim 235, and Sharma teaches wherein the network traffic includes real-time data flow through the network, [Par.[0028], [0088] real-time continuous digital experience monitoring and [0121] for real-time remediation].
Regarding claim 238, Sharma and Bryant teach the computer readable medium of claim 235, and Sharma teaches wherein the monitoring of the network traffic by the at least one cloud-based networking component in the SASE network occurs continually over time, [Par.[0088]: ‘The cloud system 800 brings aspects of FIGS. 1-8 into a single architecture that is leveraged by the systems and methods to provide real-time, continuous digital experience monitoring,’].
Regarding claim 240, Sharma and Bryant teach the computer readable medium of claim 235, and Sharma teaches wherein each digital user experience score includes an aggregate score for the plurality of applications, [Par.[0110] describes logging and analytics system to aggregate, analyze, and report; see also Par.[0117], Par.[0134] The UEX score metrics can be aggregated by geographic location and application to highlight problems].
Regarding claim 241, Sharma and Bryant teach the computer readable medium of claim 235, and Sharma teaches wherein each digital user experience score is associated with communication latency, [Par.[0095] among others as in Par.[0115]].
Regarding claim 242, Sharma and Bryant teach the computer readable medium of claim 235, and Sharma teaches wherein each digital user experience score is associated with jitter, [Par.[0101], [0135] describe jitter as metric].
Regarding claim 243, Sharma and Bryant teach the computer readable medium of claim 235, and Sharma teaches wherein each digital user experience score is associated with a branch site or datacenter with or without a socket device, [Par.[0007] among others describes obtaining user experience scores for any of a user, a group of users, a location, and an organization; Par.[0134] The UEX score metrics can be aggregated by geographic location and application to highlight problems].
Regarding claim 244, Sharma and Bryant teach the computer readable medium of claim 235, and Sharma teaches wherein each digital user experience score is associated with packet loss, [Par.[0101], [0105], [0118] mention packet loss].
Regarding claim 245, Sharma and Bryant teach the computer readable medium of claim 235, and Sharama teaches further comprising cross referencing different digital user experience scores of the digital user experience scores associated with at least one common application of the plurality of applications to thereby determine a performance characterization of the at least one common application, [Par.[0111] describes aggregated UEX scores for common applications across organizations can be used for peer comparisons and isolating common application issues affecting multiple organizations; Par.[0134] The UEX score metrics can be aggregated by geographic location and application to highlight problems].
Regarding claim 246, Sharma and Bryant teach the computer readable medium of claim 245, and Sharma teaches further comprising at least one additional common application, wherein the at least one common application and the at least one additional common application belong to a peer group, and wherein determining performance characterizations of the at least one common application and the at least one additional common application permits a performance comparison between the at least one common application and the at least one additional common application two common applications within the peer group, [Par.[0111] describes “ For example, administrators can set alerts when a UEX score falls below a threshold. UEX scores for common applications across organizations can be used for peer comparisons and isolating common application issues affecting multiple organizations”].
Regarding claim 247, Sharma and Bryant teach the computer readable medium of claim 246, and Sharma teaches further comprising determining trends within the peer group based on the performance comparison, [Par.[0096] performance trending over time, [0111] peer comparisons across groups, [0134], [0136] describe metric trends].
Claim 249 corresponds to claim 236 and rejected as above.
Claim 250 corresponds to claim 237 and rejected as above.
Claim 251 corresponds to claim 238 and rejected as above.
Claim 253 corresponds to claim 240 and rejected as above.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on 7/23/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
The amendment introduced refers to techniques such as ‘sniffing,’ details of which are abundantly available in prior arts and would have been obvious to modify the primary reference Sharma in the rejection provided in this office action for the stated reasons. In fact, in Par.[0069] of Sharma suggests ‘never inline monitoring’ for some network traffic which otherwise may be monitored elsewhere in the network but not on the client devices. The secondary reference Bryant provides support for a monitoring system/logic that is external to the client devices as indicated in the current amendment and this would have been obvious for the stated reasons in the OA.
Conclusion
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/PADMA MUNDUR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2443
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