Ex Parte Puttaswamy Naga et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Jun 9, 2016

13469176 (P.T.A.B. Jun. 9, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
13/469,176 05/11/2012
46363 7590 06/13/2016
Tong, Rea, Bentley & Kim, LLC
ALCATEL-LUCENT USA INC.
12 Christopher Way
Suite 105
Eatontown, NJ 07724
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Krishna P. Puttaswamy Naga
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS
P.O. Box 1450
Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450
www .uspto.gov
ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
811609-US-NP 3086
EXAMINER
SONG,HEEK
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2497
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
06/13/2016 ELECTRONIC
Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding.
The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication.
Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the
following e-mail address( es):
docketing@trbklaw.com
ipsnarocp@nokia.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Exparte KRISHNAP. PUTTASWAMY, FANG HAO, and
ANTHONY MARTIN
Appeal2014-007344
Application 13/469, 176
Technology Center 2400
Before CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., DANIEL N. FISHMAN, and
NABEEL U. KHAN, Administrative Patent Judges.
WHITEHEAD JR., Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellants are appealing the final rejection of claims 1-11 and 13-21
under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a). Appeal Brief 1. We have jurisdiction under 35
U.S.C. § 6(b) (2012). Claim 12 was cancelled. Appeal Brief 5.
We affirm.
Introduction
The invention is directed to security management capable of enabling
migration of individual security rules between storage/application locations.
Abstract 2.
Appeal2014-007344
Application 13/469, 176
Representative Claim
1. An apparatus, comprising:
a processor and a memory communicatively connected to
the processor, the processor configured to:
select a location for a security rule based on a policy
associated with the security rule;
determine whether to migrate the security rule to the
location selected for the security rule; and
initiate migration of the security rule to the location
selected for the security rule based on a determination to
migrate the security rule to the location selected for the security
rule.
Rejections on Appeal
Claims 1-11and13-21 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103(a) as
being unpatentable over Litvin (US Patent Application Publication Number
2009/0249438 Al; published October 1, 2009) and Bhattacharya (US Patent
Application Publication Number 2011/0302647 Al; published December 8,
2011). Final Rejection 2-7.
ANALYSIS
Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and the Examiner,
we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed April 3, 2014), the Reply Brief (June 19,
2014), the Answer (mailed May 12, 2014) and the Final Rejection (mailed
January 21, 2014) for the respective details. We have considered in this
decision only those arguments Appellants actually raised in the Briefs.
We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections in light of Appellants'
arguments that the Examiner has erred. We adopt as our own (1) the
findings and reasons set forth by the Examiner in the action from which this
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Application 13/469, 176
appeal is taken and (2) the reasons set forth by the Examiner in the
Examiner's Answer in response to Appellants' Appeal Brief, except where
noted.
Appellants argue that Litvin's portions relied upon by the Examiner
"fail to teach or suggest the feature of a processor configured to select a
location for a security rule, much less a processor configure[ d] to select a
location for a security rule based on a policy associated with the security
rule." Appeal Brief 11-13.
Litvin discloses, "The method, upon detecting that a particular virtual
machine has been moved from the first host node to a second host node,
removes a set of policies associated with the particular virtual machine from
the first host node and supplies the set of policies to the second host node."
Litvin, Abstract. Litvin further discloses, "When a virtual machine is moved
to a new host node, the firewall policies and connection data pertaining to
that virtual machine are moved to the firewall of the new host." Litvin
paragraph 12. Therefore, we agree with the Examiner's findings that Litvin
discloses a processor configured to select a location for a security rule based
upon a policy associated with the security rule as required by Appellants'
claim 1. See Final Rejection 3.
Appellants further argue that:
[T]he cited portions of Bhattacharya fail to teach or suggest £!
location selected for a security rule and, thus, also fail to teach or
suggest a processor configured to determine whether to migrate
a security rule to a location selected for the security rule and to
initiate migration of the security rule to the location selected for
the security rule based on a determination to migrate the security
rule to the location selected for the security rule.
Appeal Brief 13.
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Application 13/469, 176
Appellants argue that, "Bhattacharya merely disclose migration of a
component to a target environment selected for the component where the
firewall rules (indicated by the Examiner to correspond to the security rule
of Appellant's [sic] claim 1) for that component follow the component to the
target environment." Appeal Brief 13. Appellants argue that "Bhattacharya
describes the target environment as being a target of one or more
components being migrated" and, therefore, "fails to teach or suggest a
location selected for a security rule." Appeal Brief 14.
Bhattacharya discloses that:
A rule combination module 308 combines, if needed, the existing
target environment firewall rules with the translated firewall
rules for the components being migrated. A rule application
module applies the translated and combined rules (if applicable)
in the target environment, for instance, by modifying the target
environment's firewall configuration files, for instance, at post-
migration target environment 199.
Bhattacharya, paragraph 51.
\Ve agree with the Examiner's findings that, "Bhattacharya teaches
automatically reconfiguring firewall rules at the target network environment
as a network component migrates from source network environment to
target network environment based on the analysis of log files at the
source and target network to determine that a firewall rule is relevant to the
migrated component." Final Rejection 3. We do not find Appellants'
arguments persuasive because claim 1 does not preclude migrating the
security rules with the migration of components as Bhattacharya teaches.
Most importantly, Appellants failed to address the combination of
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Appeal2014-007344
Application 13/469, 176
Litvin/Bhattacharya upon which the Examiner relied. 1 Claim 1 requires
migrating a security rule from one location to another. Both Litvin and
Bhattacharya discloses migrating security rules from one location to another
involving either real components or virtual machines. It is well within the
purview of one of ordinary skill in the art to combine the teachings of Litvin
and Bhattacharya to migrate security rules to a location as claimed. 2
Consequently, we are not persuaded of Examiner's error and sustain the
Examiner's obviousness rejection of claims 1-11 and 13-21.
DECISION
The Examiner's obviousness rejection of claims 1-11 and 13-21 is
affirmed.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 1.136(a).
AFFIRMED
1 "Non-obviousness cannot be established by attacking references
individually where the rejection is based upon the teachings of a
combination of references." In re Merck, 800 F.2d 1091, 1097 (Fed. Cir.
1986) (citing In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 425 (Fed. Cir. 1981)).
2 "The combination of familiar elements according to known methods is
likely to be obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results."
KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 416 (2007).
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