Ex Parte Van der Merwe

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 6, 2016

13527065 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 6, 2016)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
13/527,065 06/19/2012
83719 7590 09/06/2016
AT & T Legal Department - FKM
AT & T LEGAL DEPARTMENT,
ATTN: PATENT DOCKETING ROOM 2A-207
BEDMINSTER, NJ 07921
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Jacobus Van der Merwe
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.
2005-0436CON(40147/03602) 2006
EXAMINER
NGUYEN, TRONG H
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2436
MAILDATE DELIVERY MODE
09/06/2016 PAPER
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.
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte JACOBUS VAN DER MERWE
Appeal2015-003303
Application 13/527,065
Technology Center 2400
Before ALLEN R. MACDONALD, CARLA M. KRIVAK, and
AMBER L. HAGY, Administrative Patent Judges.
MacDONALD, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appeal2015-003303
Application 13/527,065
STATEMENT OF CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a Final Rejection of
claims 24--43. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
Exemplary Claim
Exemplary claim 24 under appeal reads as follows (emphasis added):
24. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing
a set of instructions executable by a processor, the set of instructions,
when executed by the processor, causing the processor to perform a
method comprising:
selecting Internet Protocol ("IP") prefixes for a community
from a list of IP prefixes, the list of IP prefixes comprising a plurality
of origin IP prefixes of corresponding origins of previous attacks,
the list further comprising a plurality of times, each of the times
corresponding to one of the plurality of origin IP prefixes and
indicating a time of a most recent previous attack having an origin
related to the corresponding origin IP prefix, the list being ranked
by the plurality of times;
storing a per-customer table for the community based on a
destination address;
receiving a data packet including the destination address and a
source address;
categorizing the data packet into the community based on the
source address; and
selecting a treatment for the data packet based on the
community.
Rejections
The Examiner rejected claims 24, 25, 28-38, and 40-42 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over the combination of Brustoloni
(US 2003/0035370 Al, published Feb. 20, 2003), Schuba et al. (US
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Appeal2015-003303
Application 13/527,065
2005/0276262 Al, published Dec. 15, 2005), and Yamazaki (US
2005/0144467 Al, published June 30, 2005). 1
The Examiner rejected claims 26 and 39 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as
being unpatentable over the combination of Brustoloni, Schuba, Yamazaki,
and Davis et al. (US 2006/0047769 Al, published Mar. 2, 2006).2
The Examiner rejected claim 43 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over the combination of Schuba and Yamazaki. 3
Appellant's Contentions
1. Appellant contends that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim
24 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) because:
The first difference illustrated by this example is that,
although the table of Yamazaki relates to previous attacks, it is
not a list "of IP prefixes," as recited in claim 24, but, rather is a
log of incoming attacks.
App. Br. 6.
1 We select claim 1 as representative. Separate patentability is not argued
for claims 25, 28-38, and 40-42. Except for our ultimate decision, these
claims are not discussed further herein.
2 Separate patentability is not argued for claims 26 and 39. Rather,
Appellant addresses these claims by referencing the argument for claim 24.
Therefore, the rejection of these claims turns on our decision as to claim 24.
Except for our ultimate decision, these claims are not discussed further
herein.
3 Separate patentability is not argued for claim 43. Rather, Appellant
addresses this claim by referencing the argument for the claim 24.
Therefore, the rejection of this claim turns on our decision as to claim 24.
Except for our ultimate decision, this claim is not discussed further herein.
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Appeal2015-003303
Application 13/527,065
2. Appellant contends that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim
24 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) because:
Second, ... the table of Yamazaki is ranked differently
from the manner recited in claim 24. Specifically, the table of
Yamazaki is a log of incoming attacks that is ranked in
chronological order. (See id., i-fi-1 [0076]-[0079], Fig. 8, passim.)
This differs from the ranking by "a most recent previous
attack having an origin related to the corresponding origin IP
prefix," as recited in claim 24.
App. Br. 6, emphasis added.
3. Appellant contends that the Examiner erred in rejecting claim
24 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) because:
[T]he distinction noted by the [Appellant, in the hypothetical
example provided by the Appellant on page 5 of the Appeal
Brief,] relates to the manner in which multiple attacks having
the same detected origin IP address are treated by the two
tables, with the data shown in the table of Figure 8 of Yamazaki
being insufficient to illustrate this distinction because the data
do not include multiple attacks originating from the same IP
address.
Reply Br. 4, emphasis added.
The Examiner ... provides an example with two detected
attacks, each of which originates from a different IP prefix.
(See id., p. 3.) The Examiner's example is facially insufficient
to address the distinction drawn by the [Appellant, in
Appellant's hypothetical example,] precisely because, as noted
by the Examiner, "there is one entry per IP prefix." However, it
will be apparent to those of skill in the art that, in some real-
world cases including larger samples than those shown in either
Figure 8 of Yamazaki or the example provided in the Appeal
Brief, there may be multiple attacks originating from the same
IP prefix.
Reply Br. 4--5.
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Appeal2015-003303
Application 13/527,065
Issue on Appeal
Did the Examiner err in rejecting claim 24 as being obvious for the
reasons argued by Appellant?
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner's rejections in light of Appellant's
arguments (Appeal Brief and Reply Brief) that the Examiner has erred. We
disagree with Appellant's conclusions.
As to Appellant's above contention 1, we disagree. We agree with the
Examiner that Yamazaki discloses a table (Fig. 8) comprising origin IP
prefixes as "source IP addresses of detected DOS/DDOS attack(s)." Final
Act. 4. We further agree with the Examiner that these source IP addresses
are sufficient to render obvious the claimed list of IP addresses. That other
information is included in the table, or that other IP addresses are included in
the table, is irrelevant as such are not precluded by Appellant's claim 24.
As to Appellant's above contention 2, we disagree. Contrary to
Appellant's argument, the limitation "the list ranked by the plurality of
times" does not require the particular time sequence of most recent to oldest.
Rather, the limitation also includes oldest to most recent as disclosed by
Figure 8 of Yamazaki. Ans. 3. Separately, even if we were to agree with
Appellant, we conclude that an inverted time sequence of most recent to
oldest would have been an obvious variation over the oldest to most recent
time sequence shown in Yamazaki.
As to Appellant's above contention 3, we disagree. Appellant's
arguments are not commensurate with the scope of the claim language.
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Appeal2015-003303
Application 13/527,065
Appellant argues that the claim requires "multiple attacks having the same
detected origin IP address." Reply Br. 4. However, the claim language is
not limited to the hypothetical table postulated by Appellant's arguments.
We concur with the conclusion reached by the Examiner.
CONCLUSION
(1) The Examiner has not erred in rejecting claims 24--43 as being
unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a).
(2) Claims 24--43 are not patentable.
DECISION
The Examiner's rejections of claims 24--43 are 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 )(iv).
AFFIRMED
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