Ex Parte Xie et al

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

May 28, 2019

13803871 - (D) (P.T.A.B. May. 28, 2019)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
13/803,871 03/14/2013 Michael Xie
64128 7590 05/30/2019
MICHAEL A DESANCTIS
JAFFERY WATSON MENDONSA & HAMILTON LLP
7501 Village Square Drive, Ste. 206
Castle Pines, CO 80108
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.
FORT-009100 2273
EXAMINER
AMORIN, CARLOS E
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2498
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
05/30/2019 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):
mdesanctis@hdciplaw.com
eofficeaction@appcoll.com
mike.desanctis@jwrnhlaw.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte MICHAEL XIE and XIN GU
Appeal2018-006476
Application 13/803,871 1
Technology Center 2400
Before STEPHEN C. SIU, DAVID M. KOHUT, and BETH Z. SHAW,
Administrative Patent Judges.
KOHUT, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants seek our review, under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), of the
Examiner's Non-Final Rejection2 of claims 50-54 and 56-60. 3 We have
jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We REVERSE and enter a NEW GROUND OF REJECTION under
37 C.F.R. § 41.50(b).
1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Fortinet, Inc. Br. 4.
2 The Non-Final Rejection mailed on March 13, 2017 is the third rejection
of the pending claims.
3 Claims 1--49, 55, and 61 have been previously cancelled. Br. 6.
Appeal2018-006476
Application 13/803,871
INVENTION
The present invention is a system for providing notifications to users
within a protected network. Spec. ,r 5. The system includes a filtering
device that makes a determination whether to block or allow a request
originating on an application running on a client device. Id. If the filtering
device blocks the request, a notification is provided to a user of the client
device regarding the determination by causing the application to display a
predefined message. Id. Claim 50 is illustrative and reproduced below.
50. A method comprising:
establishing a communication channel between an
endpoint protection suite running on a client device associated
with a protected network and a network security device within
the protected network, wherein the endpoint protection suite
protects the client device and the protected network by ensuring
the client device complies with security requirements of the
protected network and performs security features including one
or more of antivirus scanning, antispam detection and web
content filtering, wherein the network security device comprises
a filtering device, a network gateway device or a unified threat
management (UTM) appliance that protects the client device
and the protected network by performing firewall functionality
and wherein the communication channel is for communicating
information regarding policy violations associated with requests
issued by the client device directed to servers external to the
protected network and detected by the network security device;
receiving, by a proxy module running within the network
security device, a request originated by an application running
on the client device and directed to a server external to the
protected network;
determining, by the proxy module, an action to take on
the request based on a firewall policy of a plurality of firewall
policies that matches a source Internet Protocol (IP) address, a
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Application 13/803,871
destination IP address and a protocol associated with the
request;
when the determined action is to allow the request, then
allowing, by the proxy module, the request to be forwarded by
the network security device to the destination IP address;
when the determined action is to block the request, then:
dropping, by the network security device, the request;
obtaining, by the proxy, a predetermined notification
message of a plurality of predetermined notification messages
based on the matching firewall policy; and
notifying, by the proxy, a user of the client device
regarding the determined action by sending, via the
communication channel, the predetermined notification
message to the endpoint protection suite, which causes the
predetermined notification message to be displayed to the user
by embedding the predetermined notification message into a
toolbar presented within the application.
REJECTIONS
Claims 50, 51, 53, 54, 56, 57, 59, and 60 stand rejected under
35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as unpatentable over Mullick et al. (US 8,869,262 B2 iss.
Oct. 21, 2014) ("Mullick") and Surasathian (US 2011/0247073 Al; publ.
Oct. 6, 2011) ("Surasathian"). Non-Final Act. 3-9.
Claims 52 and 58 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as
unpatentable over Mullick, Surasathian, and Groll et al.
(US 2009/132718 Al; publ. May 21, 2009) ("Groll"). Non-Final Act.
9-10.
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Application 13/803,871
ANALYSIS
1. Claims 50, 51, 53, 54, 56, 57, 59, and 60
Independent claims 50 and 56 require "an endpoint protection suite"
that "performs security features including one or more of antivirus scanning,
antispam detection and web content filtering." The Examiner finds that
Mullick discloses an endpoint protection suite that performs web content
filtering by teaching a client agent that intercepts a request of a client
application and determines whether to allow transmission of the intercepted
request based on an application routing table. Non-Final Act. 4 (citing
Mullick 27:45--49, 61-67). The Examiner construes web content filtering as
"the filtering of web content," and explains that Mullick's client application
may be a browser or web-based client and thus, Mullick's client agent
performs web content filtering because it "can control access requests by a
web browser." Ans. 11 (citing Mullick 7:21-28).
Appellants disagree that Mullick's client agent performs web content
filtering and argue that a person of ordinary skill in the art would understand
"web content filtering" as
screening of an incoming Web page to determine whether some
or all of it should not be displayed to the user. Web content
filtering involves checking the origin ( e.g., the domain or
URL) and/or content of the Web page against a set of rules to
make a filtering determination.
Br. 15-16. Appellants argue that the Examiner has relied upon a client agent
that "may determine not to transmit the intercepted request based on the
application routing table 400." Br. 15. For that reason, Appellants argue
that "Mullick teaches blocking applications (precluding network access
by certain applications whose identifiers are included in the application
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Application 13/803,871
routing table 400) - not filtering particular types/ categories of web content
or web pages that are impermissible." Id. at 16.
We are persuaded that the Examiner has not adequately shown that
Mullick' s client agent performs web content filtering. At most, the
Examiner has demonstrated that Mullick' s client agent can control access
requests by a web browser. Non-Final Act. 4. That is, the access controlled
by Mullick is a determination whether or not to transmit a web browser
request based on an application routing table. Br. 16. Such a determination
does not filter, or even consider, the content of a web page. See Br. 16.
Instead, the determination merely checks whether a web browser is
authorized for access to a network or server. Br. 16. Under either the
Examiner's or Appellants' proposed construction of the term, we do not
consider controlling a web browser's access to the network to constitute web
content filtering because it does not filter any web content. Therefore, we
agree with Appellants (Br. 15) that Mullick's client agent does not perform
web content filtering and instead, performs a type of application control
based upon an application routing table.
While the Examiner's analysis does not sufficiently show where the
references teach the security feature of web content filtering, we find that
Mullick teaches one of the alternate security features, as claimed in claims
50 and 56. Specifically, Mullick teaches clients that include antivirus
software and anti-spam software. Mullick, 25:15-24. As our analysis
deviates from the Examiner's rejection, we designate our analysis to be a
new ground of rejection of claims 50 and 56 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over
Mullick and Surasathian. In light of the new ground of rejection, we leave it
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Application 13/803,871
to the Examiner to determine whether the dependent claims should be
rejected for obviousness based on the prior art.
DECISION
The Examiner's decision rejecting claims 50-54 and 56-60 is
reversed.
We enter a New Ground of Rejection for claims 50 and 56 under
35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over the combination of Mullick and
Surasathian.
TIME PERIOD
This decision contains new grounds of rejection pursuant to 37 C.F.R.
§ 4I.50(b). 37 C.F.R. § 4I.50(b) provides "[a] new ground of rejection
pursuant to this paragraph shall not be considered final for judicial review."
37 CPR§ 41.50(b) also provide that the appellants, WITHIN TWO
MONTHS FROM THE DATE OF THE DECISION, must exercise one of
the following two options with respect to the new ground of rejection to
avoid termination of the appeal as to the rejected claims:
( 1) Reopen prosecution. Submit an appropriate amendment
of the claims so rejected or new evidence relating to the claims so rejected,
or both, and have the matter reconsidered by the examiner, in which event
the proceeding will be remanded to the examiner ....
(2) Request rehearing. Request that the proceeding be reheard
under§ 41.52 by the Board upon the same record ....
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).
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REVERSED
37 C.F.R. § 4I.50(b)
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