Ex Parte MARTINELLI

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Jan 29, 2019

14546018 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Jan. 29, 2019)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
14/546,018 11/18/2014
21839 7590 01/31/2019
BUCHANAN, INGERSOLL & ROONEY PC
POST OFFICE BOX 1404
ALEXANDRIA, VA 22313-1404
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Andres MARTINELLI
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.
1003301-000502 9356
EXAMINER
DESROSIERS, EV ANS
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2491
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
01/31/2019 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):
ADIPDOC 1@BIPC.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Exparte ANDRES MARTINELLI 1
Appeal2017-002776
Application 14/546,018
Technology Center 2400
Before KAL YANK. DESHPANDE, JASON V. MORGAN, and
HUNG H. BUI, Administrative Patent Judges.
MORGAN, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Introduction
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's Non-
Final Rejection of claims 1-17. Appellant waived a requested oral hearing.
Notice of Hearing Response (Sept. 25, 2018). We have jurisdiction under
35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.
1 Appellant is the applicant and real party in interest, Axiomatics AB.
Appeal Br. 2.
Appeal2017-002776
Application 14/546,018
Invention
Appellant discloses a permissions provisioning module that includes a
policy evaluator to evaluate an access query against an attribute-based
access control (ABAC) policy and a data adapter to format permission data
into access control lists for deployment in a computer system. Abstract.
Illustrative Claim (key limitations emphasized)
1. A permissions provisioning module adapted to interact with a
computer system, which comprises:
a plurality of resources, each resource being associated with an access
control list (ACL) indicating permissions in respect of the resource;
memory storing system metadata including metadata associated with
the resources or metadata associated with principals of the system or
both;
an access control mechanism configured to selectively restrict
principals' access to a resource in accordance with its associated
ACL, wherein the access control mechanism of the computer system
operates outside direct influence of the ABAC policy; and
a processor configured to perform the functions of:
a policy evaluator configured to evaluate an access query
against an attribute-based access control (ABAC) policy based
on a collection of attribute values at least sufficient to evaluate
against the ABAC policy, which is retrievable by the policy
evaluator and includes access rules expressed in terms of
attributes;
a data adapter configured to receive the system metadata and
assign values to said attributes in the ABAC policy in
accordance with the metadata, the attribute values being
arranged resource-wise and principal-wise; and
a permissions calculator configured to query the policy
evaluator on combinations of resources and principals using the
attribute values assigned by the data adapter, and to supply
resulting permission data to the data adapter,
2
Appeal2017-002776
Application 14/546,018
wherein the data adapter is configured to arrange said permission
data resource-wise, generate system-readable ACLs based thereon
and supply the generated ACLsfor deployment in the system.
Rejection
The Examiner rejects claims 1-17 under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being
unpatentable over Creemer et al. (US 7,814,492 Bl; issued Oct. 12, 2010)
("Creemer") and Moran et al. (US 2003/0088786 Al; published May 8,
2003) ("Moran"). Non-Final Act. 3-9.
EXAMINER'S DETERMINATIONS AND CONCLUSIONS
In rejecting claim 1, the Examiner finds Cree mer' s use of an
authorization routine that uses access control lists teaches or suggests "a
policy evaluator configured to evaluate an access query against an attribute-
based access control (ABAC) policy ... based on a collection of attribute
values at least sufficient to evaluate against the ABAC policy, which is
retrievable by the policy evaluator and includes access rules expressed in
terms of attributes." Non-Final Act. 4 ( citing Creemer Fig. 3, col. 1, 11. 5 3-
62) ( emphasis omitted).
The Examiner relies on Moran's process for using enhanced access
control lists to teach or suggest a data adapter "configured to arrange said
permission data resource-wise, generate system-readable ACLs based
thereon and supply the generated ACLs for deployment in the system."
Non-Final Act. 5 (citing Moran Fig. 9, ,r,r 114--18).
3
Appeal2017-002776
Application 14/546,018
APPELLANT'S CONTENTIONS AND OUR ANALYSIS
Appellant contends the Examiner erred in finding Moran teaches or
suggests generating access control lists for deployment in the system
because Moran's process "is simply directed towards the use of pre-
established ACLs for authorization processes." Appeal Br. 12. That is,
Appellant argues "Moran only discloses that existing ACLs may be used ...
in authorization processes," rather than disclosing a process for "supplying
generated ACLs for deployment." Id. at 13 ( citing Moran ,r 32); see also
Reply Br. 6.
In response, the Examiner takes the position that Moran's action
grouping mechanism, in which each action within an action group is tagged
to allow "a more descriptive and extensible permission mechanism" (Moran
,r 29) teaches or suggests the claimed access control list generation because
"action permission indicators can be reused for unique action definitions"
(Ans. 8 (citing Moran ,r 109) (emphasis omitted)).
Appellant's arguments are persuasive of Examiner error. The
Examiner's findings show that Creemer teaches using access control lists to
determine whether to process a named job and that Moran teaches using
enhanced access control lists to determine whether a user, either individually
or as a member of a user group, is authorized to perform a requested action
on a protected object. See Non-Final Act. 4--5 (citing, e.g., Creemer col. 1,
11. 53---62; Moran ,r,r 32, 114--18). The Examiner does not show, however,
that Creemer and Moran teach or suggest the use of a data adapter to
generate system-readable access control lists in the claimed manner (i.e.,
based on arranged permission data supplied by querying an attribute-based
access control policy evaluator).
4
Appeal2017-002776
Application 14/546,018
The Examiner's reliance on the combined teachings of Creemer and
Moran is particularly problematic because the Examiner relies on Creemer' s
access control lists to teach or suggest an attribute-based access control
policy (see Ans. 5 ( citing Creemer col. 6, 11. 52-56)), but fails to provide
persuasive findings or explanation showing that Moran teaches or suggests
querying a policy evaluator that uses access control lists----or data for some
other attribute-based access control policy-for purposes of generating
enhanced access control lists. Rather, the Examiner merely identifies
teachings in Moran related to extended features of enhanced access control
lists (see Ans. 8 (citing Moran ,r 109)) and the use of enhanced access
control lists in determining whether a user is authorized to perform a
requested action on a protected resource (see Non-Final Act. 5 (citing Moran
,r,r 32, 114--18, Fig. 9)).
For these reasons, we agree with Appellant that the Examiner's
findings do not show that the combination of Creemer and Moran teaches or
suggests the disputed recitations of claim 1. See Appeal Br. 12-13. Claim
14---reciting a computer system that further comprises "the permissions
provisioning module of claim I "-includes the disputed recitations of claim
1. Claims 16 and 1 7 similarly recite "arranging said permission data
resource-wise and generating system-readable ACLs based thereon." The
Examiner unpersuasively rejects these claims for similar reasons to claim 1.
See Non-Final Act. 9.
Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner's 35 U.S.C. § I03(a)
rejection of claims 1, 14, 16, 17, and dependent claims 2-13 and 15.
5
Appeal2017-002776
Application 14/546,018
DECISION
We reverse the Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1-17.
REVERSED
6