Ex Parte Sharabi et al

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Apr 25, 2019

14572443 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Apr. 25, 2019)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
14/572,443 12/16/2014
81744 7590
Cooper Legal Group LLC
6505 Rockside Road
Suite 330
Independence, OH 44131
04/29/2019
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Dekel Sharabi
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.
POl-010342.01.US.PRI 3759
EXAMINER
BROWN, CHRISTOPHER J
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2439
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
04/29/2019 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):
docketing@cooperlegalgroup.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte DEKEL SHARABI and OFER NIVY
Appeal2018-000678
Application 14/572,443 1
Technology Center 2400
Before ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, JOHN P. PINKERTON, and
SCOTT B. HOWARD, Administrative Patent Judges.
HOW ARD, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Final Rejection
of claims 1-20, which constitute all of the claims pending in this application.
We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We AFFIRM.
1 NetApp., Inc. ("Appellant") is the applicant under 37 C.F.R. § 1.46 and is
identified as the real party in interest. App. Br. 3.
Appeal2018-000678
Application 14/572,443
THE INVENTION
The disclosed and claimed invention is directed "to the field of
computing security, and, more particularly, to secure isolation of remote
assets in a multitenant environment." Spec. ,i 1.
Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject
matter:
1. A method comprising:
selecting a set of mappings of actions to roles from a
plurality of mappings of actions to roles for multiple tenants of
remote assets hosted by a service provider, the selecting based,
at least in part, on authenticated login information;
based on detection of a requested action for a first remote
asset of the remote assets hosted by the service provider,
determining which of the roles in the selected set of
mappings of actions to roles maps to the requested action as
indicated by the selected set of mappings;
based on determining the role that maps to the requested
action as indicated by the selected set of mappings, obtaining
credentials for the role that maps to the requested action; and
attempting the requested action using the credentials.
REFERENCES
The prior art relied upon by the Examiner as evidence in rejecting the
claims on appeal is:
Palmer
Zhang
Prasad
Christner
US 7,882,538 Bl
US 2014/0040999 Al
US 9,058,481 B2
US 2015/0180872 Al
2
Feb. 1, 2011
Feb. 6,2014
June 16, 2015
(filed Jan. 31, 2013)
June 25, 2015
(filed Dec. 20, 2013)
Appeal2018-000678
Application 14/572,443
REJECTIONS2
Claims 1, 2, 4-9, 11-16, and 18-20 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103 as being unpatentable over Christner in view of Prasad and Zhang.
Final Act. 5-8.
Claims 3, 10, and 17 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being
unpatentable over Christner in view of Prasad, Zhang, and Palmer. Final
Act. 8.
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner's rejection in light of Appellant's
arguments that the Examiner erred. In reaching this decision, we have
considered all evidence presented and all arguments made by Appellant. We
are not persuaded by Appellant's arguments regarding claims 1-20.
Appellant argues the Examiner erred in finding Christner teaches
"selecting a set of mappings of actions to roles from a plurality of mappings
of actions to roles for multiple tenants ... based, at least in part, on
authenticated login information" as recited in claim 1. App. Br. 8-11.
Specifically, Appellant argues "Christner determines authorization for
accessing a resource with hierarchical lineage of the resource that a user
attempts to access. Id. at 8 ( citing Christner ,-J 20). Appellant further argues
"Christner identifies a set of permissions that map to an authenticated
2 In addition to the rejections recited below, in the Final Action, the
Examiner also rejected claims 15-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as directed to
non-statutory subject matter and claims 9 and 11 under 35 U.S.C. § l 12(b)
as being indefinite. The Examiner determined that Appellant overcame
those rejections. Adv. Act. 1.
3
Appeal2018-000678
Application 14/572,443
identifier and then determines whether the access is permitted based on the
set of permissions." Id. According to Appellant, however, "[d]etermining
whether you can access a child resource based on whether you can access a
parent resource does not disclose or suggest selecting a set of mappings of
actions to roles as recited in the independent claims." Id. at 9.
Appellant also argues "Christner never discloses selecting action to
roles mappings from a plurality of action to role mappings." Id. at 10.
According to Appellant, although Christner may teach a userID to role
mapping, "it does not disclose or suggest an action to role mapping" as
recited in claim 1. Id.; see also id. at 11 (arguing that the "disclosure of a
mapping of a role to a permitted action is not the same as a mapping of a
role to an action - it is the inverse").
The Examiner finds Christner teaches the disputed limitation recited
in claim 1. See Final Act. 5 ( citing Christner ,i,i 32, 34, 35, 37); Ans. 4
("Paragraph [0037] in particular states that gatekeeper searches, based on the
submitted action, for a set of permissions, or roles to authorize a user to
perform said action. Examiner asserts that these paragraphs therefore teach
'mapping of actions to roles'.").
We are not persuaded by Appellant's argument that the Examiner
erred. Christner paragraph 32 teaches that a resource access request may
include a userID and that a userID "includes information identifying a
specific 'role' associated with the user." Christner ,i 32. Examples of such
roles include manager, CEO, and employee. Id. Accordingly, Christner' s
userID includes a role as recited in claim 1.
Christner further teaches that various actions are mapped to the
userID/role. See Christner ,i 35. Specifically, Christner teaches how a
4
Appeal2018-000678
Application 14/572,443
gatekeeper determines whether the user is authorized to perform an action
using a "hierarchical roles based access controller (HRBAC) 122." Id.
Christner further teaches that "HRBAC 122 may map a set of permissions to
a particular user role." Id. And, because"[ e Jach permission is associated
with a particular resource in the database 130 and includes one or more
actions that the user ( associated with the corresponding user role) is
authorized to perform on that resource," (id. (emphasis added)), mapping
permission to a role includes mapping actions to the role. In other words,
Christner teaches mapping actions to roles as recited in claim 1. 3
Appellant further argues that the Examiner erred in finding Prasad
teaches that roles are mapped to actions. App. Br. 12-13 (rebutting the
Examiner's finding in the response section of the Final Action). However,
because, as discussed above, Christner teaches the disputed limitation,
whether Prasad also teaches that limitation is moot. Accordingly, we are not
persuaded that the Examiner erred. See In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091,
1097 (Fed. Cir. 1986) (citation omitted) ("Non-obviousness cannot be
established by attacking references individually where the rejection is based
upon the teachings of a combination of references."); In re Keller, 642 F.2d
413, 425 (CCPA 1981) (citations omitted) ("The test for obviousness is not
whether ... the claimed invention must be expressly suggested in any one or
all of the references. Rather, the test is what the combined teachings of the
references would have suggested to those of ordinary skill in the art.").
3 Because we find that Christner teaches mapping actions to roles,
Appellant's argument that mapping roles to actions is not the same as
mapping actions to roles (App. Br. 10-11; Reply Br. 1-3) is moot.
5
Appeal2018-000678
Application 14/572,443
Similarly, Appellant further argues Zhang does not teach the disputed
limitation. App. Br. 12-13. However, because the Examiner did not rely on
Zhang to teach that limitation, we are not persuaded the Examiner erred. See
Merck, 800 F.2d at 1097; Keller, 642 F.2d at 425.
Accordingly, we sustain the rejection of independent claim 1 along
with the rejections of independent claims 8 and 15, which contain similar
limitations and are argued along with claim 1 (see App. Br. 8), and
dependent claims 2, 4-7, 9, 11-14, 16, and 18-20, which are not argued
separately (see generally App. Br.).
With respect to dependent claims 3, 10, and 17, Appellant merely
contends that because the additional reference used in the rejections of these
claims (Palmer) does not cure the shortcomings of the other references
applied against claim 1, the Examiner failed to make a prima facie case of
obviousness for these claims. App. Br. 11. Because we determine that the
rejection of claim 1 is not erroneous for the reasons discussed above, we
sustain the rejections of these claims.
DECISION
For the above reasons, we affirm the Examiner's decisions rejecting
claims 1-2 0.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § l.136(a)(l)(iv). See 37
C.F.R. § 41.50(±).
AFFIRMED
6