Ex Parte Talamanchi et al

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Dec 20, 2018

14871855 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 20, 2018)

UNITED STA TES p A TENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE
14/871,855 09/30/2015
92720 7590
HONEYWELL/MUN CK
Patent Services
115 Tabor Road
P.O. Box 377
MORRIS PLAINS, NJ 07950
12/25/2018
FIRST NAMED INVENTOR
Venkata Srinivasulu Reddy Talamanchi
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.
H0048943-0l 15 9779
EXAMINER
POLTORAK, PIOTR
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2433
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
12/25/2018 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):
patentservices-us@honeywell.com
patents@munckwilson.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte VENKA TA SRINIV ASULU REDDY TALAMANCHI,
ERIC T. BOICE, GANESH P. GADHE,
KENNETH W. DIETRICH, and ANDREW W. KOWALCZYK
Appeal2018-005235
Application 14/871,855 1
Technology Center 2400
Before ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, NORMAN H. BEAMER, and
ADAM J. PYONIN, Administrative Patent Judges.
BEAMER, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner's
Final Rejection of claims 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 12, 13, 15, 16, and 19--28. We have
jurisdiction over the pending rejected claims under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b ).
We affirm.
1 Appellants identify Honeywell International Inc. as the real party in
interest. (App. Br. 2.)
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Application 14/871,855
THE INVENTION
Appellants' disclosed and claimed invention is directed to using
"infrastructure monitoring software to collect cyber-security risk data."
(Abstract.)
Independent claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the subject
matter on appeal:
1. A method comprising:
sending first information from a risk manager system to a
plurality of agents each associated with a respective device in a
computing system, the first information associated with one or
more risk-monitoring configurations, wherein data adapters of a
rules engine are used to translate the one or more risk-
monitoring configurations into the first information according
to requirements of the respective devices;
receiving second information by the risk manager system
from the agents, the second information identifying
vulnerabilities and events associated with the respective
devices, wherein the data adapters of the rules engine are used
to translate the second information into a consistent format
from a plurality of formats associated with the respective
devices; and
storing and displaying to a user at least one of: at least
some of the second information and an analysis of the second
information.
REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejected claims 1, 2, 8, 9, 15, 16, 22, 23, 25, 26, and 28
under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a) as being unpatentable over Oliphant et al (US
2015/0033323 Al, pub. Jan. 29, 2015) (hereinafter "Oliphant") in view of
Beadles et al (US 2003/0154404 Al, pub. Aug. 14, 2003) (hereinafter
"Beadles"), and Williams et al (US 2005/0008001 Al, pub. Jan. 13, 2005)
(hereinafter "Williams"). (Final Act. 4.)
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Application 14/871,855
The Examiner rejected claims 5, 6, 12, 13, 19, and 20 under 35 U.S.C.
§ I03(a) as being unpatentable over Oliphant, Beadles, and Williams, and in
view of Official Notice. (Final Act. 5.)
The Examiner rejected claims 21, 24, and 27 under 35 U.S.C. § I03(a)
as being unpatentable over Oliphant, in view of Beadles, Williams, and
Hrastar et al (US 2006/0085543 Al, pub. Apr. 20, 2006) (hereinafter
"Hrastar"). (Final Act. 5---6.)
ISSUES ON APPEAL
Appellants' arguments in the Appeal Brief present the following
issues2 :
Issue One: Whether the Examiner erred in finding the combination of
Oliphant, Beadles, and Williams teaches or suggests the independent claim 1
limitations,
data adapters of a rules engine are used to translate the one or
more risk-monitoring configurations into the first information
according to requirements of the respective devices; [ and]
the data adapters of the rules engine are used to translate the
second information into a consistent format from a plurality of
formats associated with the respective devices,
and the commensurate limitation recited in independent claims 8 and 15.
(App. Br. 8-11, Reply Br. 2---6.)
Issue Two: Whether the Examiner erred in finding motivation to
combine the teachings of Beadles and Williams with Oliphant. (App. Br.
11-12, Reply Br. 6-7.)
2 Rather than reiterate the arguments of Appellants and the positions of the
Examiner, we refer to the Appeal Brief (filed Nov. 2, 2017); the Reply Brief
(filed Apr. 20, 2018); the Final Office Action (mailed June 7, 2017); and the
Examiner's Answer (mailed Feb. 20, 2018) for the respective details.
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Issue Three: Whether the Examiner erred in taking Official Notice in
the rejection of dependent claims 5, 6, 12, 13, 19, and 20. (App. Br. 13-15,
Reply Br. 7-10.)
ANALYSIS
We have reviewed the Examiner's rejection in light of Appellants'
arguments that the Examiner erred. We disagree with Appellants'
arguments, and we adopt as our own ( 1) the pertinent findings and reasons
set forth by the Examiner in the Action from which this appeal is taken
(Final Act. 2-6) and (2) the corresponding findings and reasons set forth by
the Examiner in the Examiner's Answer in response to Appellants' Appeal
Brief. (Ans. 2-24.) We concur with the applicable findings and conclusions
reached by the Examiner, and emphasize the following.
First Issue
In finding the combination of Oliphant, Beadles, and Williams teaches
or suggests the claim 1 limitations at issue, the Examiner relies on the
disclosure of Beadles of the network translation of network policies into
device-specific configuration data using plug-ins. (Final Act. 4, Ans. 6-7;
Beadles ,r,r 42, 46, 48, 62, and 215.) The Examiner further relies on the
disclosure of Oliphant of identification of network vulnerabilities in which
client agents transfer all logs to a server and documented in reports for
compliance verification. (Final Act. 4, Ans. 8; Oliphant ,r,r 21, 95, 124, 142,
and 144.) The Examiner further relies on the disclosure of Williams
gathering facts related to wireless networks using heterogeneous information
sources in which data is converted into a normalized data format. (Final
Act. 5, Ans. 8-9; Williams Fig. 18, ,r,r 63, 64, 58, and 65.)
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Appellants argue the Examiner errs because "[t]he device plug-ins in
the device plug-in layer 600 of Beadles are only described as being capable
of translating XML policy data to device-specific configuration data" (Reply
Br. 4) and "Williams generally describes normalizing data into XML from
scanners, cameras, and manually entered data." (Reply Br. 5.)(Emphasis
omitted). Appellants contend "Oliphant describes that its system overcomes
any communication problems in previous, multi-tiered network security
products" (Reply Br. 6, citing Oliphant ,r 86) and thus even when combined
with Williams fails to "disclose or suggest receiving second information
(identifying vulnerabilities and events associated with the respective
devices) and translating the second information into a consistent format from
a plurality of formats associated with the respective devices." (Reply Br. 6.)
We do not agree with Appellants. The Examiner finds, and we agree,
that "Oliphant's invention aims to present the data received from these
heterogeneous system[ s] in reports for compliance verification" (Ans. 8,
citing Oliphant ,r 144) and Williams "expressly addresses such translation."
(Ans. 9, citing Williams ,r,r 58, 65.) We agree with the Examiner that
Oliphant "fails to expressly discuss" communicating with "heterogeneous
devices" (Ans. 11 ), but find that one skilled in the art would arrive at the
claimed limitation through the combination of Oliphant' s general description
and the teachings of Williams. Further, Appellants' contention that
"Oliphant describes that its system overcomes any communication
problems" ( emphasis added and omitted) is not borne out when the cited
portions of Oliphant are considered. See Reply Br. 6, citing Oliphant ,r,r 70,
86.
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Second Issue
Appellants similarly argue that the Examiner erred in making the
combination of Oliphant, Beadles, and Williams, because
Oliphant also describes how its system overcomes any
communication problems in previous, multi-tiered network
security products, such as is described in paragraph [0086] of
Oliphant. As such, any "problem" involving device
communication is already solved by Oliphant, illustrating that
the combination is legally erroneous.
(Reply Br. 7, emphasis added and omitted.)
Appellants thus contend "[t]here is no motivation to combine Beadles and
Williams with Oliphant." (Reply Br. 6, emphasis omitted.)
We do not agree with Appellants. The Examiner finds that Beadles
teaches the "network policies are translated to device-specific configuration
data" in which "[t]he translation is completed by plug-ins" (Ans. 7, citing
Beadles ,r,r 46, 48, 62, and 215), and that motivation exists to combine the
teachings of Beadles and Oliphant to achieve "the predictable benefit of
device communication." (Ans. 12.) Beadles relies on a XML file to collect
user data (Beadles ,r 48) and "XML policy data" is used by the plug-ins for
the data translations. (Beadles ,r 215.) Similarly, the portions of Williams
cited by the Examiner relate to data translations performed using XML.
(Ans. 9, citing Williams ,r,r 58, 65.) The Examiner finds that motivation
exists to combine the teachings of Beadles and Williams to achieve "the
predictable benefit of device communication." (Ans. 13.)
The Examiner's findings are reasonable because the skilled artisan
would "be able to fit the teachings of multiple patents together like pieces of
a puzzle" because the skilled artisan is "a person of ordinary creativity, not
an automaton." KSR Int'! Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 420-421. We
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are persuaded the claimed subject matter exemplifies the principle that "[t]he
combination of familiar elements according to known methods is likely to be
obvious when it does no more than yield predictable results." KSR, 550 U.S.
at 416. Here, the Examiner finds that Oliphant "fails to expressly discuss the
mechanics of the risk manager communicating with these heterogonous
devices" (Ans. 11) and, similar to one skilled in the art when confronted
with a reference omitting details, the Examiner looks for the relevant
teachings in other references.
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of independent
claim 1 and independent claims 8 and 15 commensurate in scope, as well as
dependent claims 2, 9, 16, and 21-28 not argued separately with
particularity. See App. Br. 12, 16.
Third Issue
Appellants contend the Examiner's taking of Official Notice is
improper because the Examiner is taking "official notice of facts without
citing a prior art reference where the facts asserted to be well known" (Reply
Br. 8) and the Examiner is taking "official notice of legal conclusions."
(Reply Br. 9.)
We do not agree with Appellants. The Examiner takes Official Notice
in finding that "all the devices named in [claims 5, 6, 12, 13, 19, and 20]
were old and well known in the art of networking at the time of applicant's
filing." (Final Act. 5.) Appellants contend that "[t]o the extent that the
statement of Official Notice is intended to mean anything but that these
types of devices exist, the statement is traversed." (Reply Br. 8, quoting
Response dated Apr. 18, 2017.) Appellants, however, in their challenge of
Official Notice, do not show that at the date of Appellants' invention, that
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network nodes, switches, routers, and intrusion prevention systems (recited
in claims 5, 12, and 19), and monitoring nodes, one or more of
{ workstations, whitelisting servers, anti virus systems, backup servers, and
other security software (recited in claims 6, 13, and 20) did not exist.
Accordingly, we agree with the Examiner that such devices were well
known in the art at the time of Appellants' invention. We also agree with
the Examiner's separate finding that the incorporation of these devices
"would have been merely an obvious variant offering the predictable benefit
of security and customization." (Ans. 16.)
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner's rejection of claims 5, 6, 12,
13, 19, and 20.
CONCLUSION
For the reasons stated above, we affirm the obviousness rejections of
claims 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 12, 13, 15, 16, and 19--28.
DECISION
The Examiner's decision rejecting claims 1, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 12, 13, 15,
16, and 19-28 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 )(iv).
AFFIRMED
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