Ex Parte Vasseur et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardAug 31, 2017

13150866 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 31, 2017)

United States Patent and Trademark Office 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 APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO. 13/150,866 06/01/2011 Jean-Philippe Vasseur 014001 l.U 3827 126982 7590 09/05/2017 PARKER IBRAHIM & BERG LLC One Financial Center Boston, MA 02111 EXAMINER FAYED, RASHA K ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2479 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 09/05/2017 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): patent@piblaw.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte JEAN-PHILIPPE VASSEUR, JONATHAN W. HUI, and SHMUEL SHAFFER Appeal 2017-000242 Application 13/150,866 Technology Center 2400 Before: CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., JEREMY J. CURCURI, and JOHN R. KENNY, Administrative Patent Judges. KENNY, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of claims 1—25. Final Act. 1. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. Appeal 2017-000242 Application 13/150,866 CLAIMED INVENTION The Specification relates to management of misbehaving nodes in a computer network. Spec. 1. Misbehaving nodes are nodes that violate rules, which can either be hard or soft. Id. at 13. Hard rules can be associated with undesirable behaviors that can be classified without statistical analysis or behaviors that require immediate action. Id. Soft rules can require statistical analysis for classification. Id. at 14. Claim 1, reproduced below with disputed limitations italicized, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method, comprising: providing a plurality of nodes in a computer network, each of the nodes being configured to execute a monitor process to identify a misbehaving node based on violation of one or more rules, wherein the one or more rules include both one or more soft rules and one or more hard rules; detecting, by a node in the computer network, the misbehaving node in the computer network based on the misbehaving node acting in violation of the one or more of the rules; communicating, by the node in the computer network, information regarding the misbehaving node to a network management system (NMS), the information including identification of the misbehaving node and detailed observations of misbehavior including identification of the one or more of the rules violated by the misbehaving node, such that the information communicated by the node to the NMS includes at least one of: (1) the one or more rules violated by the misbehaving node, and (2) actions performed by the misbehaving node in violation of the rules; 2 Appeal 2017-000242 Application 13/150,866 receiving isolation instructions from the NMS regarding how to isolate the misbehaving node from the computer network, the isolation instructions based on whether the misbehaving node acted in violation of at least one of the one or more hard rules or at least one of the one or more soft rules, wherein when the misbehaving node violated at least one of the one or more soft rules, the isolation instructions are further based on aggregating observations from multiple nodes at the NMS and determining if one or more mode nodes of the multiple nodes appear as outliers', and performing the isolation instructions. REFERENCES Hardjono US 6,425,004 B1 Gurer US 7,120,819 B1 Tuulos US 2008/0144488 A1 Bajpay US 2009/0290498 A1 REJECTIONS Claims 1—8, 10-18, and 20-25 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over the combination of Gurer, Tuulos, and Bajapy. Final Act. 2. Claims 9 and 19 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over the combination of Gurer, Tuulos, Bajapy, and Hardjono. Final Act. 41. July 23, 2002 Oct. 10, 2006 June 19, 2008 Nov. 26, 2009 ANALYSIS We agree with, and adopt as our own, the Examiner’s findings of facts and conclusions as set forth in the Answer and in the action from which this appeal is taken. We have considered Appellants’ arguments, but do not find 3 Appeal 2017-000242 Application 13/150,866 them persuasive of error. We provide the following discussion primarily for emphasis. The Examiner relies primarily on Bajpay for the disputed limitations of claim 1. Final Act. 5—9; Ans. 5—9. Bajpay specifically addresses device failures at different levels of the OSI model, for example, at level 2 and level 3. Bajpay 116. Bajpay teaches detecting failing (misbehaving) level 2 or level 3 devices on nodes by determining how long a failure indicator from those devices persists. Bajpay H 21—24. If a failure indicator persists for longer than a set time for the device, the device and node are determined to be failing (misbehaving). Id. The Examiner finds this persistence test is a hard rule because it determines the node’s misbehavior using a single indicator factor without statistical analysis. Ans. 5, citing Bajpay H 21—24. Bajpay also teaches determining whether a node is failing or misbehaving by correlating failure indicators. Bajpay H 21—25. The Examiner finds this is a soft rule for misbehaving because it involves statistical analysis. Final Act. 7—8; Ans. 6. The Examiner relies on Gurer for the disputed limitation of determining if one or more mode nodes of the multiple nodes appear as outliers. Ans. 9—10. The Examiner finds that Gurer’s NMS determines if one or more nodes is acting differently from the other nodes (outliers) by misbehaving. Id. The Examiner finds one of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine Gurer and Bajpay to provide an efficient, reliable, and cost-effective administration of a network. Final Act. 9, citing Bajpay 13. Appellants argue the Examiner erred in finding Bajpay teaches or suggests the disputed limitations because (1) Bajpay does not issue different isolation instructions based on whether the misbehaving node violates a hard 4 Appeal 2017-000242 Application 13/150,866 rule or violates a soft rule, (2) Bajpay’s isolation instructions are not based on aggregating observations from multiple nodes, and (3) Bajpay does not teach or suggest the disputed limitation of determining if one or more mode nodes of the multiple nodes appear as outliers. Br. 11—19. We are not persuaded by the first argument because claim 1 does not recite issuing different isolation instructions based on whether the misbehaving node violates a hard rule or violates a soft rule. See Claim 1. Accordingly, the first argument is not directed to a claim limitation and, therefore, does not address patentability. We are not persuaded by the second argument because, as the Examiner finds, Bajpay teaches or suggests aggregating observations from multiple nodes to isolate devices. Ans. 9. In describing whether a device is failing and should be isolated, Bajpay discloses: “Multiple failure indicators could be received from one or more devices on different layers and failures could be reported based on a variety of combinations of failure indicators from different devices.” Bajpay 13; Ans. 9. Bajpay also discloses an embodiment of its network management system 260, which correlates the failure indicators, as having layer 2 and layer 3 management systems, which “collect and correlate indicators from multiple layer 3 routers and layer 2 switches.” Bajpay 1 33; Ans. 8. Further, Bajpay discloses isolating discovered failures. Ans. 9; Bajpay H 16, 36. We are not persuaded by the third argument because the Examiner finds Gurer teaches or suggests determining if one or more mode nodes of the multiple nodes appear as outliers (Ans. 10), and Appellants have not identified any error in that finding. Br. 10—19. Accordingly, we sustain the rejection of claim 1, and of claims 2—25, for which Appellants rely upon the same arguments. Br. 10—19. 5 Appeal 2017-000242 Application 13/150,866 DECISION We affirm the rejections of claims 1—25. 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 6