Ex Parte Wang et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardJan 30, 2017

13564797 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 30, 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. 13/564,797 08/02/2012 Bin Wang CN920110061US2 3079 37945 7590 02/01/2017 DTTKFW YFF EXAMINER YEE AND ASSOCIATES, P.C. BAUM, RONALD P.O. BOX 802333 DALLAS, TX 75380 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2439 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 02/01/2017 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): ptonotifs @yeeiplaw.com mgamez @ yeeiplaw. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte BIN WANG, LIN XIE, YIN SONG, LEI ZHANG, MAN SUN, and DONG LI Appeal 2016-002769 Application 13/564,797 Technology Center 2400 Before JUSTIN BUSCH, TERRENCE W. McMILLIN, and ALEX S. YAP, Administrative Patent Judges. YAP, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the final rejection of claims 1—4 and 7—14, which are all the claims pending in this application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b) We reverse. 1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is International Business Machines Corporation. (App. Br. 2.) Appeal 2016-002769 Application 13/564,797 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Introduction Appellants’ invention “relates to network security, more particularly, to a method and system for preventing phishing attacks.” (Aug. 2, 2012 Specification (“Spec.”) 12.) According to Appellants, “[pjhishing attacks are usually carried out through emails or instant messages [and such pjhishing attacks usually direct the user to a fake website with an interface appearance highly similar to the genuine legitimate website, to deceive the user to input personal sensitive information.” {Id. 13.) However, “[b]y implementing the method or system according to the [claimed invention], since a reproduced Web page is first detected to determine whether it is a fake website of a phishing attack before it is displayed to the user and the user is warned upon detecting a fake website, unnecessary losses due to phishing attacks can be prevented.” {Id. 113.) Claim 1 is illustrative of the claimed invention, and is reproduced below: 1. A method performed by a data processing system for preventing phishing attacks, comprising: acquiring, by a computing device, a plurality of links in a Web page; classifying, by the computing device, the acquired links according to link types to form classified links; and determining, by the computing device prior to conditionally displaying the Web page to a user, whether a phishing attack exists according to the classified links, wherein the acquired links are classified into two types: internal links belonging to a same domain as an internet protocol (IP) address of the Web page, and external links belonging to a different domain from the IP address of the Web page. 2 Appeal 2016-002769 Application 13/564,797 Prior Art and Rejection on Appeal The following table lists the prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal: Helsper et al. (“Helsper”) Hegerty et al. (“Hegerty”) Schneider et al. (“Schneider”) US 2006/0168066 Al July 27, 2006 US 7,441,044 B2 Oct. 21, 2008 US 7,634,809 B1 Dec. 15, 2009 Claims \-A and 7—14 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Helsper, in view of Hegerty, and further in view of Schneider. (See Final Office Action (mailed Mar. 18, 2015) (“Final Act.”) 5-21.) ANAFYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejection in light of Appellants’ arguments that the Examiner has erred. We are persuaded that the Examiner erred in rejecting the claims on appeal. With respect to claim 1, the claim recites “acquiring ... a plurality of links in a Web page . . . classifying ... the acquired links.” (Emphasis added.) The Examiner finds that: Helsper discloses an email message processing system (e.g., ]0017, 0078 et seq.,) for parsing email message associated IP addresses, URL, tag/link location and domain related network location data (e.g., ]0044, 0047) - i.e., ‘acquiring, by a computing device, a plurality of links . . .’. Helsper further discloses an email as an HTML data structure downloaded and formatted to be rendered/viewed via a web enabled browser (e.g., f[f]0019, 0081, 0108 et seq.,), insofar as an browser 3 Appeal 2016-002769 Application 13/564,797 rendered/viewed HTML email data structure comprising text, images, tag/URL links (also see distinction of the terms section above) is clearly a ‘Webpage’ (e.g., f[f J0081, 0109 et seq.,) - i.e., \ . . in a Web page’. (Ans. 4, original emphasis omitted, italics added; Final Act. 6—7.) Appellants contend that the cited passages “do[] not describe classifying links acquired from a Web page into internal and external links.” (App. Br. 8—10, emphasis added.) We agree with Appellants that the portions of Helsper cited by the Examiner do not teach or suggest “acquiring ... a plurality of links in a Web page.” Here, as recognized by the Examiner, Helsper teaches or suggests “an email message processing system ... for parsing email message associated IP addresses, URL, tag/link location and domain related network location data.” (Ans. 4.) However, we do not find the cited portions of Helsper to teach or suggest “acquiring ... a plurality of links in a Web page.” Specifically, the Examiner does not demonstrate either that Helsper teaches rendering an email in a browser or “acquiring ... a plurality of links” from an email (browser-rendered or otherwise). (See Helsper || 1 OS- 113.) Rather, Helsper’s “Trusted Host Browser” is a web browser plug-in that determines and indicates to a user whether a URL being visited can be trusted. (Id.) Even if an email is rendered in a browser, Helsper does not disclose that the Trusted Host Browser acquires a plurality of links from that email; rather Helsper discloses that its Trusted Host Browser may indicate whether a URL that a user clicked on in an email is a trusted URL when that URL is loaded in the browser. (Id.) For the foregoing reasons, we are persuaded of Examiner error in the rejection of claim 1 and do not sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection of claim 4 Appeal 2016-002769 Application 13/564,797 l.2 For the same reason, we also do not sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection of claims 2—A and 7—14, which depend from independent claim 1. DECISION The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1—4 and 7—14 is reversed. REVERSED 2 Because we do not sustain the Examiner’s rejection for the reasons discussed herein, we need not address Appellants’ further arguments. See Beloit Corp. v. Valmet Oy, 742 F.2d 1421, 1423 (Fed. Cir. 1984) (finding an administrative agency is at liberty to reach a decision based on “a single dispositive issue”). 5