Fastly, Inc.

Patent Trials and Appeals BoardDec 1, 2021

2020006275 (P.T.A.B. Dec. 1, 2021)

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. 15/446,246 03/01/2017 Tyler B. McMullen 683.0073 4005 76444 7590 12/01/2021 Setter Roche LLP 1860 Blake Street Suite 100 Denver, CO 80202 EXAMINER MUNDUR, PADMAVATHI V ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2441 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 12/01/2021 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): uspto@setterroche.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte TYLER B. MCMULLEN Appeal 2020-006275 Application 15/446,246 Technology Center 2400 Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, ELENI MANTIS MERCADER, and JOHNNY A. KUMAR, Administrative Patent Judges. MANTIS MERCADER, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–20. See Final Act. 1. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We REVERSE. 1 We use the term “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37 C.F.R. § 1.42 (2018). Appellant identifies the real party in interest as Fastly, Inc. Appeal Br. 2. Appeal 2020-006275 Application 15/446,246 2 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claimed invention is directed to edge dictionaries that are implemented within the cache nodes (i.e., CNs) of a content delivery network and are dynamic based on the requests of the end user devices. Spec. para. 23. Claim 8, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 8. A content delivery network that caches content for end user devices, the content delivery network comprising: a first cache node configured to: receive a content request from an end user device; identify a modification to at least one key-value pair in an edge dictionary based on the content request, wherein the edge dictionary comprises a reference key- value function for a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) accelerator service and a plurality of key-value pairs; generate a modified version of the edge dictionary based on the modification to the at least one key-value pair; and transfer a notification to at least one other cache node in the content delivery network, wherein the notification indicates the modification to the at least one key-value pair; and the at least one other cache node configured to: implement the modification in at least one edge dictionary corresponding to the modification. Appeal 2020-006275 Application 15/446,246 3 REFERENCES The prior art relied upon by the Examiner is: Name Reference Date Setia US 2008/0126531 A1 May 29, 2008 Bender US 2011/0246503 A1 Oct. 6, 2011 Ramanan US 2014/0189859 A1 July 3, 2014 Bergman US 2015/0026315 A1 Jan. 22, 2015 Kulkarni US 2016/0241528 A1 Aug. 18, 2016 REJECTIONS Claim(s) Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis 1, 2, 4, 7–9, 11, 14–16, 18–20 103 Ramanan, Kulkarni, Bender 3, 10, 17 103 Ramanan, Kulkarni, Bender, Bergman 5, 6, 12, 13 103 Ramanan, Kulkarni, Bender, Setia OPINION Claims 1, 2, 4, 7–9, 11, 14–16, and 18–20 rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 Appellant argues that the combination of Ramanan, Kulkarni, and Bender does not teach or suggest a cache node configured to “receive a content request from an end user device,” and “identify a modification to at least one key-value pair in an edge dictionary based on the content request, wherein the edge dictionary comprises a reference key-value function for a Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) accelerator service and a plurality of key-value pairs,” as recited in claim 8. 2 Appeal Br. 7. 2 Independent claims 1 and 15 recite similar subject matter. Appeal 2020-006275 Application 15/446,246 4 Appellant argues that Ramanan teaches creating a “herd cache,” or a shared cache among a number of nodes in a network. Appeal Br. 8. According to Ramanan, the nodes within the “herd” can reduce time spent scanning content files for malware, adware, etc. by creating a shared list of content which has already been scanned and identified as containing such elements. Id. According to Appellant, Ramanan is dealing with content received into the shared cache by different ways, e.g., “via an email attachment, a URL from a web browser, a file transfer, or a removable storage medium,” and focusses on how to handle content that has been received by the shared cache. Appeal Br. 8 (citing Ramanan para. 46). According to Appellant, Ramanan does not teach elements providing the content back to end users or others, including receiving and/or manipulating requests for the content and cannot teach “identify[ing] a modification to at least one key value pair in an edge dictionary based on the content request,” without any contemplation of a content request. Id. (alteration in original). Appellant further argues that Kulkarni is directed to improving how data is transferred to mobile devices. Appeal Br. 8. Kulkarni teaches a method of using an HTTP accelerator to confirm integrity and validity of an HTTP request. Id. Appellant argues that the Examiner’s articulated motivation/suggestion of the HTTP request being “scrubbed” in step 168, which involves parsing the HTTP line and HTTP request headers to confirm the integrity and validity of the HTTP request, is inappropriate because Ramanan does not teach using requests that can be modified. Id. at 9. In other words, there are no “requests” to be scrubbed, nor is there a reason to scrub or scan the requests. Id. Appeal 2020-006275 Application 15/446,246 5 We agree with Appellant’s arguments. The Examiner finds that in Ramanan, the object that is being scanned sets in motion the updating of local cache nodes and is a part of that implicit content request. Ans. 4. The Examiner finds that any modification to contents of local cache nodes is driven in part by the implicit request (based on the request). Id. The Examiner finds, that for instance, Ramanan describes the object as “web content of a Uniform Resource Locator (URL) received by a compute node” which would indicate that the scanned objects are the result of HTTP processing. Id. (citing Ramanan para. 19). We do not agree with the Examiner’s finding because Ramanan teaches scan modules of compute nodes and local caches can include signatures of threat levels but this scanning procedure is not done based on a request. See Ramanan paras. 19, 39, 46. We do not agree with the Examiner’s finding that just because some files scanned are URL files received, that there is somehow an implicit request. Because we reverse the rejection of each independent claims 1, 8, and 15 on appeal, we also reverse the rejection of each associated dependent claim—specifically, claims 2–7, 9–14, and 16–20. We note that the additional references of Kulkarni, Bender, Setia, and Bergman do not cure the above cited deficiencies. CONCLUSION The Examiner’s rejections of claims 1–20 are REVERSED. Appeal 2020-006275 Application 15/446,246 6 DECISION SUMMARY Claim(s) Rejected 35 U.S.C. § Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed 1, 2, 4, 7–9, 11, 14–16, 18–20 103 Ramanan, Kulkarni, Bender 1, 2, 4, 7–9, 11, 14–16, 18–20 3, 10, 17 103 Ramanan, Kulkarni, Bender, Bergman 3, 10, 17 5, 6, 12, 13 103 Ramanan, Kulkarni, Bender, Setia 5, 6, 12, 13 Overall Outcome 1–20 REVERSED