Richard Jay. Cohen et al.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Sep 27, 2019

14487414 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Sep. 27, 2019)

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.
14/487,414 09/16/2014 Richard Jay Cohen AUS920140219US1 9931
63400 7590 09/27/2019
IBM CORP. (DHJ)
c/o DAVID H. JUDSON
5960 Berkshire Ln, Floor 6
SUITE 225
DALLAS, TX 75225
EXAMINER
MCCOY, RICHARD ANTHONY
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2431
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/27/2019 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):
mail@davidjudson.com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte RICHARD JAY COHEN, ANNE LOUISE BOLGERT,
RANDOLPH MICHAEL FORLENZA, MIGUEL SANG, and
KRISHNA KISHORE YELLEPEDDY
____________

Appeal 2018-008336
Application 14/487,414
Technology Center 2400
____________

Before ERIC B. CHEN, JENNIFER L. McKEOWN, and CARL L.
SILVERMAN, Administrative Patent Judges.

McKEOWN, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
Appellant1 appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s
decision to reject claims 1–17 and 20.2 We have jurisdiction under 35
U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse.

1 According to Appellant, the real party in interest is International Business
Machines Corporation. Appeal Br. 1.
2 Although the Examiner and Appellant list claims 18 and 19 as rejected, the
pending rejection in the Final Action do not include these claims. See Final
Act. 2–9 (including no discussion of claims 18 and 19). Claims 18 and 19
were rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112 and 35 U.S.C. 101 in Non-Final Office
Action, dated March 27, 2017, but these rejections were withdrawn. See
Final Act. 2.
Appeal 2018-008336
Application 14/487,414

2
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant’s disclosed and claimed invention “relates generally to web
application security and in particular to onboarding applications used in
association with a Web portal.” Spec. p. 1, ll. 5–6.
Claim 1 is illustrative of the claimed invention and reads as follows:
1. A method for automated on-boarding of a web application in
association with a proxy that provides authentication and authorization
functions on behalf of web applications that are coupled to the proxy,
comprising:
monitoring communications to and from the web application as a first
set of users interact with the web application to discover data indicative of one
or more application characteristics;
analyzing the data against one or more rules to identify the one or more
application characteristics;
based on the one or more identified application characteristics
determined by monitoring communications to and from the web application
as the first set of users interact with the web application, generating a set of
configuration data to be used to configure the web application to the proxy so
that the proxy can thereafter provide the authentication and authorization
functions on behalf of the web application; and
applying the configuration data to the proxy to thereby on-board the
web application so that the proxy thereafter provides authentication and
authorization functions on behalf of the web application;
wherein at least the monitoring and analyzing operations are carried out
in software executing in one or more hardware processing elements.

THE REJECTIONS
The Examiner rejected claims 1–3, 6, 8–10, 13, 15–17, and 20 under
35 U.S.C. § 103 as unpatentable over Loveland (US 7,076,797 B2, issued
Jul. 11, 2006;) and Loevenguth (US 2011/0251906 A1, published Oct. 13,
2011). Final Act. 3–7.
Appeal 2018-008336
Application 14/487,414

3
The Examiner rejected claims 4, 5, 11, and 12 under 35 U.S.C. § 103
as unpatentable over Loveland, Loevenguth, and Zhang (US 9,244,976 B1,
issued Jan. 26, 2016). Final Act. 7.
The Examiner rejected claims 7 and 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as
unpatentable over Loveland, Loevenguth, and Roy-Chowdhury (US
2006/0230062 A1, published Oct. 12, 2006). Final Act. 8.

ANALYSIS
THE § 103 REJECTION BASED ON LOVELAND AND LOEVENGUTH
Claims 1–3, 6, 8–10, 13, 15–17, and 20
Based on the record before us, we are persuaded that the Examiner
erred in finding that claims 1–3, 6, 8–10, 13, 15–17, and 20 are unpatentable
over Loveland and Loevenguth.
Appellant argues that the cited combination fails to teach or suggest
the recited generating and applying limitations of claim 1. Appellant argues,
for example, that Loveland’s collected authentication information, i.e. the
authentication bundle, is not configuration data applied to the proxy so that
the proxy thereafter provides authentication and authorization functions on
behalf of the web application. Appeal Br. 9–10. According to Appellant,
Loveland’s authentication bundle is for a particular user session, which is
distinct from the claimed configuration data applied to the proxy so that the
proxy thereafter provides authentication and authorization functions on
behalf of the web application. Id. Appellant additionally argues that the
Examiner’s interpretation excises web application out of the claim. Reply
Br. 2.
Appeal 2018-008336
Application 14/487,414

4
We agree with Appellant. Loveland collects information, such as the
type of device used for the authentication attempt, such as telephone,
computer, mobile phone, etc. The collected information is synthesized into
an authentication bundle that may be used by a security module to
authenticate the user for a particular user session. See Loveland, col. 2, ll.
30–52 and col. 12, l. 65– col. 13, l. 3. On the other hand, the claimed
invention recites identifying web application characteristics, generating a set
of configuration data to configure the web application to the proxy, and
applying the configuration data to the proxy to thereby on-board the web
application so that the proxy thereafter provides authentication and
authorization functions on behalf of the web application. While Loveland’s
user access rights may arguably be integrated into the security module to
provide access to network resources for that user session, it is unclear, based
on the record before us, how the Examiner interprets Loveland’s user access
rights to be equivalent to the recited web application. See, e.g., Ans. 3
(discussing the interpretation of on-boarding, but failing to consider the web
application limitations). In order for us to sustain the Examiner’s rejection,
we would need to resort to impermissible speculation or unfounded
assumptions or rationales to supply deficiencies in the factual bases of the
rejection before us. In re Warner, 379 F.2d 1011, 1017 (CCPA 1967).
Accordingly, we reverse the rejection of claims 1–3, 6, 8–10, 13, 15–
17, and 20 as unpatentable over Loveland and Lovenguth.

Appeal 2018-008336
Application 14/487,414

5
THE REMAINING § 103 REJECTIONS
Claims 4, 5, 7, 11, 12, and 14
As discussed above, based on the record before us, we are persuaded
that the Examiner fails to sufficiently show that Loveland and Lovenguth
combined teach or suggest the limitations of independent claims 1, 8, and
15. The additionally cited prior art references fail to cure the deficiencies of
Loveland and Lovenguth. As such, we similarly reverse the rejections of
dependent claims 4, 5, 7, 11, 12, and 14 as unpatentable.

DECISION
We reverse the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–17 and 20.

REVERSED