Prior art

Analysis of Prior Art for U.S. Patent 9,313,101

This analysis details the most relevant prior art cited against U.S. Patent 9,313,101, focusing on references considered by the USPTO examiner during prosecution. Each reference is evaluated for its potential to anticipate the independent claims of the '101 patent under 35 U.S.C. § 102.

The core invention of U.S. Patent 9,313,101 lies in combining traditional network traffic rules (based on packet "tuple information") with a time-based condition (e.g., time of day, specific date range) and specifying three distinct architectural locations for determining when this time condition is met: the Policy Server (PS), the Policy Management System (PMS), or the Policy Execution Equipment (PEE).

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Examiner-Cited Prior Art

These references were cited by the USPTO patent examiner as relevant to the examination of the patent application.

1. U.S. Patent 6,859,841 B2

• Full Citation: US 6,859,841 B2, "Programmable system for processing a partitioned network infrastructure"
• Assignee: Intel Corporation
• Publication Date: February 22, 2005 (Filed: June 15, 1998)
• Description: This patent describes a system with a policy server that provides rules to distributed "policy targets" for enforcement. The patent explicitly states that policy rules can be defined with attributes including a "rule lifetime including start date and time and end date and time" (Column 13, lines 35-36 of US 6,859,841 B2). The policy server manages these rules and provides them to the network elements that will enforce them.
• Potential Anticipation: This reference is highly relevant as it discloses the combination of policy rules with specific time-based validity periods.
  • Claim 1: This claim is potentially anticipated. US '841 discloses a policy server that manages rules based on a "lifetime" defined by a start and end time. The server providing these rules to policy targets implies that the server is determining whether the rule is active ("execution time point arrives") before making it available for enforcement. This aligns closely with the process described in claim 1, where the policy server determines the execution time and then transmits the policy.
  • Claims 3 & 6: This reference is also relevant to claims 3 and 6. The "policy target" in the '841 patent could be analogous to the PMS or PEE. If the policy target receives rules with their start/end times and is responsible for checking the current time before enforcement, then it would anticipate the methods described in claims 3 and 6.

2. U.S. Patent Application Publication 2008/0316922 A1

• Full Citation: US 2008/0316922 A1, "Data and Control Plane Architecture Including Server-Side Triggered Flow Policy Mechanism"
• Assignee: Packeteer, Inc.
• Publication Date: December 25, 2008 (Filed: June 21, 2007)
• Description: This application details a policy server that communicates policy rules to a policy client for enforcement. The application explicitly discloses that a policy rule can have one or more "triggers," which are conditions that must be met for enforcement. A stated example of a trigger is "a time-of-day or a day-of-week" (Abstract). The application further clarifies that "The policy client evaluates the trigger condition" before enforcing the rule (Paragraph).
• Potential Anticipation: This reference strongly teaches time-based triggers for network policies.
  • Claim 1: This reference likely does not anticipate claim 1. The '101 patent's claim 1 requires the policy server to wait for the execution time and then transmit the policy. In contrast, the '922 application describes the policy being sent to the client with the time-based trigger, and the client is responsible for evaluating that trigger.
  • Claims 3 & 6: These claims are potentially anticipated. The "policy client" in the '922 application is analogous to the PMS (of claim 3) or the PEE (of claim 6). The client downloads the policy and its time-based trigger, and is explicitly responsible for "determin[ing] whether an execution time point of the policy arrives." This matches the methods of claims 3 and 6 directly.

3. U.S. Patent Application Publication 2013/0117847 A1

• Full Citation: US 2013/0117847 A1, "Streaming Method and System for Processing Network Metadata"
• Assignee: William G. Friedman
• Publication Date: May 9, 2013 (Filed: November 7, 2011)
• Description: This application describes a system for processing streams of network data by applying a set of rules. The application states that these rules can have "a time-based component (e.g., to only apply on weekdays between 9 am and 5 pm)" (Paragraph).
• Potential Anticipation: This reference provides another clear disclosure of combining network rules with time-based conditions.
  • Claim 1: Similar to the '922 application, this reference does not appear to describe the server-side time check required by claim 1.
  • Claims 3 & 6: The "rules engine" described in this application, which applies the time-based rules, is analogous to the PMS or PEE. The engine must check the current time to see if the rule is active, which aligns with the core steps of claims 3 and 6.

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Other Cited Prior Art

The following references were also cited on the face of the '101 patent and are relevant.

1. Korean Patent Application Publication KR 2003-0003593 A

• Full Citation: KR 2003-0003593 A, "Network Security System and Method for applying Security Rule for Restricted Condition"
• Assignee: HackersLab Inc.
• Publication Date: January 10, 2003
• Description: An English-language abstract indicates this reference discloses a policy server that generates a security rule with a "time limit condition" and sends it to a "security agent." The agent applies the rule only when the current time is within the defined time limit.
• Potential Anticipation: This reference strongly anticipates claims 3 and 6 for the same reasons as US 2008/0316922 A1. The "security agent" performs the role of the PMS or PEE by downloading a policy and being responsible for checking the time condition before execution. It does not appear to anticipate claim 1.

2. U.S. Patent Application Publication 2008/0225708 A1

• Full Citation: US 2008/0225708 A1, "Application-aware policy enforcement"
• Assignee: Lange Andrew S
• Publication Date: September 18, 2008 (Filed: March 13, 2007)
• Description: This application describes policies being provisioned from a policy server to a policy enforcement point. It explicitly states, "The policy rule can define conditions when it is applicable, such as time of day, day of week, or other time-based criteria" (Paragraph).
• Potential Anticipation: This reference anticipates claims 3 and 6. The "policy enforcement point" is responsible for applying the rules, which includes checking the time-based criteria. This is directly analogous to the PEE (claim 6) or PMS (claim 3) determining the execution time. The reference does not appear to describe the specific server-side determination method of claim 1.