Invalidity dossier
US 9628512
Added 9/21/2026, 10:22:41 AM
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Patent summary
Title, assignee, inventors, filing/issue dates, abstract, and a plain-language overview of the claims.
Patent Overview — US 9,628,512 B2
Title: Malicious relay detection on networks
Patent number / application: US 9,628,512 B2; Application US 14/644,186; Publication US 2015/0264083 A1
Inventors: Ryan James Prenger, Nicolas Beauchesne, Karl Matthew Lynn
Assignee of record (as listed): Vectra Networks Inc (original assignee); current assignee listed as Vectra AI Inc
Key dates: Priority date 2014-03-11; filing date 2015-03-10; publication 2015-09-17; granted 2017-04-18; anticipated expiration 2035-03-10; status Active
Classifications: H04L63/14 (detecting/protecting against malicious traffic), including H04L63/1475 (passive attacks), H04L63/1425 (traffic logging/anomaly detection), H04L63/1466 (active attacks involving interception, injection, modification, spoofing); G06F16/285 (clustering/classification) and G06F17/30598
Purpose (from the text): To detect network attacks that use relays, addressing the harmful situation where an outside entity takes control of a host computer inside a company or organization and uses it as a source for attacks against other targets or to exfiltrate data from within the organization. The text notes this is difficult to detect because the attack may be carried out over time and often is mistaken for "normal" network behavior until data is analyzed over a longer period.
Plain-language scope (as described): A relay detection engine extracts information from sessions (communications between a source and destination computer) and categorizes network communications according to relay behaviors and categorization constraints, such as label constraints and flow direction constraints. Once a session is categorized as a known relay behavior, historical data concerning the involved hosts may be retrieved and used with the newly categorized behavior to score the hosts, or the likelihood that the communication is part of a relay attack. A score module may check thresholds, correlate detections with durable host IDs, generate alerts, and respond to queries. A detection unit (Type A) is described for detecting relay communication attacks.
What the excerpt does not establish: It does not provide verbatim claim language or the full specification, does not establish litigation, ownership-transfer validity, patent validity, or prior art, and does not contain a complete list of figures or reference numerals.
Generated 10/1/2026, 10:01:39 PM
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PTAB challenges
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Assignment history
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Prior art
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