Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Mirage Networks Claims Patent Approval Pending

Austin-based Mirage Networks said Wednesday that the firm has made progress on a second U.S. patent, saying that it has received a "Notice of Allowance" from the U.S. Patent office on a patent covering its NAC products. According to the firm, it believes the Notice of Allowance will result in the patent being issued before the end of the year. A "Notice of Allowance" is usually issued before the USPTO grants a patent to a company, and is the last step to actual issuance of a patent. Mirage Networks said the patent in question was filed in October of 2002, and covers its ARP-based address management enforcement/mitigation technology for controlling an endpoint’s access to the network. Mirage Networks' Network Access Control (NAC) security products are used to control which PCs and other devices are allowed on corporate networks. The USPTO usually grants patents and trademarks after a "Notice of Allowance," however occasionally withdraws those rights even after a notice. Round Rock-based Dell was hit last week by a withdrawal of its own "Notice of Allowance" on an attempt to trademark the rights to the term "cloud computing."