Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after allowance or after an Office action under Ex Parte Quayle, 25 USPQ 74, 453 O.G. 213 (Comm'r Pat. 1935). Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, prosecution in this application has been reopened pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 11-21-2025 has been entered.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1 – 32 are allowed.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
The text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 33 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chaum (US 10375042), Cha and Felsher et al (US 8316237), Fel.
Claim 33: Cha teaches a private identity system, the system comprising: at least one processor operatively connected to a memory, the at least one processor configured to: instantiate at least one pre-trained embedding network configured to generate encoded feature vectors from an input of plaintext identifying information; (C6L56-61: input to the backwards run is taken as a known constant vector, the identity vector. The last node in the forward run, the first in the backwards run, permutes this vector using the inverse of the permutation that will be used in the forward run).
communicate the unique identifier from the local device to a remote device; (C26L52-55,66-67, C271-5, C12L60-63: the user device sending a message to at least one desired recipient of the data item, the message including keying information).
retrieve, at the local device, a respective key of the first and second encryption keys based on, at least in part, the unique identifier; (C42L29: the sender, user, chooses a key e… C4L41-43: keys known to pairs made up of a user and a node are referred to as "common" keys to the pair).
retrieve, at the remote device, an associated key of the first and second encryption key based on, at least in part, the unique identifier; (C7L33-34: element can be cryptographically dependent on a secret key (i.e., associated key) common to the user and the node… C17L60: k(l, x) is the key held as a secret in common between subscriber one and node x). and
employ the first and second encryption keys to authenticate a user of the local device. (C13L16-25: at least a first mix receiving... and the at least first mix locating the mix-stage key received earlier by matching the fingerprint of the key with the associated key previously received and then using the located key to process... C30L7-10: if public keys are available related to these private keys, verification of the process is provided for).
Cha teaches the concept but is silent on associate a unique identifier with a first and second encryption key; generate at a local device a label mappable to or encoded as the unique identifier in response, at least in part, to generating the encoded feature vectors produced from the plaintext biometric information at the local device;
But analogous art Fel teaches associate a unique identifier with a first and second encryption key; generate at a local device a label mappable to or encoded as the unique identifier in response, at least in part, to generating the encoded feature vectors produced from the plaintext biometric information at the local device; (C24L26-29, 58-63, C35L21-22: the identification is based on a Public Key Infrastructure, biometric identifiers... C42L25-35: automatically distributing secured versions of a file decryption key... and cryptographically generating key using biometric data... the file's security label, which is defined to contain a plurality of Access-Control Entries Records (ACER's)... each ACER includes respective other data such as: ACER-unique identifying data for uniquely identifying an associated user).
Therefore, it is prima facie obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Cha to include the idea of having identifier for encryption keys and a label mapped to vectors as taught by Fel so that employ secure cryptographic schemes, which reduce the risks and liability for unauthorized disclosure of private information, while maintaining efficient and robust transactions (C7L2-5).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. See PTO-892.
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/BADRINARAYANAN /Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2494.