DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Response to Amendment
This office action is responsive to amendment filed on November 13, 2025. Claim 16 has been canceled. Claims 1-6, 8-15, and 17-19 have been amended. No new claims have been added. Claims 1-15 and 17-20 presented for the examination and remain pending in the application.
The previous 103 rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further review of the Applicant’s claims amendment and argument, the Examiner has introduced the new prior arts of record and made the rejection under 35 USC § 103. (See the reason under the Response to the Argument section).
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1, 8 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Harvey U.S Pub. No. US 2024/0111907 A1 (hereinafter Harvey) in view of Aschauer et al. EP 3422234 B1 (hereinafter Aschauer).
Regarding claim 1. Harvey teaches a method, comprising:
sending a request for one or more security keys for portions of a container image (note that here the claim lists features in the alternative (i.e., one or more security keys). While the claim lists a number of optional limitations only one limitation from the list is required and needs to be met by the prior. However, the prior art of record Harvey teaches “one or more security keys” in Para. [0088]. Harvey teaches in Fig. 4 & 7 show the sending and receiving of a request. For example, in Fig. 7 at step 501 receive initial request and at step 505 send command and further in Para. [0088] the master key or keys define a “security world” associated with the client which includes cryptographic keys (i.e., note that one of the listed keys are the claimed “one or more security keys”)), wherein respective security keys from among the one or more security keys correspond to different respective portions of the container image (Harvey teaches in Para. [0118] per-container data 325 includes information associated with the corresponding container image and the security world key (i.e., one or more security keys) in the container is encrypted each container uses its own encryption key and the container key is split into a plurality of separate parts (i.e., note that here plurality of separate container keys indicate the claimed “different respective portions container”) and the separate parts of the container key are stored in different components of the hardware security module 21);
receiving the one or more security keys (Harvey teaches in Para. [0158] the client has requested to use a cryptographic key (i.e., one or more security keys) to decrypt textual information, the response will comprise the decrypted text information);
accessing at least one of the portions of the container image in an encrypted form; and
decrypting the at least one of the portions of the container image in the encrypted form with the received one or more security keys.
However, Aschauer teaches accessing at least one of the portions of the container image in an encrypted form (Aschauer teaches [On. Page. 5, the 4th Paragraph, lines 4-10] the container image is executed in a container execution environment with a security level that is at least as high as the specified security level, a cryptographic key (i.e., one or more security keys) is determined which enables the specific encrypted data to be decrypted, as a result of which the encrypted data can be accessed); and
decrypting the at least one of the portions of the container image in the encrypted form with the received one or more security keys (Aschauer teaches [On. Page. 5, the 4th Paragraph, lines 1-4] when decryption of certain encrypted data of the container image is only to take place in a container execution environment with a predetermined security level, for example with the high security level, then using of different cryptographic keys (i.e., one or more security keys ) is particularly useful).
Therefore, Harvey and Aschauer are analogues arts and they are in the same field of endeavor as they both are directed to provide the container image and cryptographic keys (one or more security keys) and encrypting and decrypting the keys to perform a cryptographic security function of a hardware security module. A cryptographic algorithm is executed for storing and/or determining a cryptographic key. Encrypted storage of encrypting data and decrypting data is performed in a database. The hardware platform is operated with the security module container. Initialization information of a pseudorandom number generator is stored in the hardware platform. A hardware trust anchor of the hardware platform is accessed based on the data.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the
claimed invention to modify the teachings of using a cryptographic key (i.e., one or more security keys) is determined which enables the specific encrypted data to be decrypted, as a result of which the encrypted data can be accessed in the container image processing and method of processing a decryption of certain encrypted data of the container image ([On. Page. 5, the 4th Paragraph, lines 4-10]) as taught, by Aschauer into the teachings of Harvey invention. One would have been motivated to do so in order to the hardware platform is formed with the security module container to perform the cryptographic security function of the hardware security module, thus ensuring safety performance of the container in a simple manner.
Regarding claims 8 and 14.
Claims 8 and 14 incorporate substantively all the limitation of claim 1 in a system and a machine readable storage medium form and are rejected under the same rationale. Furthermore, regarding the claim limitation of a processor, memory and machine readable storage medium, the prior art of record Harvey teaches in Fig. 5 and Para. [0114].
Claims 2, 3, 5, 9, 11, 15, 16 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Harvey in view of Aschauer further in view of Bowman et al. U.S. Pub. No. 2020/0067694 A1, (hereinafter Bowman).
Regarding claim 2. Harvey in view of Aschauer teaches the method of claim 1.
Harvey in view of Aschauer does not explicitly teach receiving the one or more security keys encrypted with a public key of an enclave of a trusted execution environment; and decrypting the received one or more security keys with a private key of the enclave of the trusted execution environment.
However, Bowman teaches receiving the one or more security keys encrypted with a public key of an enclave of a trusted execution environment (Bowman teaches in Para. [0045] proving that the enclave is running in valid SGX hardware while protecting the identity of the device and/or user and allowing for the protection of the identity of SGX devices and owners, since in some embodiments, a public-key certificate may be issued anonymously to an SGX enclave running on valid SGX hardware and allow two remote SGX enclaves to authenticate one another rely upon a centralized trusted authority. Also see [0050] communications between any two entities may be secure and authenticated using public key cryptographic (i.e., one or more security keys)); and
decrypting the received one or more security keys with a private key of the enclave of the trusted execution environment (Bowman teaches in Para. [0073] the enclave may decrypt each of the encrypted secrets,..., derive a secret key K from the received keyshares and further Bowman teaches in Para. [0072] enclave keys have been verified,... The provisioning service may sign with its private key (PSSKi) the key share (Si,j) and further Bowman teaches in Para. [0049] the recipient enclave may verify that the cryptographic hash of the data corresponds to the hash within the quote. In this manner, the data may be trusted to come directly from the sending enclave (i.e., trusted execution environment)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the
claimed invention to modify the teachings of using a public and private keys in enclave system which includes enclave aware containers with intel SGX and decrypting each of encrypted secrete in enclave by using a private key so that the data trusted to come directly from the sending enclave ([0045], [0050] and [0072]-[0073] and [0049]) as taught, by Bowman into the teachings of Harvey in view of Aschauer invention. One would have been motivated to do so in order to the system allows for the protection of the identity of intel software guard extensions (SGX) devices and owners. Provide authentication between enclaves without the need for a centralized authority.
Regarding claim 3.
Harvey in view of Bowman teaches wherein the method is performed by a container engine and the container engine executes within the enclave (Harvey teaches in Fig. 4 containers 1-3 in HSM element 21 and Fig. 8 at step 802 creates a container in HSM and Para. [0102] when a command to start a container is received at the HSM device 21, a container engine retrieves the container image, then makes one or more API calls to the operating system kernel. The kernel implements the isolation of the container and further Bowman teaches in Figs. 2&3 and Para. [0035] application 201 may create a trusted enclave 204 at 210 to protect secret data and secure data 216… Untrusted partition 202 may call a trusted function at 212 using a call gate 214, which may be a combination of software and hardware configured to accept certain trusted function calls at trusted enclave 204…, and further Bowman teaches in Para. [0037] FIG. 3 illustrates an architecture of a trusted enclave system 300. Trusted enclave system 300 may include an application environment 301,… SGX module 314 may include a combination of software and hardware, and may be configured to request secret information…, and the enclave uses Intel Software Guard Extensions (SGX)).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the
claimed invention to modify the teachings of using Software Guard Extensions (SGX) which is used to create trusted and untrusted enclave application environment ([Figs. 2 & 3, [0035] and [0037]) as taught, by Bowman into the teachings of Harvey by including a command to the containers engine to retrieves the container image (Fog. 4 and [0102]) as taught, by Harvey invention. One would have been motivated to do so in order for protecting sensitive data and ensuring data remains secure even in untrusted environments, offering superior security for sensitive applications like databases in an efficient manner.
Regarding claim 5.
Harvey in view of Bowman teaches wherein the method further comprises sharing the at least one of the portions of the container image in the encrypted form amongst multiple container engines that execute within the enclave (Harvey teaches in Fig. 4 containers 1-3 (i.e., multiple container engines) in HSM element 21 and Fig. 8 at step 802 creates a container in HSM and further Harvey teaches in Para. [0102] a container is received at the HSM device 21, a container engine retrieves the container image further Harvey teaches in Para. [0108] each container is isolated from the others, and has limited and well-defined dependencies on anything outside the container, as explained above with reference to FIGS. 5 and 6, and further Bowman teaches in Fig. 3 shows the Software Guard Extensions (SGX) is used to create isolated enclave environments in the nodes between each container application).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the
claimed invention to modify the teachings of using Software Guard Extensions (SGX) which is used to create trusted and untrusted enclave application environment ([Figs. 2 & 3, [0035] and [0037]) as taught, by Bowman into the teachings of Harvey by including a command to the containers engine to retrieves the container image (Fog. 4 and [0102]) as taught, by Harvey invention. One would have been motivated to do so in order for protecting sensitive data and ensuring data remains secure even in untrusted environments, offering superior security for sensitive applications like databases, and further, enabling true end-to-end secure application deployment with a minimized attack surface.
Regarding claim 15.
Claim 15 incorporate substantively all the limitation of claim 2 in a machine readable storage medium form and is rejected under the same rationale. Furthermore, regarding the claim limitation of a processor, memory and machine readable storage medium, the prior art of record Harvey teaches in Fig. 5 and Para. [0114].
Regarding claims 9 and 16.
Claims 9 and 16 incorporate substantively all the limitation of claim 3 in a system and a machine readable storage medium form and are rejected under the same rationale. Furthermore, regarding the claim limitation of a processor, memory and machine readable storage medium, the prior art of record Harvey teaches in Fig. 5 and Para. [0114].
Regarding claims 11 and 18.
Claims 11 and 18 incorporate substantively all the limitation of claim 5 in a system and a machine readable storage medium form and are rejected under the same rationale. Furthermore, regarding the claim limitation of a processor, memory and machine readable storage medium, the prior art of record Harvey teaches in Fig. 5 and Para. [0114].
Claims 4, 6, 10, 12, 17 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Harvey in view of Aschauer further in view of Suarez et al. U.S. Pub. No. 2017/0177877 A1, (hereinafter Suarez).
Regarding claim 4. Harvey in view of Aschauer teaches the method of claim 1.
Harvey in view of Aschauer does not explicitly teach wherein the method further comprises performing the following before the sending of the request: sending a second request for a manifest of a container image; and identifying from the manifest the at least one of the portions of the container image to access in the encrypted form.
However, Suarez teaches wherein the method further comprises performing the following before the sending of the request: sending a second request for a manifest of a container image (Suarez teaches in Para. [0022] in response to receiving the second request, the system may obtain the manifest corresponding to stored container image, and retrieve the set of files for the stored container image as indicated by the manifest. Also, see Para. [0052]-[0053] about the manifest request in the form of the second version of the container image); and
identifying from the manifest the at least one of the portions of the container image to access in the encrypted form (Suarez teaches in Para. [0053] returning to FIG. 3, a process for garbage collection may begin by reading the most recent manifest for the container image 352 (e.g., the one tagged “latest version”) to determine the locations of the layers for the current version of the container image 352 and further Suarez teaches in Para. [0069] the container image never leaves the environment of the computing resource service provider in unencrypted form, thereby preventing unauthorized access and/or duplication of the container image. In this manner, a key management service, such as the key management service 220 of FIG. 2 can issue a key (such as a public key of a public-private key pair) to the customer so that the customer can perform client-side encryption of container images,…).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the
claimed invention to modify the teachings of reading the most recent manifest for the container image and the system of preventing unauthorized access and/or duplication of the container image ([0053] and [0069]) as taught, by Suarez into the teachings of Harvey in view of Aschauer invention. One would have been motivated to do so in order to the system improves the efficiency of computing systems that allows efficient use of storage resources. Software containers allow multiple applications to quickly launch and run within the respective user spaces without overhead associated with starting and maintaining separate virtual machines. The computing resource service provider providing the container service deny the customer the ability to utilize a secure shell (SSH) to access the container running the software to prevent potential software piracy of the container image.
Regarding claim 6. Harvey in view of Aschauer teaches the method of claim 1.
Harvey further teaches making a change to the portions of the container image that adds a new portion to the portions of the container image (Harvey teaches in Para. [0123] can request a specific version number to be associated with a container…, when the container is run, the latest version that matches the attributes will be retrieved. This change to the latest version does not require the presentation of administrator cards…); and
notifying a security service of the new portion to cause the security service to create a respective security key for the new portion (Harvey teaches in Para. [0220] the connection information may also include identification of a port number of the hardware security module, which is used to indicate the service (i.e., notifying a security service ) of the hardware security module the client device is requesting and further Harvey teaches in Para. [0221] the credential may be a private key of an SSH key pair and the “administrative” roles within the container whereas some credentials may be associated with “main” type of services of the hardware security module, and thus do not grant access to administrative services. Each tenant may have these services available in their container).
Harvey in view of Aschauer does not explicitly teach updating a manifest for the portions of the container image with information describing the new portion; and sending the updated manifest and the new portion to a container image registry.
However, Suarez teaches updating a manifest for the portions of the container image with information describing the new portion (Suarez further teaches in Para. [0109] the system may determine, based on information received with the request of 1302, whether the container image is an update to a container image already stored in the repository of the customer or whether the container image is a new image being stored in the customer repository…, and further Suarez teaches in Para. [0110] a manifest may be generated for the subset of layers representing the container image being uploaded. Also, see Para. [0059] ); and
sending the updated manifest and the new portion to a container image registry (Suarez further teaches in Para. [0091] sends a second signed request 972B and the layers of the container image 952 to the front-end service 914 as if the container registry proxy 962 were, itself, the software developer 966. The container registry front-end service 914 may verify the second signed request 972B, determine whether individual layers of the layers of the container image 952 have already been stored in the container repository 990. Also, see Para. [0055] and [0058]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the
claimed invention to modify the teachings of the container images and updating a manifest and sending a container image registry ([0109]-[0110]) as taught, by Suarez into the teachings of Harvey in view of Aschauer invention. One would have been motivated to do so in order to the registry metadata service may be queried for the metadata rather than the container registry itself, in order to quickly and efficiently determine which layers/images can be cleaned up during garbage collection without burdening the container registry with metadata queries in an efficient manner.
Regarding claims 10 and 17.
Claims 10 and 17 incorporate substantively all the limitation of claim 4 in a system and a machine readable storage medium form and are rejected under the same rationale. Furthermore, regarding the claim limitation of a processor, memory and machine readable storage medium, the prior art of record Harvey teaches in Fig. 5 and Para. [0114].
Regarding claims 12 and 19.
Claims 12 and 19 incorporate substantively all the limitation of claim 6 in a system and a machine readable storage medium form and are rejected under the same rationale. Furthermore, regarding the claim limitation of a processor, memory and machine readable storage medium, the prior art of record Harvey teaches in Fig. 5 and Para. [0114].
Claims 7, 13 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Harvey in view of Aschauer further in view of Suarez and further in view of Iyer et al. U.S. Pub. No. 2019/0114161 A1, (hereinafter Iyer).
Regarding claim 7. Harvey in view of Aschauer further in view of Suarez teaches the method of claim 6.
Harvey in view of Aschauer further in view of Suarez does not explicitly teach wherein at least one of the container image registry and the security service is a cloud service.
However, Iyer teaches wherein at least one of the container image registry and the security service is a cloud service (Iyer teaches in Para. [0045] and [0047] container image registry, cloud platform and security criteria in a cloud platform).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the
claimed invention to modify the teachings of the container images registry in a cloud service ([0047]) as taught, by Iyer into the teachings of Harvey in view of Aschauer further in view of Suarez invention. One would have been motivated to do so in order to the cloud consumer unilaterally provision computing capabilities such as server time and network storage automatically without requiring human interaction with the service provider. The cloud systems automatically controls and optimizes resource use by leveraging a metering capability at some level of abstraction appropriate to the type of service e.g. storage, processing, bandwidth and active user accounts.
Regarding claims 13 and 20.
Claims 13 and 20 incorporate substantively all the limitation of claim 7 in a system and a machine readable storage medium form and are rejected under the same rationale. Furthermore, regarding the claim limitation of a processor, memory and machine readable storage medium, the prior art of record Harvey teaches in Fig. 5 and Para. [0114].
Response to Amendment
Applicant amend the claims and argues in particular, the prior art of record Bacher includes no description of “respective security keys” that corresponds to different respective portions of the container image”. (Remarks. Page. 8).
Upon further review of the claims amendment and the argument, the Examiner has introduced a new prior art of record (Harvey U.S Pub. No. US 2024/0111907 in view of Aschauer et al. EP 3422234 B1) to teach the change in scope of the amended claims and thus, the argument is moot because the argument does not apply to the combination of the references being used in the current rejection (see the 103 rejection above).
Prior art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Renke et al. (U.S. Pub. No. 2022/0147465 A1) which discloses in Para. [0087] the security component will be loaded in a memory location of the host system,... Although not required, the container image 326 may also contain executable code or other secure data 329 that is decrypted with one or more keys provided by the key provisioning service 394, after being provisioned and such that the executable code is automatically instantiated within the isolated enclave memory partition (e.g., VTL1) of the host system. Also, see Para. [0106] for teachings of container image and enclave attestation.
Pascual (U.S. Pub. No. 2021/0263759 A1) which discloses in Para. [0033]-[0034] the security coordinator may generate an encryption key 124 for use in encrypting the container image 148…, the application node 110 may decrypt the encrypted image 146 using the encryption key 124 received from the security coordinator 104 and used by the encrypted registry 106 to generate the encrypted image 146. In particular, the application node 110 may decrypt the container image 146.
Lepoint (U.S. Pub. No. 2019/0394020 A1) which discloses in Para. [0008] a method for generating encryption and decryption keys to selectively encrypt and decrypt portions of a collection of data in an unstructured data container based on one or more security attributes or security policies includes: generating a master security key and at least one public key based on a selected cryptographic security scheme…, and further Lepoint teaches in Para. [0009] the security policies to one or more data subgroups within the collection of data in the unstructured data container to create a security access structure control based on those attributes or policies for access to the collection of data in unstructured data container…
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BERHANU SHITAYEWOLDETSADIK whose telephone number is (571)270-7142. The examiner can normally be reached M-F.
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/BERHANU SHITAYEWOLDETADIK/Examiner, Art Unit 2455
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