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 .
DETAILED ACTION
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 final rejection. 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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 9/2/2025 has been entered.
Applicant amended claims 1 and 10. The claims 1-14 are pending.
Examiner’s Notes
Claim 1 limitations “an interface”, “a status component”, “a queueing component” and “a communication component” has not been interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, because the non-structural term are preceded by a structural modifier or known by one skilled in the art as denoting a type of structural device.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1 and 10 filed on 9/2/2025 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument. While the prior art Meyer continues to teach the amended limitations, for compact prosecution during this new round of RCE, Examiner respectfully replaces Myer with a new art below. Therefore, the new reference by Qian (US Pub No 2016/0294563) is being applied to teach the amended limitations below.
Claim Objections
Claims 6 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 6, lines 1-2 “a queuing component” should now read “the queuing component” referring to the amended claim 1’s queueing component;
Claim 6, line 2 “an ordered queue” should now read “the ordered queue” based on the amended claim 1; and
Claim 6, line 4 “the queue” should read “the ordered queue”.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
Claims 1-5, 8-12, 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cammarota et al. (US Pub No 2018/0109418) in view of Qian (US Pub No 2016/0294563).
With respect to claim 1, Cammarota teaches intermediary apparatus for controlling enrollment of a plurality of enrollee devices to a wireless network according to a device provisioning protocol, DPP, the intermediary apparatus (e.g., Figs. 3-4 #130 Intermediary Device) comprising:
an interface configured to obtain authentication data associated with each of [the plurality of] enrollee devices (e.g., User Interface #608 and Sensor Unit #604 @ Fig. 6 and the intermediary device may obtain enrollee bootstrapping data (such as a public bootstrap key) associated with the enrollee device and send the enrollee bootstrapping data to the configurator device ¶ 0030 & 0063);
a status component configured to determine a status of a configurator device of the wireless network (e.g., the configurator device may provide an indication to the intermediary device teaching determining a status of a configurator device ¶ 0054 and the intermediary device establishing a wireless association with the configurator device ¶ 0056); and
a communication component configured to communicate authentication data associated with one or more of the enrollee devices to the configurator device based on the determined status of the configurator device (e.g., intermediary device may use a legacy wireless authentication scheme to establish a wireless association with the configurator device ¶ 0055 and after establishing a connection to determine the status of the configurator device, the intermediary device may sign the enrollee bootstrapping data using the configurator private signing key. The signed enrollee bootstrapping data is provided in an encrypted enrollment request message 423. At 425, the configurator device decrypts the enrollment request message and recovers the enrollee bootstrapping data. ¶ 0057).
Cammarota disclose the claimed subject matter as discussed above with respect to a single enrollee devices and hints at having multiple IoT devices (¶ 0029) but does not explicitly disclose a plurality of enrollee and a queueing component. However, prior art Qian being an analogous art from the same field of endeavor Qian teaches a method for “facilitating the provisioning of resources (e.g., devices, data, and systems) for use by authorized users” at ¶ [0001] & [0009], and Qian further teaches a plurality of enrollee (e.g., plurality of different UE submitting provisioning requests ¶ 0030 & Fig. 1) and a queueing component configured to create an ordered queue, wherein the ordered queue includes a priority of enrollment tasks (e.g., “managing the order and/or priority of execution of provisioning requests. This corresponds to an execution of multiple provisioning requests across an enterprise relating to data assets maintained by a common data service. Under this scenario, provisioning requests may be queued by the provisioning platform 103 based on the requirements as well as the current availability and resource and processing capabilities of the servers, databases, etc., involved in the migration. As such, a job pool… “¶ 0030). Therefore, based on Cammarota in view of Qian, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to utilize the teaching of Qian to the system of Cammarota in order to reduce time and effort and effectively provisioning business unit when there are large amounts of data and/or resources to be provisioned (¶ 0001). Hence, it would have been obvious to combine the references to obtain the invention as specified in the instant claim.
With respect to claim 2, Cammarota further teaches wherein the status component comprises a monitoring component adapted to monitor an operating status of the configurator device to determine when the configurator device is in an available state during which the configurator device is available to enroll an enrollee device to the wireless network, and wherein the communication component is configured to, responsive to the monitoring component determining that the configurator device is in an available state, communicate authentication data associated with one or more of the enrollee devices to the configurator device (e.g., after the intermediary device establishes communication with the configurator device and the configurator device exporting a configurator private signing key to the intermediary device, teaching an available state ready to enroll new devices ¶ 0055-0056).
With respect to claim 3, Cammarota further teaches wherein the communication component is configured to, responsive to the monitoring component determining that the configurator device is not in an available state, prevent communication of authentication data associated with one or more of the enrollee devices to the configurator device (e.g., prior to providing the configurator private signing key to the intermediary device, teaching the configurator device is not available and prevent authentication data communication without the configurator private signing key ¶ 0056).
With respect to claim 4, Cammarota further teaches wherein the interface component is configured to intercept authentication data communicated from an enrollee device to the configurator device of the wireless network (e.g., communication via the intermediary device ¶ 0055, 0062, Figs. 4 & 8).
With respect to claim 5, Cammarota further teaches wherein the interface component is configured to receive authentication data from a mobile computing device, the intermediary device being configured to obtain authentication data from a user or an enrollee device (e.g., QR code ¶ 0037 & Fig. 1).
With respect to claim 8, Cammarota further teaches wherein the authentication data associated with an enrollee device comprises bootstrapping information (e.g., bootstrapping info ¶ 0029-0030).
With respect to claim 9, Cammarota further teaches wherein the intermediary apparatus comprises a legacy device that does not natively support the device provisioning protocol, and wherein the communication component is configured to communicate authentication data via an application layer at the intermediary apparatus (e.g., the intermediary device may be a legacy device that does not natively support the device provisioning protocol ¶ 0011 & 0031).
The limitations of claim 10 are substantially similar to claim 1 above, and therefore the claim is likewise rejected.
The limitations of claim 11 are substantially similar to claim 2 above, and therefore the claim is likewise rejected.
The limitations of claim 12 are substantially similar to claim 3 above, and therefore the claim is likewise rejected.
The limitations of claim 14 are substantially similar to claim 9 above, and therefore the claim is likewise rejected.
Claims 6-7 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cammarota in view of Qian, and further in view of Meyer at al. (US Pub No 2020/0204381).
With respect to claim 6, Cammarota and Qian teaches a queueing component as discussed above but does not explicitly disclose the communicating of authentication data from the ordered queue is based on a position in the queue. However, analogous art from the same field of endeavor, Meyer teaches a queuing component configured to store the obtained authentication data in an ordered queue, and wherein the communication component is configured to communicate authentication data from the ordered queue based on a position in the queue (e.g., the registration authority having bidirectional message queues and this provides the performance benefit of separating new requests from pending responses in the message queues ¶ 0145). Therefore, based on Cammarota in view of Qian, and further in view of Meyer, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to utilize the teaching of Meyer to the system of Cammarota in view of Qian in order to provide improved techniques for securely provisioning the digital assets in computerized devices prevent the computerized devices from operating using error-ridden, incorrectly functioning, untested, maliciously altered, or otherwise undesirable software and data (¶0008). Hence, it would have been obvious to combine the references to obtain the invention as specified in the instant claim(s).
With respect to claim 7, Meyer further teaches wherein the queuing component is configured to position first authentication data associated with a first enrollee device in the ordered queue based on a property of the first enrollee device or a time value associated with the first authentication data (e.g., transmits log and request having timestamps ¶ 0080 and the queue process the requests on time value between separating between new requests and pending responses in the message queue ¶0145). The reason to combine Meyer to Cammarota in view of Qian is the same as claim 6 above.
The limitations of claim 13 are substantially similar to claim 6 above, and therefore the claim is likewise rejected.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Particularly, Benoit et al. (US Pub No 2015/0229475) discloses a relevant device provisioning method being assisted using a configurator device.
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/CHAU LE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2408