DETAILED ACTION
This action is in response to the amendment filed on July 24, 2025. Claims 1-7 and 10-20 have been amended and no claims have been canceled. Claims 1-20 are pending. Of such, claims 1-5 represent a system, claims 6, 11-14 represent an apparatus, claims 7-9 and 15-16 represent a method and claims 10 and 17-20 represent a non-transient computer readable medium directed to a secure computation system using most significant bit extraction.
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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The 112(b) and 112(f) rejections have been withdrawn in view of the amendments to the claims.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on July 24, 2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
In the Remarks, submitted on July 24, 2025, the applicant argues:
In response to argument (Page 8-9), the applicant states that the amended independent claims (claim 1, 6, 7, and 10) integrate the claimed subject matter into a practical application. The amendment to the independent claims failed to place the claims in a better condition which were rejected under mental and mathematical steps/concepts. The inclusion of the generic computer components as well as the constant rounds of communication does not preclude the step of performing the mathematical calculations using generic computational methods such as using pen, paper, calculators and other generic computer products.
In response to argument (Page 9), the applicant states that the prior art Damgard does not teach providing a limit to the number of communication rounds in the processing of each step outlined in the independent claims. The applicant states that Damgard’s description of the number of communication rounds as log(k-1)+2 rounds is not the same as constant rounds communication. The examiner respectively disagrees, as the variable “k” represents the number of most significant bits being extracted (i.e. k=1) which would result in a constant number when input in the equation taught by Damgard. Further, Damgard describes the computation having the ability to be conducted via constant rounds (Damgard, page 10) and further describing the use of constant rounds as more appropriate for such settings (Damgard, page 12).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the identified claim limitation(s) that recite(s) an abstract idea without significantly more.
Claim 1 recites mathematical calculations intended to compute a stable sort amongst multiple parties. The limitations of ”generation”, “comparing”, and “extracting” as drafted, is a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, that merely covers mathematical calculations using mathematical formulas but for exception of the recitation of generic computer components. That is, other than reciting “secure computation server apparatuses”, “memory”, and a “processor” nothing in the claim element precludes the step of performing the mathematical calculations using generic computational methods such as using pen, paper, calculators and other generic computer products. For example, but for the “secure computation server apparatuses” language, the computation steps can be performed using pen, paper, or conventional generic computer components.
If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers mathematical concepts but for the recitation of generic computer components, then it falls within the “Mathematical Concepts” grouping of abstract ideas. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claim only recites one additional element – using a system to perform the comparing and computation. The system in both steps is recited at a high-level of generality (i.e., as a generic processor performing a generic computer function of comparing and computing shares or performing mathematical operations on variables) such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Accordingly, this additional element does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claim is directed to an abstract idea.
The claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional element of using a system to perform the computation amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept. The claim is not patent eligible. Claim 6, 7, and 10 represents an apparatus, method, and non-transitory computer readable medium, respectively, of the limitations presented in Claim 1. These are abstract for the same reasons as Claim 1, and do not integrate the abstract ideas into a practical application or add significantly more to the abstract ideas recited in Claim 1. Claims 1, 6, 7, and 10 represents a system, apparatus, method, and non-transitory computer readable medium, respectively, are drafted to compute a secret logistic regression based on the sigmoid function of claim 1 and are abstract for the same reasons as Claim 1, and do not integrate the abstract ideas into a practical application or add significantly more to the abstract ideas recited in Claim 1.
Claims 2-5, 8-9 and 11-20 are dependent on independent claims 1, 6, 7 and 10 and similarly do not present any additional limitations that would integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. Furthermore, no additional elements are added that impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea other than generic computer components. For this reason, claims 2-5, 8-9 and 11-20 are also rejected based on their dependency on claims 1, 6, 7 and 10 and not for resolving the deficiencies identified in the rejection of claims 1, 6, 7 and 10 above.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-3, 5-7, 9-12, 14-16, and 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Damgard et al. (NPL: New Primitives for Actively-Secure MPC over Rings with Applications to Private Machine Learning), hereinafter referred to as Damgard.
Regarding Claim 1, Damgard discloses:
A secure computation system comprising at least three secure computation server apparatuses connected to each other via a network and extracting the most significant bit of a share of an input value stored while being secret-shared (On page 1, Damgard discloses “In the setting of secure multi-party computation, or MPC, a set of parties P1, . . . , Pn jointly compute a function z = f(x1, . . . , xn), where Pi holds some input xi , in a secure manner”, On page 4, Damgard further discloses “Our protocols build upon the secret-sharing scheme from SPDZ2 k [18] based on additive secret-sharing with information-theoretic MACs, and its subprotocols used for computing on shares.”), wherein each of the secure computation server apparatuses comprises at least a processor; and a memory in circuit communication with the processor, wherein the processor is configured to execute program instructions stored in the memory to implement (On page 12, Damgard discloses “We run all experiments in the two-party setting. Each party executes on an m5d.xlarge AWS EC2 instance running Ubuntu 16.04, with 4 vCPUs and 16GB memory.”): random number generation that generates a random number for masking the share of the input value in constant rounds communication (On page 7, Damgard discloses “Here the parties have a shared value [a], with
∑
i
=
0
k
-
1
a
i
2
i
∈
Z
2
k
, and they wish to compute shares of the most significant bit (MSB) of a, [ak−1]. This is achieved by masking [a] with a random value [r] where the bits are shared individually (using shared random bits) and then opening c = a+r mod 2k”); m-1 bit comparison that compares a value obtained by removing the most significant bit from the share of the input value masked with the random number with a value obtained by removing the most significant bit from the random number in constant rounds communication (On page 7, Damgard discloses “Since a = (c−r) mod 2k , shares of a mod 2k−1 can be obtained together from c mod 2k−1 and the shares of r mod 2k−1 (obtained from the shares of the bits of r), using a bitwise comparison procedure ΠBitLT to account for the sign of the difference (c mod 2k−1 ) − (r mod 2k−1 ).”); a carry correction part that corrects the calculation of a value obtained by removing the most significant bit from the share of the input value on the basis of the result of the comparison in constant rounds communication (On page 7, Damgard discloses “Finally, 2k−1ak−1 is computed as a − (a mod 2k−1 ), and the factor 2k−1 is removed by masking the k-th bit of [2k−1ak−1] with a shared random bit”); and a most significant bit extraction part that extracts the most significant bit of the share of the input value by subtracting the corrected value of the value obtained by removing the most significant bit from the input value from the input value in constant rounds communication (On page 7, Damgard discloses “truncating the lower k − 1 bits (which are all zero) and removing the mask.”).
Regarding Claim 2, Damgard discloses:
The secure computation system according to Claim 1, wherein a cost of the communication performed among the secure computation server apparatuses for the comparison performed by the m-1 bit comparison part is constant rounds (On page 10, Damgard discloses “Computing these products dominates protocol round cost, since both selecting the feature for all nodes, along with computing the comparison can be done in constant rounds (assuming we use the constant round comparison protocol).”).
Regarding Claim 3, Damgard discloses:
The secure computation system according to Claim 2, wherein a total cost of the communication performed among the secure computation server apparatuses for processes performed by the m-1 bit comparison, the carry correction, and the most significant bit extraction is constant rounds (On page 10, Damgard discloses “Computing these products dominates protocol round cost, since both selecting the feature for all nodes, along with computing the comparison can be done in constant rounds (assuming we use the constant round comparison protocol).”).
Regarding Claim 5, Damgard discloses:
The secure computation system according to Claim 1, wherein the carry correction corrects the calculation of a value obtained by removing the most significant bit from the input value when a value obtained by removing the most significant bit from the random number is greater than a value obtained by removing the most significant bit from the input value masked with the random number (On page 7, Damgard discloses “. This can be written in a more compact way as c’−r’ = (a mod 2k−1)−u2 k−1 , where u = c’ < r’ , which implies that a mod 2k−1 = c’−r’+u2k−1 = a 0 . We can see then that d = a – a’ = 2k−1ak−1, so e = 2k−1 (ak−1 ⊕ b) and therefore ek−1 = ak−1⊕b. Thus, ak−1 can be computed as ak−1 = ek−1 ⊕ b = ek−1 + b − 2ek−1 b.”).
Regarding Claim 6, claim 6 is directed to an apparatus corresponding to the system recited in claim 1. Claim 6 is similar in scope to claim 1, and is therefore, rejected under similar rationale.
Regarding Claim 7, claim 7 is directed to a method corresponding to the system recited in claim 1. Claim 7 is similar in scope to claim 1, and is therefore, rejected under similar rationale.
Regarding Claim 9, claim 9 is directed to a method corresponding to the system recited in claim 5. Claim 9 is similar in scope to claim 5, and is therefore, rejected under similar rationale.
Regarding Claim 10, claim 10 is directed to a non-transitory computer readable medium corresponding to the system recited in claim 1. Claim 10 is similar in scope to claim 1, and is therefore, rejected under similar rationale.
Regarding Claim 11, claim 11 is directed to an apparatus corresponding to the system recited in claim 2. Claim 11 is similar in scope to claim 2, and is therefore, rejected under similar rationale.
Regarding Claim 12, claim 12 is directed to an apparatus corresponding to the system recited in claim 3. Claim 12 is similar in scope to claim 3, and is therefore, rejected under similar rationale.
Regarding Claim 14, claim 14 is directed to an apparatus corresponding to the system recited in claim 5. Claim 14 is similar in scope to claim 5, and is therefore, rejected under similar rationale.
Regarding Claim 15, claim 15 is directed to a method corresponding to the system recited in claim 2. Claim 15 is similar in scope to claim 2, and is therefore, rejected under similar rationale.
Regarding Claim 16, claim 16 is directed to a method corresponding to the system recited in claim 3. Claim 16 is similar in scope to claim 3, and is therefore, rejected under similar rationale.
Regarding Claim 18, claim 18 is directed to a non- transitory computer readable medium corresponding to the system recited in claim 5. Claim 18 is similar in scope to claim 5, and is therefore, rejected under similar rationale.
Regarding Claim 19, claim 19 is directed to a non- transitory computer readable medium corresponding to the system recited in claim 2. Claim 19 is similar in scope to claim 2, and is therefore, rejected under similar rationale.
Regarding Claim 20, claim 20 is directed to a non- transitory computer readable medium corresponding to the system recited in claim 3. Claim 20 is similar in scope to claim 3, and is therefore, rejected under similar rationale.
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.
Claim(s) 4, 8, 13, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Damgard et al. (NPL: New Primitives for Actively-Secure MPC over Rings with Applications to Private Machine Learning), hereinafter referred to as Damgard, in view of Nishimaki et al. (US 20130114815), hereinafter referred to as Nishimaki.
Regarding Claim 4, Damgard discloses the limitations of Claim 1.
However, Damgard does not explicitly disclose the individual generation of the random values.
Nishimaki discloses:
The secure computation system according to Claim 1, wherein the random number generation does not depend on the input value, and each of the secure computation server apparatuses independently performs processing (In ¶ 95, Nishimaki discloses “As illustrated in FIG. 3B, the common value generation apparatus 140-.alpha. according to this embodiment has a random number generation unit 141-.alpha. and a transmitter 142-.alpha.”).
One in ordinary skill in the art of cryptography would have been motivated, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Damgard’s approach by utilizing Nishimaki’s approach of using individual random number generators as the motivation would be to ensure high security within the separate nodes by allowing each node to generate their own random value. (See Nishimaki, ¶¶ 153-155).
Regarding Claim 8, claim 8 is directed to a method corresponding to the system recited in claim 4. Claim 8 is similar in scope to claim 4, and is therefore, rejected under similar rationale.
Regarding Claim 13, claim 13 is directed to an apparatus corresponding to the system recited in claim 4. Claim 13 is similar in scope to claim 4, and is therefore, rejected under similar rationale.
Regarding Claim 17, claim 17 is directed to a non- transitory computer readable medium corresponding to the system recited in claim 4. Claim 17 is similar in scope to claim 4, and is therefore, rejected under similar rationale.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Damgard et al. (NPL: Unconditionally secure constant-rounds multi-party computation for equality, comparison, bits, and exponentiation) discloses a secure multi-party computation implements using constant rounds.
Ikarashi et al. (US 20180158377) discloses a secret sharing technique utilizing multiparty computation and most significant bits.
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 SHADI H KOBROSLI whose telephone number is (571)272-1952. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9am-5pm ET.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Rupal Dharia can be reached at 571-272-3880. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/SHADI H KOBROSLI/Examiner, Art Unit 2492 /RUPAL DHARIA/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2492