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 .
1. This action is responsive to the Election / Restriction filed on December 01, 2025. Applicant elects Group I for examination on the merits, without prejudice to the filing of a divisional application based on the non-elected claims and without acquiescing the propriety of the requirement. Therefore, claims 1-7 and 8-14 are pending and addressed below. Applicant is urged to cancel Group II (claims 15-20).
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.
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 1-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C 103 as being unpatentable over Lee, US 20160135041 A1 (IDS Submitted,01/12/2026) in view of SHIMIZU, WO 2005086423 A1.
1. Lee discloses a station (STA) (See Lee, abstract; Methods, systems, apparatuses, and devices are described for wireless station privacy using media access control (MAC) address randomization. The wireless station may identify a MAC address for use with over-the-air transmissions and a persistent MAC address for backend communications.) comprising: a transmitter configured to transmit, to an access point (AP) that the STA is associated with, a first frame including information indicating that the STA is to transmit a frame to the AP using an over-the-air medium access control (otaMAC) address; (See Lee; [0098] At 1005, wireless station 115-e may send a probe request to the access point 105-g during a pre-association process. During the pre-association process, i.e., before the wireless station 115-e and the access point 105-g are associated with each other, the wireless station 115-e may generate a random MAC address and include the random MAC address as a source address in a MAC header of the probe request frame. At 1010, upon receipt of the probe request, the access point 105-g may send a probe response to the wireless station 115-e. The access point 105-g may use its AP MAC address as a source address in a MAC header of the probe response frame and the random MAC address received in the probe request frame as a destination address in the MAC header. At 1015, the wireless station 115-e and the access point 105-g may perform a security association process where the wireless station 115-e authenticates with the access point 105-g. The security association may include the wireless station 115-e communicating an OTA MAC address and a persistent MAC address to the access point 105-g via a secure channel. The OTA MAC address may be used for wireless transmissions between the wireless station 115-e and the access point 105-g and may provide for privacy of the identity of the wireless station 115-e from eavesdroppers. The OTA MAC address and/or the persistent MAC address may be determined by the wireless station 115-e, by the access point 105-g, and/or by negotiations during the security association process.)
and a processor configured to: generate a second frame including a network MAC (nMAC) address that identifies the STA, (See Lee, fig 10; [0099] At block 1020, the wireless station 115-e may determine it has data to be communicated and replace the persistent MAC address with the OTA MAC address. At 1025, the wireless station 115-e may transmit the data frames to the access point 105-g using the OTA MAC address. At 1030, the access point 105-g may replace the OTA MAC address with the persistent MAC address and forward the data frames with the persistent address at 1035. Accordingly, the wireless station 115-e may wirelessly transmit the data frames using the OTA MAC address and avoid disclosing identifying information to an attacker snooping the wireless transmissions.)
encrypt the generated second frame, (See Lee, [0076]; the OTA MAC address and a persistent MAC address from the wireless station may be encrypted.)
wherein the transmitter is further configured to transmit the encrypted second frame, including the otaMAC, to the AP. (See Lee, [0092] At 815, the wireless station 115-c may send, transmit, or otherwise communicate the OTA MAC address and the persistent MAC address, or information indicative of such addresses, to the access point 105-e. In some aspects, the wireless station 115-c may communicate the information during a security association process, e.g., when the wireless station 115-c first associates and registers with the access point 105-e. The information may be communicated via a secure channel and/or encrypted.)
Lee does not appear to explicitly disclose and replace the nMAC address with the otaMAC address either during the encryption or after the encryption;
However, SHIMIZU discloses and replace the nMAC address with the otaMAC address either during the encryption or after the encryption; (See SHIMIZU, figs 2 and 4: section description: When the Radius server recognizes and completes the certificate, it notifies Edge Switch 1a of that fact. In both cases, a temporary MAC address that uniquely identifies terminal 3a is dynamically allocated. Then, the Radius server notifies the edge switch 1a of the temporary MAC address along with information such as a key used for wireless encryption. That is, the Radius server generates a unique temporary MAC address when the above authentication is completed without identifying the end of the MAC address or the like, and notifies the edge switch la of the unique temporary MAC address. Although the temporary MAC address is terminated at the edge switch 1a, the encryption key and the like are transmitted to the terminal 3a by the EAP 0L Key. The edge switch 1a recognizes the real MA C address used by the terminal 3a when accessing and the notified temporary MA C address, and uses them as the proved MA C address. The real MAC address and the temporary MAC address are used. Creates swap data consisting of data corresponding to and stores it in the swap table. The correspondence information (step data) between the real MAC address and the temporary MAC address is used for exchanging (swapping) the MAC address when transmitting and receiving the subsequent MAC frame. The new access point uses the acquired IP address of the old access point to transfer security information such as encryption keys to and from the old access point.)
Lee and SHIMIZU are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor which is network address security. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Lee with the teaching of SHIMIZU to include a timely encrypted process because it would have allowed facilitated secure data transmission.
2.The combination of Lee and SHIMIZU discloses the STA of claim 1 further comprising a receiver configured to receive, from the AP, a third frame including the otaMAC address, wherein the processor is further configured to replace the otaMAC address with the nMAC address and to decrypt the third frame. (See Lee, [0011] an d [0098-0100] and fig 10; the random MAC address comprising a third MAC address, wherein the third MAC address is used as a source address prior to communicating the first MAC address and the second MAC address to the access point via the secure channel…the wireless station 115-e may replace the OTA MAC address with the persistent MAC address and process the data frames, e.g., decode the data frames. )
3. The combination of Lee and SHIMIZU discloses the STA discloses the STA of claim 1, wherein, prior to the transmission of the first frame including the otaMAC address, a robust security network association (RSNA) is established between the STA and the AP. (See Lee; [0011]; the method may include performing, with the access point, a security association process to establish the secure channel. The method may include transmitting information indicative of the first MAC address and the second MAC address to the access point in a message 4 of the security association process, wherein the security association process is a 4-way handshake procedure. The first MAC address and the second MAC address may be encrypted. The transmission of the information indicative of the first MAC address and the second MAC address to the access point may be made in a message 2 of the security association process in some examples. The method may include transmitting information indicative of the first MAC address and the second MAC address to the access point in a message 1 of the security association process, wherein the security association process is a 2-way handshake procedure.)
4. The combination of Lee and SHIMIZU discloses the STA of claim 1, wherein the transmitter is configured to transmit a privacy action frame to the AP including information indicating a request, by the STA, to update the otaMAC address. (See Lee, [0063-0064] )
5. The combination of Lee and SHIMIZU discloses the STA of claim 4, wherein the privacy action frame further includes information indicating the updated otaMAC address to be transmitted in a subsequent frame. (See Lee, [0063-0064] see also SHIMIZU, fig 7 section Description) Lee and SHIMIZU are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor which is network address security. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Lee with the teaching of SHIMIZU to include a timely encrypted process because it would have allowed facilitated secure data transmission.
6. The combination of Lee and SHIMIZU discloses the STA of claim 5, wherein the privacy action frame further includes information indicating one or more of a number of time periods before the updated otaMAC address will be used in a subsequent frame or number of frames before the updated otaMAC address will be used in a subsequent frame. (See SHIMIZU, figs 7 and 8: Section Description) Lee and SHIMIZU are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor which is network address security. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Lee with the teaching of SHIMIZU to include a timely encrypted process because it would have allowed facilitated secure data transmission.
7. The combination of Lee and SHIMIZU discloses the combination of Lee and SHIMIZU discloses the STA of claim 4 further comprising a receiver configured to receive a response to the request to update the otaMAC address, the response including information indicating that the request to update the otaMAC address is accepted and information indicating a duration during which the updated otaMAC address is valid. (See Lee, [0014]; The second MAC address may be valid for the communication session. The method may include deriving the second MAC address based at least in part on a pairwise master key known by the wireless station and the access point. The first MAC address may be valid for the communication session. See also SHIMIZU, figs 7 and 8: Section Description) Lee and SHIMIZU are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor which is network address security. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the invention of Lee with the teaching of SHIMIZU to include a timely encrypted process because it would have allowed facilitated secure data transmission.
8. As to claim 8, the claim is rejected under the same rationale as claim 1. See the rejection of claim 1 above.
9. As to claim 9, the claim is rejected under the same rationale as claim 2. See the rejection of claim 2 above.
10. As to claim 10, the claim is rejected under the same rationale as claim 3. See the rejection of claim 3 above.
11. As to claim 11, the claim is rejected under the same rationale as claim 4. See the rejection of claim 4 above.
12. As to claim 12, the claim is rejected under the same rationale as claim 5. See the rejection of claim 5 above.
13. As to claim 13, the claim is rejected under the same rationale as claim 6. See the rejection of claim 6 above.
14. As to claim 14, the claim is rejected under the same rationale as claim 7. See the rejection of claim 7 above.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. KNECKT, J L . CN 117336901 A, title “ Enhanced Address Change For Wireless Networking Systems.“
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Date: 02/04/2026
/JOSNEL JEUDY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2438