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
The amendments filed on May 26, 2026 have been entered.
Claims 1, 8, and 15 have been amended.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on May 26, 2026, have been fully considered, but they are moot in view of the new grounds of rejections.
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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.
Claims 1-4, 7-11, 14-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang et al. (Pub. No. US 2023/0327860), hereinafter Wang, in view of Huang et al. (CN 110971405 A), hereinafter Huang; and further in view of Smith et al. (Pub. No. US 2017/0228547), hereinafter Smith.
Claim 1. Wang discloses a computer-implemented method for privacy protection in secure multi-party computation, comprising:
encoding private data to a coefficient of a first polynomial function (See Parag. [0061]; to obtain a mapping parameter ciphertext, and transferring the mapping parameter ciphertext to a second node in the node group includes: performing homomorphic encryption on a polynomial coefficient of the target polynomial, to obtain a polynomial coefficient ciphertext); and
obtaining a plurality of function values of the first polynomial function as a plurality of fragments obtained after the private data is split, wherein the private data is split using the first polynomial function (See Parag. [0155]; the main participant converts private data to roots of a unary polynomial of high degree for hiding and provides an encrypted hash function and protection of homomorphic encryption. The guest participant performs a polynomial evaluation through homomorphic encryption in a ciphertext space, hides a non-zero result by using artificial noise, randomly splits private data, and respectively transmits fragment information and a result of the polynomial evaluation to a corresponding main participant. The main participant decrypts the result of the polynomial evaluation and performs root verification, and transmits the fragment information that is successfully verified to one main participant); and
the degree of the first polynomial function is a degree of the highest-order term of the first polynomial function (See Parag. [0073]; “polynomial ƒ(x) of degree (t−1)” (i.e., t-1 is the highest-order term). In addition, it is known in mathematics that the degree of a polynomial is the highest exponent in the expression).
Wang doesn’t explicitly disclose wherein the fragments of the private data are used for computation by a plurality of participant-party devices using a secret sharing multiplication algorithm to obtain fragments of target data, and wherein a degree of the first polynomial function is determined based on at least both a quantity of times of performing the secret sharing multiplication algorithm and a quantity of the plurality of participant-party devices.
However, Huang discloses wherein the fragments of the private data are used for computation by a plurality of participant-party devices using a secret sharing multiplication algorithm to obtain fragments of target data (See Page 6/26 Parag. 5 lines 1-2; a private key fragment may be a threshold fragment based on threshold secret sharing algorithm. See Page 3/26 Parag. 7 lines 4-9; threshold secret sharing algorithm is present in some t-1 order polynomial. randomly generating t-1 times a first polynomial, respectively the identification value of each synergy party into the first polynomial, calculating to obtain N first polynomial fragment; N-1 of the first polynomial fragments corresponding to other N-1 of synergy party, accumulating its own identification value corresponding to the first polynomial segment and first polynomial segment from other N-1 synergy of the party, obtain the fragmentation threshold, the threshold determined as the private key fragment. See Page 13/26 Parag. 5 lines 1-4; according to the first input segment and second random number segment, calculating the first output segment using multiparty multiplication sub-protocol, such that the first output slice can satisfy: the sum of the first output slice of each participation party equal to first input segment of each participant and each participant fragment and of the second random number).
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the teaching, taught by Wang, to include splitting the private data using the polynomial function and wherein the fragments of the private data are used for computation by a plurality of participant-party devices using a secret sharing algorithm multiplication to obtain fragments of target data, as taught by Huang. This would be convenient to prove the initiator of the transaction that is the owner of the account private key and the digital signature can also guarantee transaction is not modified in the transmission process, so as to realize the cryptographic identity authentication and data integrity functions (Huang, Page 2/26 Parag. 1 lines 2-4).
Smith discloses wherein a degree of the first polynomial function is determined based on at least both a quantity of times of performing the secret sharing multiplication algorithm and a quantity of the plurality of participant-party devices (See Parag. [0235-0236]; The shares from e.g., two input peers are first multiplied locally, where each privacy peer multiplies corresponding shares from the two input peers; in the second step, re-sharing and degree reduction is performed by all privacy peers … when multiplication is done using Shamir scheme with a threshold t, the resulting polynomial is increased from a degree of (t−1) to 2.Math.(t−1). Re-sharing and degree reduction reduces the polynomial degree to (t−1) and enables subsequent operations on shares corresponding to the multiplication result. See Parag. [0255-0256]).
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the teaching, taught by Wang in view of Huang, to include wherein a degree of the first polynomial function is determined based on at least both a quantity of times of performing the secret sharing multiplication algorithm and a quantity of the plurality of participant-party devices, as taught by Smith. This would be convenient to provide a proposed method which provides a broader range of applications and is more secure that the other methods (Smith, Parag. [0020]).
Claim 2. Wang in view of Huang and Smith discloses the computer-implemented method of claim 1,
Wang further discloses wherein a coefficient of one or more terms in the first polynomial function is the private data (See Parag. [0069]; performs homomorphic encryption on the polynomial coefficient to obtain a polynomial coefficient ciphertext, and transfers the polynomial coefficient ciphertext to the second node in the node group).
Claim 3. Wang in view of Huang and Smith discloses the computer-implemented method of claim 1,
Wang further discloses wherein encoding private data to the coefficient of the first polynomial function (See Parag. [0061]) comprises: determining the private data as a constant term in the first polynomial function (See Parag. [0073]; the shares 124 to 136 can be calculated from a respective polynomial ƒ(x) of degree (t−1) with a constant term corresponding to the secret 104 ...).
Claim 4. Wang in view of Huang and Smith discloses the computer-implemented method
of claim 3,
Wang further discloses the computer-implemented method further comprising: generating a random number as a coefficient of a term other than the constant term in the first polynomial function (See Parag. [0140]; for the polynomial coefficient ciphertext, a data pair is formed by using the result of the evaluation and one of the random numbers obtained through splitting in (b), and the data pair is transmitted to the main participant from which the polynomial coefficient ciphertext originates).
Claim 7. Wang in view of Huang and Smith discloses the computer-implemented method of claim 1,
Huang further discloses the computer-implemented method further comprising: sending the plurality of fragments of the private data to the plurality of participant-party devices (See Page 9/26 Parag. 12 lines 1-2; the private key fragment public system parameter to the first parameter SM2 in operation to obtain private key sharing slice, and sends the sharing private key fragment to the other cooperative party. See Page 3/26 Parag. 4 lines 3-7; obtaining private key fragment; the private key fragment public system parameter to the first parameter SM2 in operation to obtain private key sharing fragment, and the fragment sending private key sharing to the other participants, according to the private key of its own sharing segment and from other M-1 synergy share of the private key fragment, generating a public key. See Page 4/26 Parag. 5 lines 1-4).
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the teaching, taught by Wang, to include sending the plurality of fragments of the private data to the plurality of participant-party devices, as taught by Huang. This would be convenient to prove the initiator of the transaction that is the owner of the account private key and the digital signature can also guarantee transaction is not modified in the transmission process, so as to realize the cryptographic identity authentication and data integrity functions (Huang, Page 2/26 Parag. 1 line 2-4).
Claim 8. Wang discloses a non-transitory, computer-readable medium storing one or more instructions executable by a computer system to perform operations (See Parag, [0009] and Fig. 11), comprising:
encoding private data to a coefficient of a first polynomial function (See Parag. [0061]; to obtain a mapping parameter ciphertext, and transferring the mapping parameter ciphertext to a second node in the node group includes: performing homomorphic encryption on a polynomial coefficient of the target polynomial, to obtain a polynomial coefficient ciphertext); and
obtaining a plurality of function values of the first polynomial function as a plurality of fragments obtained after the private data is split, wherein the private data is split using the first polynomial function (See Parag. [0155]; the main participant converts private data to roots of a unary polynomial of high degree for hiding and provides an encrypted hash function and protection of homomorphic encryption. The guest participant performs a polynomial evaluation through homomorphic encryption in a ciphertext space, hides a non-zero result by using artificial noise, randomly splits private data, and respectively transmits fragment information and a result of the polynomial evaluation to a corresponding main participant. The main participant decrypts the result of the polynomial evaluation and performs root verification, and transmits the fragment information that is successfully verified to one main participant) ); and
the degree of the first polynomial function is a degree of the highest-order term of the first polynomial function (See Parag. [0073]; “polynomial ƒ(x) of degree (t−1)” (i.e., t-1 is the highest-order term). In addition, it is known in mathematics that the degree of a polynomial is the highest exponent in the expression).
Wang doesn’t explicitly disclose wherein the fragments of the private data are used for computation by a plurality of participant-party devices using a secret sharing multiplication algorithm to obtain fragments of target data, and wherein a degree of the first polynomial function is determined based on at least both a quantity of times of performing the secret sharing multiplication algorithm and a quantity of the plurality of participant-party devices.
However, Huang discloses wherein the fragments of the private data are used for computation by a plurality of participant-party devices using a secret sharing multiplication algorithm to obtain fragments of target data (See Page 6/26 Parag. 5 lines 1-2; a private key fragment may be a threshold fragment based on threshold secret sharing algorithm. See Page 3/26 Parag. 7 lines 4-9; threshold secret sharing algorithm is present in some t-1 order polynomial. randomly generating t-1 times a first polynomial, respectively the identification value of each synergy party into the first polynomial, calculating to obtain N first polynomial fragment; N-1 of the first polynomial fragments corresponding to other N-1 of synergy party, accumulating its own identification value corresponding to the first polynomial segment and first polynomial segment from other N-1 synergy of the party, obtain the fragmentation threshold, the threshold determined as the private key fragment. See Page 13/26 Parag. 5 lines 1-4; according to the first input segment and second random number segment, calculating the first output segment using multiparty multiplication sub-protocol, such that the first output slice can satisfy: the sum of the first output slice of each participation party equal to first input segment of each participant and each participant fragment and of the second random number).
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the teaching, taught by Wang in view of Chih yun, to include splitting the private data using the polynomial function and wherein the fragments of the private data are used for computation by a plurality of participant-party devices using a secret sharing algorithm multiplication to obtain fragments of target data, as taught by Huang. This would be convenient to prove the initiator of the transaction that is the owner of the account private key and the digital signature can also guarantee transaction is not modified in the transmission process, so as to realize the cryptographic identity authentication and data integrity functions (Huang, Page 2/26 Parag. 1 lines 2-4).
Smith discloses wherein a degree of the first polynomial function is determined based on at least both a quantity of times of performing the secret sharing multiplication algorithm and a quantity of the plurality of participant-party devices (See Parag. [0235-0236]; The shares from e.g., two input peers are first multiplied locally, where each privacy peer multiplies corresponding shares from the two input peers; in the second step, re-sharing and degree reduction is performed by all privacy peers … when multiplication is done using Shamir scheme with a threshold t, the resulting polynomial is increased from a degree of (t−1) to 2.Math.(t−1). Re-sharing and degree reduction reduces the polynomial degree to (t−1) and enables subsequent operations on shares corresponding to the multiplication result. See Parag. [0255-0256]).
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the teaching, taught by Wang in view of Huang, to include wherein a degree of the first polynomial function is determined based on at least both a quantity of times of performing the secret sharing multiplication algorithm and a quantity of the plurality of participant-party devices, as taught by Smith. This would be convenient to provide a proposed method which provides a broader range of applications and is more secure that the other methods (Smith, Parag. [0020]).
Claim 9. The applicant is directed to the rejections to claim 2 set forth above, as it is rejected based on the same rationale.
Claim 10. The applicant is directed to the rejections to claim 3 set forth above, as it is rejected based on the same rationale.
Claim 11. The applicant is directed to the rejections to claim 4 set forth above, as it is rejected based on the same rationale.
Claim 14. The applicant is directed to the rejections to claim 7 set forth above, as it is rejected based on the same rationale.
Claim 15. Wang discloses a computer-implemented system, comprising:
one or more computers; and one or more computer memory devices interoperably coupled with the one or more computers and having tangible, non-transitory, machine-readable media storing one or more instructions that, when executed by the one or more computers, perform one or more operations (See Para. [0009] and Fig. 11), comprising:
encoding private data to a coefficient of a first polynomial function (See Parag. [0061]; to obtain a mapping parameter ciphertext, and transferring the mapping parameter ciphertext to a second node in the node group includes: performing homomorphic encryption on a polynomial coefficient of the target polynomial, to obtain a polynomial coefficient ciphertext); and
obtaining a plurality of function values of the first polynomial function as a plurality of fragments obtained after the private data is split, wherein the private data is split using the first polynomial function (See Parag. [0155]; the main participant converts private data to roots of a unary polynomial of high degree for hiding and provides an encrypted hash function and protection of homomorphic encryption. The guest participant performs a polynomial evaluation through homomorphic encryption in a ciphertext space, hides a non-zero result by using artificial noise, randomly splits private data, and respectively transmits fragment information and a result of the polynomial evaluation to a corresponding main participant. The main participant decrypts the result of the polynomial evaluation and performs root verification, and transmits the fragment information that is successfully verified to one main participant) ); and
the degree of the first polynomial function is a degree of the highest-order term of the first polynomial function (See Parag. [0073]; “polynomial ƒ(x) of degree (t−1)” (i.e., t-1 is the highest-order term). In addition, it is known in mathematics that the degree of a polynomial is the highest exponent in the expression).
Wang doesn’t explicitly disclose wherein the fragments of the private data are used for computation by a plurality of participant-party devices using a secret sharing multiplication algorithm to obtain fragments of target data, and wherein a degree of the first polynomial function is determined based on at least both a quantity of times of performing the secret sharing multiplication algorithm and a quantity of the plurality of participant-party devices.
However, Huang discloses wherein the fragments of the private data are used for computation by a plurality of participant-party devices using a secret sharing multiplication algorithm to obtain fragments of target data (See Page 6/26 Parag. 5 lines 1-2; a private key fragment may be a threshold fragment based on threshold secret sharing algorithm. See Page 3/26 Parag. 7 lines 4-9; threshold secret sharing algorithm is present in some t-1 order polynomial. randomly generating t-1 times a first polynomial, respectively the identification value of each synergy party into the first polynomial, calculating to obtain N first polynomial fragment; N-1 of the first polynomial fragments corresponding to other N-1 of synergy party, accumulating its own identification value corresponding to the first polynomial segment and first polynomial segment from other N-1 synergy of the party, obtain the fragmentation threshold, the threshold determined as the private key fragment. See Page 13/26 Parag. 5 lines 1-4; according to the first input segment and second random number segment, calculating the first output segment using multiparty multiplication sub-protocol, such that the first output slice can satisfy: the sum of the first output slice of each participation party equal to first input segment of each participant and each participant fragment and of the second random number).
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the teaching, taught by Wang in view of Chih yun, to include splitting the private data using the polynomial function and wherein the fragments of the private data are used for computation by a plurality of participant-party devices using a secret sharing algorithm multiplication to obtain fragments of target data, as taught by Huang. This would be convenient to prove the initiator of the transaction that is the owner of the account private key and the digital signature can also guarantee transaction is not modified in the transmission process, so as to realize the cryptographic identity authentication and data integrity functions (Huang, Page 2/26 Parag. 1 lines 2-4).
Smith discloses wherein a degree of the first polynomial function is determined based on at least both a quantity of times of performing the secret sharing multiplication algorithm and a quantity of the plurality of participant-party devices (See Parag. [0235-0236]; The shares from e.g., two input peers are first multiplied locally, where each privacy peer multiplies corresponding shares from the two input peers; in the second step, re-sharing and degree reduction is performed by all privacy peers … when multiplication is done using Shamir scheme with a threshold t, the resulting polynomial is increased from a degree of (t−1) to 2.Math.(t−1). Re-sharing and degree reduction reduces the polynomial degree to (t−1) and enables subsequent operations on shares corresponding to the multiplication result. See Parag. [0255-0256]).
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the teaching, taught by Wang in view of Huang, to include wherein a degree of the first polynomial function is determined based on at least both a quantity of times of performing the secret sharing multiplication algorithm and a quantity of the plurality of participant-party devices, as taught by Smith. This would be convenient to provide a proposed method which provides a broader range of applications and is more secure that the other methods (Smith, Parag. [0020]).
Claim 16. The applicant is directed to the rejections to claim 2 set forth above, as it is rejected based on the same rationale.
Claim 17. The applicant is directed to the rejections to claim 3 set forth above, as it is rejected based on the same rationale.
Claim 18. The applicant is directed to the rejections to claim 4 set forth above, as it is rejected based on the same rationale.
Claims 5-6, 12-13, and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang et al. (Pub. No. US 2023/0109352), hereinafter Wang; in view of Huang et al. (CN 110971405 A), hereinafter Huang; further in view of Smith et al. (Pub. No. US 2017/0228547), hereinafter Smith; and further in view of Li-Chun et al. (CN 111460514 A), hereinafter Li-Chun.
Claim 5. Wang in view of Huang and Smith discloses the computer-implemented method of claim 1,
Wang further discloses wherein obtaining the plurality of function values of the first polynomial function (See Parag. [0155]),
The combination doesn’t explicitly disclose the computer-implemented method further comprises: obtaining a plurality of values corresponding to the plurality of participant-party devices as a plurality of values of an independent variable.
However, Li-Chun discloses obtaining a plurality of values corresponding to a plurality of participant-party devices as a plurality of values of an independent variable (Page 2 Parag. 8; the first party obtains the times of polynomial function; taking the specific data as the value of the independent variable in the polynomial function; according to the value of the independent variable and the number of times of the polynomial function, determining the value of the power factor of the single-term formula in the polynomial function; taking value of the power factor of the first party as input, taking value of the coefficient factor of the second party as input, executing multi-party security calculation to determine value of the polynomial function, value of the polynomial function is used for representing whether the specific data is matched with one data in the data set).
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the teaching, taught by the combination, to include a plurality of values corresponding to a plurality of participant-party devices as a plurality of values of an independent variable, as taught by Li-Chun . This would be convenient for protecting data privacy security (Li-Chun, Page 5 Parag. 6).
Claim 6. Wang in view of Huang, Smith, and Li-Chun discloses the computer-implemented method of claim 5,
Li-Chun further discloses the computer-implemented method further comprising: computing, based on the plurality of values of the independent variable, the plurality of function values of the first polynomial function (Page 2 Parag. 8; the first party obtains the times of polynomial function; taking the specific data as the value of the independent variable in the polynomial function; according to the value of the independent variable and the number of times of the polynomial function, determining the value of the power factor of the single-term formula in the polynomial function; taking value of the power factor of the first party as input, taking value of the coefficient factor of the second party as input, executing multi-party security calculation to determine value of the polynomial function, value of the polynomial function is used for representing whether the specific data is matched with one data in the data set).
It would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time before the effective filling date of the claimed invention to modify the teaching, taught by Wang in view of Chih yun and Huang, to include a plurality of values corresponding to a plurality of participant-party devices as a plurality of values of an independent variable, as taught by Li-Chun . This would be convenient for protecting data privacy security (Li-Chun, Page 5 Parag. 6).
Claim 12. The applicant is directed to the rejections to claim 5 set forth above, as it is rejected based on the same rationale.
Claim 13. The applicant is directed to the rejections to claim 6 set forth above, as it is rejected based on the same rationale.
Claim 19. The applicant is directed to the rejections to claim 5 set forth above, as it is rejected based on the same rationale.
Claim 20. The applicant is directed to the rejections to claim 6 set forth above, as it is rejected based on the same rationale.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure (see PTO-form 892).
Dolev et al. (Pub. No. US 2023/0186293) – relates a unique polynomial having a maximal degree being common to all participants; allowing each participant to select a random value; allowing each participant to send his selected random value to all other participants using a secret sharing scheme based on points on his unique polynomial, such that said secret hides the details of said selected random value and all other participants that receive shares of said selected random value will not be able to reconstruct said selected random value from the received shares (See Abstract).
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, 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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
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/GHIZLANE MAAZOUZ/Examiner, Art Unit 2499 /PHILIP J CHEA/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2499
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