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
The instant application having Application No. 18/337,082 is presented for examination by the examiner.
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 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 1, 6, and 7 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by USP Application Publication 2008/0282344 to Shuster.
As per claim 1, Shuster teaches a method for creating a verifiable email message (0053-0058 and 0064), the method comprising:
determining an original message is sent from an email account (0057-0058 and 0064);
retrieving a hashing algorithm for calculating a verification hash value of content of the original message (0055-0056);
calculating a validation hash value of the content of the original message using the hashing algorithm (0053-0058 and 0584);
storing the validation hash value and a message identifier for the original email message (0041 and 0058); and
sending a verifiable message to a target mail server (0061 and 0063).
As per claim 6, Shuster teaches the content of the original message includes only message content (0041 and 0058).
As per claim 7, Shuster teaches the verifiable message is a message dataset including the original message and the message identifier (0041 and 0053-0054).
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 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 of this title, 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 2 and 3 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shuster in view of USP 9,641,516 to Behnken et al., hereinafter Behnken.
As per claim 2, Shuster teaches identifying a mail verification agent (0041) for a sending domain name system of the email account (0044 and 0059). Shuster is silent in explicitly teaching retrieving the hashing algorithm includes obtaining a resource record for the mail verification agent, the resource record indicating the hashing algorithm. Behnken teaches retrieving the hashing algorithm includes obtaining a resource record for the mail verification agent (col. 4, lines 25-45), the resource record indicating the hashing algorithm (col. 5, lines 5-16). Shuster already teaches getting the hash value to compare to its local generated hash (0056). Behnken explicitly teaches a way that the verifier can know which hash algorithm was used because the verifier must know the algorithm in order to produce a matching hash value. The claim is obvious because one of ordinary skill in the art can combine methods known before the effective filing date which produce predictable results.
As per claim 3, Shuster teaches submitting the validation hash value to the mail verification agent (0054 and 0058); and storing a validation tuple to a message hash store (0058), the validation tuple being an order pair including the validation hash value and the message identifier (0058).
Claims 4, 5, 8, 11, 12 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shuster in view of USP 8,103,875 to Ramzan et al., hereinafter Ramzan.
As per claim 4, Shuster teaches initializing a listening service for a query including the message identifier (0054, 0057-0058). Shuster discloses the query contains the identifier of the email and that the message-ID is stored (0041). Shuster is silent in explicitly teaching the listening performed for domain name system ports. Ramzan teaches the stored fingerprints in DNS records associated with the purported sender (col. 4, lines 1-18). A DNS-hosted verification record must be served through a DNS service ports. Ramzan supplies the DNS implementation, and Shuster supplies the verification query. The claim is obvious because one of ordinary skill in the art can combine methods known before the effective filing date which produce predictable results. Using DNS ports for the inquiries produces predictable results and Shuster already queries DNS records (0059).
As per claim 5, the combined system of Shuster and Ramzan teaches responsive to a query from a domain name system port for a message identifier [Shuster: 0057 and 0058], returning the validation hash value [Ramzan: col. 8, lines 13-15 and col. 9, lines 3-13].
As per claims 8 and 12, Shuster teaches a method for verifying content of an email message, the method comprising:
receiving an email message and a message identifier from a sender email server, the email message sent to a target recipient of a target mail server (0041, 0053-0054, 0061, and 0064);
retrieving, by the target mail server, a hashing algorithm for calculating an independent hash value of content of the email message (0055 and 0056);
calculating, by the target mail server, the independent hash value of the content of the email message using the hashing algorithm (0056 and 0064);
comparing the independent hash value to the validation hash value (0056 and 0058); and
responsive to a result of the comparing being positive or negative, sending, by the target mail server, a responsive communication to the target recipient (0057 and 0064). Shuster is silent in explicitly teaching requesting a validation hash value from a mail verification agent associated with a domain name system of the received email message. On the other hand, Ramzan teaches requesting a validation hash value from a mail verification agent (col. 8, lines 13-15 and col. 9, lines 3-9) associated with a domain name system (col. 4, lines 8-12) of the received email message (col. 8, lines 13-15). Both systems compare email hashes. Shuster performs verification on the validator side and Ramzan teaches it can be done on the validator side or the receiving client side. The received client side of Shuster is the receiving mail server. Ramzan teaches both sides and therefore one of ordinary skill in the art could expect to produce a predictable result by having the query return the hash value to the validating mail server. The claim is obvious because one of ordinary skill in the art can substitute methods known before the effective filing date which produce predictable results.
As per claims 11 and 15, Shuster teaches the content of the email message includes only message content (0041 and 0056).
Claims 9 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shuster and Ramzan as applied to claim 8 and further in view of Behnken.
As per claims 9 and 13, the combined system of Shuster and Ramzan teaches identifying the mail verification agent for a sending domain name system of the email message [Ramzan: col. 4, lines 1-18 and col. 11, lines 34-38]. Shuster and Ramzan are silent in explicitly teaching retrieving the hashing algorithm includes obtaining a resource record for the mail verification agent, the resource record indicating the hashing algorithm. Behnken teaches retrieving the hashing algorithm includes obtaining a resource record for the mail verification agent (col. 4, lines 25-45), the resource record indicating the hashing algorithm (col. 5, lines 5-16). Shuster already teaches getting the hash value to compare to its local generated hash (0056). Behnken explicitly teaches a way that the verifier can know which hash algorithm was used because the verifier must know the algorithm in order to produce a matching hash value. The claim is obvious because one of ordinary skill in the art can combine methods known before the effective filing date which produce predictable results.
Claims 10 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Shuster and Ramzan as applied to claim 8 and further in view of NPL entitled: “File Transfer Protocol HASH Command for Cryptographic Hashes” by Bryan et al., hereinafter FTP.
As per claims 10 and 14, Shuster and Ramzan are silent in explicitly teaching requesting the validation hash is performed by submitting a query containing only the message identifier to the mail verification agent. FTP sends a query of only the server-side file name and the command (§3). Shuster as combined with Ramzan query for a hash and Shuster already teaches a message ID that identifies the email. FTP uses only the ID of the file to then return the hash. The combined system of Shuster and Ramzan also result in the desire hash to be returned. Thus, FTP shows you only need to send the ID of the email message in an inquiry for the hash of the message. The claim is obvious because one of ordinary skill in the art can combine methods known before the effective filing date which produce predictable results.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure is listed on the enclosed PTO-892 form.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHAEL R. VAUGHAN whose telephone number is (571)270-7316. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday - Friday, 9:30am - 5:30pm, EST. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Lynn Feild can be reached on (571) 272-2092. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MICHAEL R VAUGHAN/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2431
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