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 Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of newly found reference.
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 (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 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 text of those sections of Title 35, U.S. Code not included in this action can be found in a prior Office action.
The factual inquiries 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 non-obviousness.
Claim(s) 1-3, 5, 7-10, 12, 14-16, 18 and 20 are rejected under 103 as being unpatentable over Ho et al. (US 2022/0022033) (hereafter Ho) (See IDS) in view of Faccin et al. (US2006/0067526 ) (hereafter Faccin).
Regarding claims 1, 8 and 15, Ho discloses a computing apparatus (Fig. 48, 402) comprising: a processor; and a memory storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, configure the apparatus to:
receive, by an STA (Fig. 5,502), a Pairwise Master Key Security Association (PMKSA) (paragraph 0062: "The WLAN controller 508 generates a vector for the STA 502 ... vector of n elements that be denoted as {PMK-Rl [al], PMK-R: [an] PMK-Rl [as] ... during the initial handshake ... include a PMK-RO key holder (ROKH) component that holds PMK-R0. } ", Comment: The collection/vector holding the information of the PMK-R1 for all APs disclosed in Ho is considered to be the Pairwise Master Key Security Association (PMKSA) in claim 8); including information regarding aspects of a first security protocol used by a first Wi-Fi AP and aspects of a second security protocol used by a second Wi-Fi AP (paragraph 0063: 11PMK-Rl [an] =KHL (PMK-R0, an, b, . . . ) , where an represents the address or identifier of APl 504 or AP2 5 o 6" , Comment: the address or identifier of AP1 504 or AP2 disclosed in D1 correspond to aspects of a security protocol for the first and second AP, respectively, in claim 8);
derive a first Pairwise Transient Key Security Association (PTKSA) and a first Pairwise Transient Key (PTK) from a Pairwise Master Key (PMK) and the information regarding the aspects of the first security protocol (paragraph 0060: "PMK is derived from a master session key (MSK) that is used to encrypt data frames and PMK-R0 is derived from PMK. PMK-Rl is derived from PMK-R0 and provided by the WLAN controller to APs managed by the WLAN controller. PMK-Rl is used to derive the PTKs that are used to encrypt data.", Comment: By deriving a Pairwise Transient Key a Pairwise Transient Key Security Association is also derived implicitly), the first Pairwise Transient Key Security Association (PTKSA} used in connecting to the first Wi-Fi AP utilizing the first security protocol;
connect to the first Wi-Fi AP utilizing the first security protocol (Fig. 6 and paragraph 0076: "The supplicant performs an FT 4-Way Handshake with the initial AP MLD 804 to develop the PTKSA for the AP MLD 804. ", Comment: Connecting to the first Wi-Fi AP utilizing the first security protocol is part of the 4-Way Handshake (see as evidence D3, clause 5.7.2.1) and
Rl [a2] key may be used to generate a PTK and a GTK that may be used to secure a data flow 530 between the STA 502 and AP2 506").
But, does not explicitly disclose deriving step, prior to connecting to the second wi-fi AP, as mentioned above.
However, in same field of endeavor, Faccin teaches [0040] reduce the transition duration by a pre-keying mechanism that performs key establishment procedures prior to commencement of reassociation procedures. Particularly, embodiments described herein provide mechanisms for establishing keys, e.g., a respective pairwise transient key (PTK) at a STA and a candidate AP prior to invocation of a reassociation process. The reassociation process is invoked subsequent to calculation of a PTK by a STA performing a fast transition and an AP with which the STA is performing the fast transition.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Faccin with the Ho, as a whole, so as to deriving the PTK key prior to the reassociation process, the motivation is to perform the fast transition.
Regarding claims 2, 9 and 16, Ho further discloses the method, further comprising: detecting, by the STA a beacon from the second Wi-Fi AP identifying the second Wi-Fi AP (see, para [0037], a STA 104 listens for beacons); and connecting, by the STA, to the second Wi-Fi AP using the second Pairwise Transient Key Security Association (PTKSA), wherein the connecting to the second Wi-Fi AP is performed without performing a AKM protocol with the second Wi-Fi AP (see, Fig. 5, 530, Upon confirmation of reassociation provided in a reassociation response 528, the PMK-R1 [a2] key may be used to generate a PTK and a GTK that may be used to secure a data flow 530 between the STA 502 and AP2 506).
Regarding claims 3 and 10, Ho further discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising: encrypting communications between the STA and the second Wi-Fi AP with the second Pairwise Transient Key (PTK) (para [0060]).
Regarding claims 5, 12 and 18, Ho further discloses the method, wherein the first Wi-Fi AP and the second Wi-Fi AP are part of an extended service set (ESS), wherein the first Wi-Fi AP and the second Wi-Fi AP utilized the Pairwise Master Key (PMK) (see, para [0036] A single AP 102 and an associated set of STAs 104 may be referred to as a basic service set (BSS), [0068] The AP MLD 710 includes multiple APs AP1, AP2, and AP3 associated with communication links Link1, Link2, and Link3).
Regarding claims 7, 14 and 20, Ho further discloses the method, wherein the STA is a multi-link device (MLD), the wherein the connecting to the second Wi-Fi AP occurs while the STA remains connected to the first Wi-Fi AP (see, para [0077], The non-AP MLD 902 may be comparable in some respects to the non-AP MLD 806 of FIG. 8 and each of the AP MLDs 904 and 906 may be comparable in some respects to the AP MLD 804 of FIG. 8. Each AP MLD 904, 906 may identify its capabilities in beacon frames, which may indicate MLO capabilities. In the illustrated example, a WLAN controller 910 is included in the first AP MLD 904).
Claim(s) 4, 11 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ho and Faccin, and further in view of Yoshikawa (WO2022259858)(hereafter Yoshikawa).
Regarding claims 4, 11 and 17, the combined teachings do not disclose the method, wherein the information regarding the first security protocol is a first AKM version and a first cipher suite used by the first Wi-Fi AP, and the information regarding the second security protocol is a second AKM version and a second cipher suite used by the second Wi-Fi AP. However, Yoshikawa, page 6 teaches The AKM Suite Count field 407 indicates the number of corresponding authentication schemes. Specific values are shown in the AKM Suite List field 408. In this embodiment, since only WPA3-SAE is assigned to RSNE, the AKM Suite Count field 407 is set to 1, and the AKM Suite List field 408 is set to 00-0F-AC-08 indicating SAE. Page 7, the multi-link network construction setting is permitted, and only WPA3-SAE is added to the AKM Suite List field 408 included in the RSNE of Beacon or Probe Response or Association Response. Note that AKM suite field 407 and AKM suite list field 408 may be used for both security protocol WPA2 and WPA3. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Yoshikawa with the Ho and Faccin, as a whole, so as to perform authentication using WPA3 scheme on basis of the performing of communication with another communication device with a plurality of links established therewith.
10. Claim(s) 6, 13 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ho and Faccin and further in view of Huang et al. (US2022/0353677)(hereafter Huang).
Regarding claims 6, 13 and 19, the combined teachings do not disclose wherein the information regarding the aspects of the first security protocol in the Pairwise Master Key Security Association (PMKSA) is identified as priority for use in deriving the first Pairwise Transient Key Security Association (PTKSA) needed to connect to the first Wi-Fi AP. However, in same field of endeavor, Huang teaches in para [0018], PASN primarily is used in AP infrastructure networks for a STA and an AP to establish a PTKSA using a three-message authentication exchange (e.g., authentication request, authentication response, authentication confirmation). PASN leverages a cached PMK for a base AKM to establish the PMKSA from which the PASN PTKSA is derived. PASN authentication does not derive a group transient key security association (GTKSA) or integrity GTKSA (IGTKSA), for example. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art to combine the teachings of Huang with the Ho and Faccin, as a whole, so as to use the PMKSA as priority to identify the PTKSA, the motivation is to use these security keys for the wi-fi association frames.
Conclusion
11. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Qi et al. (US 2023/0308506) discloses peer-to-peer (p2p) communications.
Ho et al. (US 2023/0269581) discloses association protection for wireless networks.
Huang et al. (US 2022/0353677) discloses enhanced security keys for wi-fi association frames.
Seok et al. (US 2021/0368322) discloses extreme high throughput fast initial link setup support in multi-link operation in wireless communications.
Peer et al. (US 2021/0345105) discloses four way handshake optimization.
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/DHAVAL V PATEL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2631