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 argues that Bhattacharyya and Wang do not teach that the one or more secret key produced from the secret key exchange are used as keys in the shared key agreements.
The Examiner respectfully disagrees. It must be remembered that the references are relied upon in combination and are not meant to be considered separately as in a vacuum. It is the combination of all of the cited and relied upon references which make up the state of the art with regard to the claimed invention. Applicant's claimed invention fails to patentably distinguish over the state of the art represented by the references. Both Bhattacharyya and Wang teach shared key agreements. Bhattacharyya uses it for protecting communications, and Wang also uses it for securing communication between endpoints. Therefore, using the keys produced in the key exchange could easily be used as the key in the shared key agreement because both keys taught have the same use and achieve the same result. Using the keys from the key exchange of Bhattacharyya (which are used to secure traffic) as the keys in the shared key agreement (which are used to secure traffic) would eliminate the need for multiple keys being produced for the same purpose. Therefore it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use the secret keys produced from the secret key exchange as the keys in the shared key agreements, for the purpose of simplicity and conserving resources.
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, 4-6, 9, 12-14, 17, and 20-22 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chandarana (US 2020/0322799) in view of Wang (US 2007/0288744) and further in view of Bhattacharyya et al. (US 2020/0252396). Please note that the parent CIP applications do not contain the subject matter of the independent claims, and therefore, priority is not given for this subject matter.
Regarding claims 1, 9, and 17, Chandarana teaches a method (and corresponding apparatus and system) comprising:
Registering one or more endpoint systems to an authentication server (Registering a user’s mobile phone when connected in a P2P connection with an authentication service – see [0054] and figure 6.)
Authenticating the one or more endpoint systems using connection authentication (The unregistered mobile phone talks to a registered device in P2P mode, gets the unique ID from the registered device and presents it to the authentication service which indicated whether the unique ID corresponds to a registered device that is allocated to the user. Where a suitable record or records are found, at 630, the authentication service adds the user's previously unregistered device to a list of registered devices allocated to the user and, at 632, notifies the user accordingly. At 618, the authentication service provides the user with access to the secure resource – see [0054] – [0060]).
Chandarana does not teach protecting endpoint-to-endpoint network traffic using shared key agreements/point-to-point connection (Chandarana teaches P2P).
Wang teaches protecting endpoint-to-endpoint network traffic using shared key agreements/point-point connection. Wang teaches: a method of secure communication between endpoints, in which the home gate keeper of the called endpoint generates a shared key necessary for secure communication between the endpoints, in order to improve the expansibility and processing efficiency of the mechanism of the secure communication between endpoints) - see [0029].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Chandarana by protecting endpoint-to-endpoint network traffic using shared key agreements in order to improve the expansibility and processing efficiency of the mechanism of the secure communication between endpoints, based upon the beneficial teachings provided by Wang. These modifications would result in increased security to the system.
Chandarana and Wang do not teach wherein registering the one or more endpoint systems to the authentication server includes performing a secret key exchange.
Bhattacharyya teaches: after locating the registration service, the network-connected device 102 establishes a logical connection to the registration service and performs a key exchange to establish a shared secret. The shared secret is used as a cryptographic key to encrypt further communication between the network-connected device and the registration service – see [0023].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Chandarana and Wang by performing a secret key exchange, in order to establish a shared secret which is used as a cryptographic key encrypt further communications, based upon the beneficial teachings provided by Bhattacharyya. These modifications would result in increased security to the system.
Bhattacharyya teaches performing a secret key exchange during registration, which is used to protect communications (after locating the registration service, the network-connected device 102 establishes a logical connection to the registration service and performs a key exchange to establish a shared secret. The shared secret is used as a cryptographic key to encrypt further communication between the network-connected device and the registration service – see [0023]).
In addition, Wang teaches protecting endpoint-to-endpoint network traffic using shared key agreements (a method of secure communication between endpoints, in which the home gate keeper of the called endpoint generates a shared key necessary for secure communication between the endpoints, in order to improve the expansibility and processing efficiency of the mechanism of the secure communication between endpoints - see [0029]).
In other words, both Bhattacharyya and Wang teach shared key agreements. Bhattacharyya uses it for protecting communications, and Wang also uses it for securing communication between endpoints. Therefore, using the keys produced in the key exchange could easily be used as the key in the shared key agreement because both keys taught have the same use and achieve the same result. Using the keys from the key exchange of Bhattacharyya (which are used to secure traffic) as the keys in the shared key agreement (which are used to secure traffic) would eliminate the need for multiple keys being produced for the same purpose. Therefore it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use the secret keys produced from the secret key exchange as the keys in the shared key agreements, for the purpose of simplicity and conserving resources.
Regarding claims 5, 13, and 21, Chandarana teaches authenticating the one or more endpoint systems only for incoming connections to the one or more endpoint systems (Applicant’s specification states “authentication is required on only incoming connections. This allows support for network broadcast and multicast traffic” Chandarana teaches that the credentials are unicasted or multicasted – see claims 1 and 8. Therefore, the Chandarana achieves the same purpose as the instant claim limitation of only authenticating the endpoint for incoming connections, so as to provide the advantage of authentication for incoming traffic of multicasting, which is a one-way communication) – see [0054] – [0060]).
Regarding claims 6, 14, and 22, Chandarana teaches rejecting a non-authorized endpoint system from a network connection (In the alternative case, where no suitable record or records are found in the registered device database, the authentication service prompts the user's mobile phone at 634 to display a suitable error or help message, e.g. prompting the user to retry when they are next in range of an active Bluetooth™ device – see [0055].
Regarding claims 4, 12, and 20, Bhattacharyya does not teach XOR encryption and decryption. However, using XOR as a method for encryption and decryption was notoriously well known at the time of the claimed invention. Accordingly, the result-effective adjustment of this and other particular types of conventional working conditions (e.g., the exact encryption scheme) is deemed merely a matter of judicious selection and routine optimization which is well within the purview of the skilled artisan.
Claims 3, 11, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chandarana (US 2020/0322799) in view of Wang (US 2007/0288744), and Bhattacharyya et al. (US 2020/0252396) and further in view of Yoneyama et al. (JP 2014138213). Please note that the parent CIP applications do not contain the subject matter of the independent claims, and therefore, priority is not given to that subject matter.
The teachings of Chandarana, Wang, and Bhattacharyya are relied upon for the reasons set forth above.
Regarding claims 3, 11, and 19, of Chandarana, Wang, and Bhattacharyya do not teach that the secret key exchange comprises a 3-way key exchange where two endpoint systems of the one or more endpoint systems share secret data over a 3-way data exchange protocol.
Yoneyama teaches information security technology, and relates to a three-way key sharing technology (also referred to as a three-way key exchange technology) for each of the three parties to share a secret key common to the three parties – see page 1, paragraph 2.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Chandarana, Wang, and Bhattacharyya by using 3-way key exchange to share secret data over a 3-way exchange protocol, based upon the beneficial teachings provided by Yoneyama. These modifications would result in improved security for shared communications.
Claims 7, 15, and 23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chandarana (US 2020/0322799) in view of Wang (US 2007/0288744), and further in view of Bhattacharyya et al. (US 2020/0252396), and further in view of Wang et al. (KR 20150083108 – referred to as Wang2). Please note that the parent CIP applications do not contain the subject matter of the independent claims, and therefore, priority is not given to that subject matter.
The teachings of Chandarana, Wang, Bhattacharyya and are relied upon for the reasons set forth above.
Regarding claims 7, 15, and 23, of Chandarana, Wang, and Bhattacharyya do not teach that the one or more endpoint systems each include a cached list of authorized endpoints.
Wang2 teaches: The VL may send a multicast and / or broadcast response back to the peer. The multicast and / or broadcast response may include information such as a list of authorized member peers and/or trust requests – see page 14 second to last paragraph. The Examiner notes that Wang does not explicitly teach that the list is cached. However, it was notoriously well known in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to cache information to quickly and easily access it.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Chandarana, Wang, and Bhattacharyya by storing a list of authorized of endpoints at each endpoint in order to recognize which endpoints are secure to communicate with, based upon the beneficial teachings provided by Wang2. These modifications would result in improved security for shared communications. In addition, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effectively filing date of the claimed invention to cache the list in order to quickly access it.
Claims 8, 16, and 24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chandarana (US 2020/0322799) in view of Wang (US 2007/0288744), and further in view of Bhattacharyya et al. (US 2020/0252396), and further in view of Etchegoyen (US 2010/0325704). Please note that the parent CIP applications do not contain the subject matter of the independent claims, and therefore, priority is not given to that subject matter.
The teachings of Chandarana, Wang, and Bhattacharyya are relied upon for the reasons set forth above.
Regarding claims 8, 16, and 24, of Chandarana, Wang, and Bhattacharyya do not teach that the authentication server comprises an embedded system.
Etchegoyen teaches: content server 320 and authentication server 330 may be configured as a particular apparatus, embedded system, dedicated circuit, and the like based on the storage, execution, and/or implementation of the software instructions that perform one or more operations consistent with the disclosed embodiments – see [0010]. Please note that embedded systems were notoriously well known in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention. They are known for their reliability, low power consumption, compact size, etc.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the teachings of Chandarana, Wang, and Bhattacharyya by making the authentication system comprise an embedded system, for the purpose of low power consumption, compact size, and cost effectiveness, based on the beneficial teachings provided by Etchegoyen. These modifications would result in increased reliability.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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.
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/LISA C LEWIS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2495