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
Claims 1-16 are pending in the application. Claims 1-2 and 5-6 currently amended. No claims have been canceled. No new claims are currently added. Claims 7-16 are withdrawn from consideration as a result of the earlier restriction requirement.
Response to Arguments
With regard to Applicant’s remarks dated December 12, 2025:
Regarding the rejection of claims 1-16 under 35 U.S.C. 112(b), Applicant’s amendment and arguments have been fully considered and is sufficient. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn.
Regarding the rejection of claims 1-6 under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2), Applicant’s amendment and arguments have been fully considered. Applicants argue that Yabuuchi fails to teach the newly added subject matter. Examiner agrees. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. New grounds of rejection are made in view of the newly discovered references.
As to any arguments not specifically addressed, they are the same as those discussed above.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Claims 1-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
As to claim 1, in the step of “trading”, phrase “form the certification authority” should read “from the certificate authority”. In the same step there is a lack of proper antecedent basis for “the plurality of roadside units”.
Dependent claims are rejected for the same reasons.
As to claim 2, it is unclear what “location-specific” applies to. It particular, it is unclear whether it somehow describes a location in memory where the CRL is stored or any other information that is related to a location.
As to claim 5, there is a lack of proper antecedent basis for “the roadside unit backend”. It is also unclear how this wherein clause further limits any of the claimed steps of claim 1 where there is nothing in claim 1 that would require the RSU to communicate with the CA.
As to claim 6, it is unclear which step(s) of claim 1 this wherein clause attempts to limit. If Applicants intended to introduce an additional step of receiving an adversarial pseudonym certificate, this must be done as an active step, not a wherein clause. Further, the language “only for an adversarial vehicle” is ambiguous because it is unclear whether the claim suggests that the CV is an adversarial vehicle (which has not been established or somehow determined) or it was intended for the adversarial vehicle, but mistakenly was received by the CV.
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 1-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yabuuchi et al. (US 2020/0008027 A1) in view of Simplicio et al. (US 2022/0158853 A1).
As to claim 1, Yabuuchi teaches a method of operating a token-based vehicular security system (TVSS) (Fig. 1), the method comprising:
enrolling a vehicle with a certificate authority [certificate issuing server apparatus 5 is issuing a certificate for the vehicle giving it ability to communicate with other apparatuses for a period of time] (par. [0049]) to configure a communicatively connected vehicle (CV) for communicatively connecting to the token based vehicular security system (TVSS) [“to configure…for communicatively connecting” is a statement of intended use]; and
[receiving the certificate] from at least one of the plurality of roadside units (RSUs) [roadside communication apparatus 3 performs wireless communication with a vehicle 1] (par. [0049], Fig. 1) to use for secure communications [statement of intended use where the claim does not require the certificate to be utilized for any purpose].
Yabuuchi fails to teach receiving a plurality of tokens from the certificate authority; trading at least one of the plurality of tokens for at least one pseudonym certificate from at least one of the plurality of roadside units (RSUs); and issuing the at least one traded-for pseudonym certificate (PC) to the connected vehicle (CV).
Simplicio is directed to cryptographic methods and systems using activation codes for digital certificate revocation (abstract). In particular, Simplicio teaches receiving a plurality of tokens from the certificate authority [activation codes] (par. [0047]-[0048]); trading at least one of the plurality of tokens for at least one pseudonym certificate [performing timely activation of activation codes to access pseudonym certificates] (par. [0095], [0106]-[0112]); and issuing the at least one traded-for pseudonym certificate (PC) to the connected vehicle (CV) (par. [0040]-[0044], [0049]).
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 method and system of Yabuuchi by receiving a plurality of tokens from the certificate authority; trading at least one of the plurality of tokens for at least one pseudonym certificate from at least one of the plurality of roadside units (RSUs); and issuing the at least one traded-for pseudonym certificate (PC) to the connected vehicle (CV) in order to avoid compromising user privacy (par. [0040] in Simplicio).
As to claim 2, Yabuuchi in view of Simplicio teaches sharing a short location-specific certificate revocation list (CRL) with the communicatively connected vehicle (CV) (par. [0008]-[0009], [0045]-[0047], [0115] in Simplicio).
As to claim 3, Yabuuchi teaches completing a transaction between one of the plurality of roadside units (RSUs) and the communicatively connected vehicle in less than about one-hundred milliseconds (Fig. 6; par. [0067]-[0068], [0092]).
As to claim 4, Yabuuchi teaches issuing the pseudonym certificate (PC) to the communicatively connected vehicle (CV) from one of the plurality of roadside units (RSUs) with the token-based vehicular security system (TVSS) having the low latency being between about one millisecond and about two milliseconds (par. [0070]).
As to claim 5, Yabuuchi teaches that the roadside unit (RSU) is connected to the roadside unit backend [wide area communication unit 34] (Fig. 3) that communicates with but is distinct from the certificate authority (CA) (par. [0059]).
As to claim 6, Yabuuchi in view of Simplicio teaches that the communicatively connected vehicle (CV) is operating in a particular geographical area [vehicle 1 is operating in the proximity of where the roadside communication apparatus 3 is installed at a geographical location (par. [0029], [0046]in Yabuuchi) and the communicatively connected vehicle (CV) receives an adversarial pseudonym certificate (PC) from the roadside unit (RSU) (par. [0049], Fig. 1 in Yabuuchi; par. [0112] in Simplicio) only for the adversarial vehicle operating in the particular geographical area [certificates are identified by a vehicle ID so appropriate certificate is issued to a vehicle when it is proximate to the roadside communication apparatus 3 of Yabuuchi] (par. [0037] in Simplicio).
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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/OLEG SURVILLO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2457