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 .
The response of 07/02/26 was received and considered. Claims 5, 12 and 18 are canceled. Claims 1-4, 6-11, 13-17 and 19-20 are presented for examination.
Response to Arguments
Applicants’ arguments, filed 07/02/26, with respect to 35 USC 101 and 112 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The rejections under 35 USC 101 and 112 are withdrawn.
Applicants’ arguments filed 07/02/26 with respect to claims 1, 8 and 14 in view of 35 USC 103 have been fully considered but they are moot in view of a new ground of rejection. In view of the amendments, a new rejection is made in view of White et al.
Applicants’ arguments, filed 07/02/26, with respect to the rejection of claims 2, 3, 4, 10, 15, 16 and 17 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The core concept of the invention is represented in claims 2, 3, 4, 10, 15, 16 and 17. These dependent claims add active rotation of the new key routing variable and the notification of the consumer of the new routing keys. The 35 USC 103 rejection of claims 2, 3, 4, 10, 15, 16 and 17 have been withdrawn.
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.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-4, 6-11, 13, 15, 17 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claims 1-4, 6-11 and 13 recite the limitation "the routing key variable value" in line 8 (claim 1 and claim 8). There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. It is unclear if this is the same or different from “a routing key variable” in line 5. Line 10, recites “a routing key variable value”, it is unclear if this is the same or different value. Additionally, the difference between the following claims in each set of claims is unclear: Claims 2 and 4, 9 and 10, 15 and 17, for the same reasons as set forth above.
As per claim 4, “by the messaging resource service rotates.” Is unclear.
As per claims 7 and 20, “are pointed out by the routing key variable” is unclear. The term “pointed out” is not defined and should be changed to a term like “identified by”, “mapped to”, “addressed by”.
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.
Claims 1, 6-9, 11, 13-14, 19 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 12,101,402 to Giblin et al, in view of US 2024/0126632 to Habel et al and further in view of White et al, US 2020/0394317.
Regarding claims 1, 8 and 14, Giblin teaches a method for providing enhanced Information Handling System (IHS) messaging infrastructure security (Col. 1 lines 23-37: a secure cryptographic key rotation in a publish subscribe system 200). comprising:
setting up, by a message producer application, via a messaging resource rotation service, messaging resources in a message broker (col. 17, line 34: publish-subscribe system 200 with a message broker 202 and a proxy 203. Clients 206, 208 of the publish-subscribe system 200 may communicate with the broker 202 via the proxy 203. Similarly, the broker 202 may communicate with the clients 206, 208 via the proxy 203. In case of FIG. 5, the encryption module 201 for encrypting and decrypting messages is comprised by the proxy 203. Thus, the proxy 203 may be configured for encrypting and decrypting messages. Col. 4, lines 45-60: producers setting up messages to topics in a broker);
assigning, by the messaging resource rotation service, a routing key variable (col. 18, line 18: Each of the stored messages is assigned with a cryptographic key of a group of one or more cryptographic keys and encrypted with the assigned cryptographic key. The publish-subscribe system provides a broker service for routing the stored messages to one or more subscribers of the topics to which the routed messages are assigned.);
subscribing, by a message consumer application, via the messaging resource rotation service, to the messaging resources (col. 16, line 31: Messages 204 stored in the topics 210 are forwarded by the broker 202 to the consumers 208 subscribing to the respective topics 210.);
storing, by the messaging resource rotation service, the routing key variable value in a key vault in communication with the messaging resource rotation service (Col. 7, lines 27-34: using a Key Management Service (KMS) to store wrapping keys in a highly secure fashion).
Giblin lacks or does not expressly disclose fetching, from the key vault.
However, White teaches fetching, by the message producer application, a routing key variable value from the key vault (paragraph 0083: the requested data key(s) may be fetched from a key vault collection.). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Giblin with White to teach fetching a key value from a key vault, in order to retrieve a key from a protected location, as taught by White, paragraph 0083.
Giblin, as modified above, lacks or does not expressly disclose posting a message and notifying about a message being posted.
However, Habel teaches
posting, by the message producer application, a message, using the fetched routing key derived variable value and
notifying, the message consumer application that subscribed to the message resources, by the message broker, about the posting of the message (0186: the pub/sub bus 931 notifies the rules/remediation coordinator 940, the rules evaluator 960, and task execution engine 970 when a message is posted to a topic (e.g., pub/sub EMS topic 930 and/or pub/sub/auto-heal topic 950) to which they have subscribed. For example, following completion of the subscription requests, upon occurrence of a key EMS event to which the rules/remediation coordinator 940 is subscribed, the pub/sub bus 960 is shown notifying the rules/remediation coordinator 940 regarding the occurrence of subscribed EMS event within the data storage system.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify Giblin, as modified above, with Habel to teach posting and notifying about a message in order to be alerted about a topic, as taught by Habel, 0186.
Regarding claims 9 and 11, Giblin, as modified above, further discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising rotating the routing key variable, by the messaging resource rotation service (col. 20, line 19: a key rotation, i.e., to replace the existing cryptographic key k.sub.1 assigned to the existing topic t.sub.1 210 and used for encrypting the encrypted messages 205 stored in the message log of topic t.sub.1 210, a re-encryption may be executed. For example, a re-encryption workflow may be executed comprising adding an additional topic t.sub.2 220. The key rotation may, e.g., be initiated by creating an additional cryptographic key k.sub.2 for the additional topic t.sub.2 220. The encryption module may be updated to encrypt new messages, i.e., messages received by the broker 202 or a proxy, using the additional key k.sub.2.).
Regarding claim 6, 13 and 19, Giblin, as modified above, further discloses the method of claim 1, further comprising storing, by the messaging resource rotation service, the routing key variable with a key management service in communication with the messaging resource rotation service (col. 7, line 27: a key management service (KMS) to support the wrap and unwrap operations. The KMS is assumed to store the wrapping key in a highly secure fashion such that it never leaves the KMS. In a publish-subscribe setting the encryption module may store the wrapped key into a message header when a message is encrypted, removing the header during message decryption prior to responding to client requests.).
Regarding claims 7 and 20, Giblin, as modified above, further discloses the method of claim 1, wherein, in subscribing, by a message consumer application, via the messaging resource rotation service, to the messaging resources, the messaging resources are pointed out by the routing key variable (col. 19, line 12: The topic alias ta 212 may point to the topic t.sub.1 210, such that the received message is further assigned to the topic t.sub.1 210 and stored in a segment file 211 of a message log of topic t.sub.1 210.).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2, 3, 4, 10, 15, 16 and 17 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
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.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 10,574,440 teaches a computer system and method that enables delegated access to encrypted information for distributed messaging and queuing frameworks, or in general, to publish/subscribe architectures. In said frameworks and architectures, data is published by data producers and organized in channels or queues, which consumer applications can subscribe to, and that are managed by one or multiple broker entities.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to AUBREY H WYSZYNSKI whose telephone number is (571)272-8155. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9-5.
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/AUBREY H WYSZYNSKI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2434
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