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, see page 8, filed 01/16/2026, with respect to the rejection of claims 3-4, 7, 10-11, 14, and 17-18 under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a) have been fully considered and are persuasive. The rejection of claims 3-4, 7, 10-11, 14, and 17-18 under 35 U.S.C. § 112(a) have been withdrawn.
Applicant’s arguments, see pages 8-9, filed 01/16/2026, with respect to the rejection of claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) have been fully considered. The rejection of claims 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) have been withdrawn.
With respect to Applicant’s remarks regarding “implementing a portion of objects”, the Examiner will interpret “portion” of having its plain and ordinary meaning, in that implementing one or more objects will read upon “a portion”.
Applicant’s arguments, see pages 9-10, filed 01/16/2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(a)(1) have been fully considered. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of newly discovered prior art.
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.
Claim(s) 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Terpstra et. al. (US Publication No. US 2023/0229779 A1) hereinafter Terpstra in view of Hui et. al. (US Publication No. US 2015/0365238 A1) hereinafter Hui.
Regarding Claims 1, 8, and 15:
Claim 8. Terpstra discloses a non-transitory machine-readable medium having instructions stored therein, which when executed by a processor, cause the processor to perform operations for managing operation of endpoint devices of a deployment, the operations comprising (Terpstra [0228-0231] computer readable media contemplated): obtaining, by an endpoint device of the endpoint devices, a blueprint token that indicates that the endpoint device is to implement a blueprint (Terpstra [0114] “The digitally signed package will contain metadata that describes its content (e.g., a singlet containing an ‘action’ component, or one or more tuples each including a ‘binary payload’ and an ‘action’ component)”), … and the blueprint token indicates a modification to the endpoint device (Terpstra [0062-0064]); in response to obtaining the blueprint token, performing by the endpoint device: making a first determination regarding whether a blueprint specified by the blueprint token is trusted (Terpstra [0114] “Upon receipt by the target computing device, the package will be digitally attested using its private key (e.g., a TPM-based private certificate)”); in a first instance of the first determination where the blueprint is trusted: making a second determination regarding whether the blueprint is authorized for use by the endpoint device (Terpstra [0113-0117]); in a first instance of the second determination where the blueprint is authorized for use by the endpoint device: making a third determination regarding whether integrity of the blueprint can be verified (Terpstra [0113-0117] hashing checks integrity); in a first instance of the third determination where the integrity of the blueprint can be verified: implementing a portion of objects specified by the blueprint that can be verified (Terpstra [0117] action component of the package is executed), the objects being implemented in an order specified by the blueprint (Terpstra [0117] action component of the package is executed; [0120] control plane may implement or utilize a tool chain to “implement hypervisor virtualization infrastructure 1110-1 and/or a container orchestration system 1110-2 (e.g., Kubernetes) to implement various tools (e.g., as virtual computing resources such as VMs or containers in a cloud infrastructure) Such tools illustratively include an edge device onboarding provisioning system 1112 having a rendezvous server 1114 and an onboarding/provisioning server 1116, a partner and application onboarding system 1118 including a partner database 1120 and application database 1122, a device registry 1124, and an application registry 1126”; [0121] action packages may be executed in serial execution as ordered), and implementation of the portion of the objects conforming the operation of the endpoint device to the blueprint (Terpstra [0117], [0120-0121]); and providing computer implemented services using at least the portion of objects (Terpstra [0117-0121] once completed the device goes “live” and provides the service after being configured).
Terpstra does not explicitly disclose wherein the blueprint token comprises a timestamp that is replay attack resistant.
Hui teaches wherein the blueprint token comprises a timestamp that is replay attack resistant (Hui Figure 3 time window, [0039-0042]).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the time the invention was effectively filed to combine the context-aware device provisioning disclosed by Terpstra with the timestamp and sequence number taught by Hui. The motivation for this combination would be to improve security of the system by preventing replay attacks.
Claims 1 and 15 recite substantially the same content and are therefore rejected under the same rationales. Terpstra further discloses a method for managing operation of endpoint devices of a deployment (Terpstra [0225-0226]); and Terpstra further discloses an endpoint device, comprising: a processor; and a memory coupled to the processor to store instructions, which when executed by the processor, cause the processor to perform operations for managing operation of the endpoint device as a member of a deployment (Terpstra [0046-0048]).
Regarding Claims 2, 9, and 16:
Claim 9. The combination of Terpstra and Hui further teaches the non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 8 (Terpstra [0228-0231] computer readable media contemplated), wherein the operations further comprise: in the first instance of the third determination where the integrity of the blueprint can be verified: while the objects are being implemented, logging activity of the endpoint device to obtain an auditable implementation trail for the endpoint device (Terpstra [0118] “Upon completion of handling of the ‘action’ component, the target computing device will send to the control plane a signed package containing the confirmation of completion. This signed package may include any log information that was specified/requested within the ‘action’ package metadata”; [0127] all communication information and transactions are logged, “the various actions, in some embodiments, are made auditable”).
Claims 2 and 16 recite substantially the same content and are therefore rejected under the same rationales.
Regarding Claims 3, 10, and 17:
Claim 10. The combination of Terpstra and Hui further teaches the non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 8 (Terpstra [0228-0231] computer readable media contemplated), wherein making the first determination comprises: obtaining verification data for the blueprint (Terpstra [0113-0115] “Upon receipt by the target computing device, the package will be digitally attested using its private key (e.g., a TPM-based private certificate). The digitally signed package will contain metadata that describes its content (e.g., a singlet containing an “action” component, or one or more tuples each including a “binary payload” and an “action” component); 3. Upon successful validation, the target computing device will calculate an acceptable Hash-based Message Authentication Code (HMAC) checksum (e.g., an MD5 hash) of the entire package or bundle. The target computing device will send a signed package containing the HMAC checksum data to the control plane for confirmation.”); and attempting to verify trust in the blueprint using the verification data to make the first determination (Terpstra [0113-0117]).
Claims 3 and 17 recite substantially the same content and are therefore rejected under the same rationales.
Regarding Claims 4, 11, and 18:
Claim 11. The combination of Terpstra and Hui further teaches the non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 10 (Terpstra [0228-0231] computer readable media contemplated), wherein the verification data comprises a hash of the blueprint that is signed (Terpstra [0113-0115] hashing explicitly disclosed), and attempting to verify the trust in the blueprint comprises using a public key to check a signature applied to the hash (Terpstra [0113] signed using the public key).
Claims 4 and 18 recite substantially the same content and are therefore rejected under the same rationales.
Regarding Claims 5, 12, and 19:
Claim 12. The combination of Terpstra and Hui further teaches the non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 8 (Terpstra [0228-0231] computer readable media contemplated), wherein making the second determination comprises: obtaining at least one assignment for a plurality of blueprints to the endpoint device (Terpstra [0113-0117] and [0125-0127] application registry or repository is used to track which bundles need to be implemented by which target device serial numbers or other IDs and may maintain a queue of required actions to be implemented); and comparing the blueprint to the plurality of blueprints to ascertain whether the blueprint is one of the plurality of blueprints to make the second determination (Terpstra [0113-0117] and [0125-0127] registry and acknowledgements of received particular bundles required).
Claims 5 and 19 recite substantially the same content and are therefore rejected under the same rationales.
Regarding Claims 6, 13, and 20:
Claim 13. The combination of Terpstra and Hui further teaches the non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 12 (Terpstra [0228-0231] computer readable media contemplated), wherein each of the at least one assignment attests an assignment of at least one of the plurality of blueprints for use by the endpoint device (Terpstra [0113-0117], [0121] edge device attests blob received, and [0125-0127]), the at least one assignment being made by an administrator (Terpstra [0126] “This bundle preparation service provides various functionality, including but not limited to: preparing the bundle metadata (e.g., with a configurable data structure and key)… digitally signing the bundle with the edge device's ownership token; and adding the resulting bundle to the transmission queue.”; [0122] ownership token belongs to a manufacturer, vendor, or owner), and the at least one assignment being cryptographically verifiable by the endpoint device (Terpstra [0126] “digitally signing the bundle with the edge device's ownership token; and adding the resulting bundle to the transmission queue.”).
Claims 6 and 20 recite substantially the same content and are therefore rejected under the same rationales.
Regarding Claims 7 and 14:
Claim 14. The combination of Terpstra and Hui further teaches the non-transitory machine-readable medium of claim 8 (Terpstra [0228-0231] computer readable media contemplated), wherein making the third determination comprises: obtaining verification data for the blueprint (Terpstra [0113-0117] hashing checks integrity); and comparing a first hash in the verification data to a second hash of the blueprint to make the third determination (Terpstra [0113-0117] “the target computing device will calculate an acceptable Hash-based Message Authentication Code (HMAC) checksum (e.g., an MD5 hash) of the entire package or bundle. The target computing device will send a signed package containing the HMAC checksum data to the control plane for confirmation. The transaction metadata will describe the action pending upon successful receipt of the package from the target computing device; 4. Upon receipt of confirmation from the target computing device, the control plane will send to the target computing device a signed “confirm” or “deny” response. If the target computing device receives a deny response, it will perform an immediate factory reset and shutdown. The control plane will log the denial, and alert the preparer of the instruction/deployment package as to the success or failure of the transaction”).
Claim 7 recites substantially the same content and is therefore rejected under the same rationales.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record in the submitted PTO-892 Notice of References Cited and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure.
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MIGUEL A LOPEZ whose telephone number is (703)756-1241. The examiner can normally be reached 8:00AM-5:00PM.
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/M.A.L./ Examiner, Art Unit 2496
/JORGE L ORTIZ CRIADO/ Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2496