DETAILED ACTION
This action is in response to the Request for Continued Examination filed on August 18, 2026. Claim 35 has been amended and claims 18-34 have been previously canceled. Claims 1-17 and 35-48 are pending. Of such, Claims 1-17 and 35-48 represent methods directed to privacy-preserving key generation in biometric authentication.
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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on August 18, 2026 has been entered.
Claim Objections
The objection to Claim 35 has been withdrawn in view of the amendment to the claim.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on August 18, 2026, has been fully considered but they are fully not persuasive. However, the rejection of claims 1-17 and 35-48 is restated below as a new ground of rejection using the same prior art with Carmignani (¶¶ 45, 127) utilized for the limitation “the authentication computing facility being distinct from the enrollment computing facility and the second transducer being distinct from the first transducer.” The arguments in response to the Remarks submitted on August 18, 2026 are addressed below.
Regarding Argument I (Remarks pages 9-15), the Applicant argues that Teranishi does not recognize or address the problem of “biometric sensor interoperability”, which the present application addresses through templates, vectors, and neural nets. The Applicant argues that Teranishi is “inapposite” to the claims.
This argument is not persuasive.
The claims do not recite sensor interoperability, templates, vectors, neural nets, or any processing that compensates for differences between transducers. Claims 1 and 35 require only that the authentication computing facility and the second transducer be “distinct” from the enrollment computing facility and the first transducer. Limitations from the specification are not read into the claims. As noted in the Final Rejection (mailed April 20, 2026), the machine-learning and vector features appear in the allowed claims of the parent application, not in these claims.
Further, Teranishi does not need to discuss the problem the Applicant is concerned with. A reference is prior art for all it teaches and as long as it teaches on the claims as written. However, the rejection now relies on Carmignani for distinct enrollment and authentication devices. Carmignani’s enrolled template is itself “an embedding” produced by “a neural network” and “an EBT may be obtained as a feature vector” (Carmignani, ¶ 44).
Regarding Argument II (Remarks pages 16-18), the Applicant argues that every Teranishi embodiment requires apparatus authentication. The Applicant further argues that apparatus authentication proves “that the device used for prior enrollment is the one being used for user authentication”.
This argument is not persuasive.
Even if every Teranishi embodiment performs apparatus authentication, that authentication does not require the same device for enrollment and authentication. Apparatus authentication checks the device’s registered key, not the enrollment device. Teranishi defines apparatus authentication as proving that user device 41 “is the same as the device recorded in advance, for the apparatus authentication server device 42” A device is recorded for server 42 when its public key is stored in the server’s “database for storing public keys of respective devices” (See Teranishi Col 28). The Remarks rewrites this as “the device used for the prior enrollment” (Remarks, page 18), but Teranishi does not say that.
Teranishi also keeps the key registration as a separate step from recording the verification information (Teranishi, Col 30). Teranishi itself contemplates recording the verification information on “a dedicated machine” instead of the user device’s acquisition part 4111. Nothing in apparatus authentication depends on which machine recorded the biometric.
Further, Carmignani shows the same separation between the enrollment and authentication device. A second device, 60b, is enrolled with the APSP and then authenticates “using the same EBT B from the enrollment of first user device 60a”. (Carmignani, ¶ 127).
Regarding Argument III (Remarks pages 20), the Applicant argues that the enrollment device must also be the authentication device. The reasons that are given are (a) that the shares v[0] (verification information share) and s[0] (authentication information share) are required for user authentication and stored on the user device and (b) that the user device stores the verification protocol.
This argument is not persuasive.
The share argument describes the steps of Teranishi’s first embodiment, not a requirement of every embodiment. In Teranishi’s eighth embodiment, which applicant also cites, “neither verification information distributed shares not authentication information distributed shares for the user device 41 are created” (Col 53). In that embodiment, “the user device 41 does not participate in authentication MPC” (Col 53). Teranishi also states that elements of its embodiment may be combined (Col 55).
The verification protocol is not enrollment data at all. The user device “receives the following data in advance and holds it in the storage part 413”, including the “verification protocol for user authentication” (Col 30).
The claims neither require nor prohibit a share on the authentication device. They require only that the multiparty computation involve “a subset of the enrollment shards and a subset of the authentication shards”. Teranishi’s user side assistance devices perform the computation with shares v[i] and s[i] (Col 32).
Regarding Argument IV (Remarks pages 20), the Applicant argues that Teranishi does not address sensor interoperability and therefore does not enable a system in which the authentication sensor is distinct from the enrollment sensor.
This argument is not persuasive.
The claims require only distinct enrollment and authentication hardware. They do not require solving interoperability, or any level of matching reliability. Carmignani describes that arrangement by the second APS user device 60b authenticates “using the same EBT B from the enrollment of first user device 60a” (Carmignani ¶ 127).
Regarding Argument V (Remarks pages 23-24), the Applicant argues that Carmignani’s keys are tied to one device, so that “Carmignani is unable to use a second transducer to authenticate the user”.
This argument is not persuasive.
Carmignani teaches the opposite. “two or more different APS user devices (e.g., first APS user device 60a and second APS user device 60b) may be enrolled with the APSP for a single.” And further “second APS user device 60b may then be enabled to authenticate second APS user device 60b with the APSP using the same EBT B from the enrollment of first user device 60a and an ABS b that may be captured during the authentication using second APS user device 60b” (Carmignani, ¶ 127). The device keys applicant identifies identify each enrolled device. They do not tie the user’s biometric enrollment to one device.
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 1-17 and 35-48 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Teranishi et al. (US 11063941), hereinafter referred to as Teranishi, in view of Carmignani et al. (US 20200259638), hereinafter referred to as Carmignani.
Regarding Claim 1, Teranishi discloses:
A method for using biometric data to authenticate a subject as an individual (In the abstract, Teranishi discloses “An authentication system is provided with: a user device; user side assistance device(s) to assist user authentication that authenticates a user of the user device”) whose biometric data has been previously obtained using an enrollment computing facility that is coupled to a first transducer (In Col 31, Lines 2-12, Teranishi further discloses “In the present exemplary embodiment, in user authentication advance preparation the user 44 records verification information in advance. Various methods may be used as a method of recording the verification information in advance. FIG. 4 shows a case where the verification information is recorded in advance by using the acquisition part 4111 of the user device 41. However, in a case where, for example, a company records all new recruits together in an authentication system, a dedicated machine for recording the verification information may be prepared and used to perform recording in advance in the verification part.” Examiner notes, wherein the previously obtained data was recorded using a dedicated machine), the method utilizing computer processes comprising: under a condition wherein enrollment shards have been generated from the individual's biometric data by the enrollment computing facility (In Col 31, Line 27, Teranishi discloses “Step 513: a verification information distribution part 41222 inputs verification information and the number M of user side assistance devices 43, and outputs distributed shares v[0], v[1], . . . , v[M] of the verification information.”) and the enrollment computing facility has effectuated distribution thereof to a first plurality of servers in an array of servers (In Col 31, Line 34, Teranishi discloses “Step 515: the assistance communication part 4141 of the communication part 414 transmits the distributed share v[1] to the user side assistance device 43[1], and . . . , distributed share v[M] to the user side assistance device 43[M].”): causing generation of authentication shards from a digital electronic signal characterizing a biometric of the subject (In Col 32, Lines 27-30, Teranishi discloses “Step 713: the authentication information distribution part 41212 inputs authentication information and the number M of user side assistance devices 43, and outputs distributed shares s[0], s1], . . . , s[M] of the authentication information.”), such signal obtained using an authentication computing facility that is coupled to a second transducer (In Col 32, Line 22, Teranishi discloses “Step 711: the acquisition part 4111 obtains user unique information from the user 44.”), and causing distribution of the authentication shards to a second plurality of servers in the array of servers (In Col 32, Line 31, Teranishi discloses “Step 714: for i=1, . . . , M, the assistance communication part 4141 of the communication part 414 transmits the distributed share s[i] of the authentication information to the user side assistance device 43[i].”); causing performance of a data exchange process which includes multiparty computation that involves communication among a subset of servers in the array and that also involves uses a subset of the enrollment shards and a subset of the generated authentication shards to develop information relating to authentication of the subject (In Col 32, Line 59, Teranishi discloses “For i=1, . . . , M, the user side assistance device 43[i] inputs distributed share s[i] of the authentication information, distributed share v[i] of the verification information, advance computation data p[i] (if it exists), and verification protocol for user authentication, to the user side assistance device user authentication MPC part 4311[i]. In this way, “user authentication MPC” is executed. As an execution result, the user device 41 obtains the user authentication result share a[0]. For i=1, . . . M, the user side assistance device 43[i] obtains the user authentication result share a[i]. It is to be noted that details of the “user authentication MPC” are described later.” and further discloses in Col 25, Line 30, Teranishi discloses “The i-th user side assistance device performs user authentication by using v[i], f[i], the authentication information derivation algorithm, the verification information derivation algorithm, and the user authentication algorithm to perform MPC while carrying out intercommunication with other user side assistance devices.”), and causing processing of the authentication information in a verification process to indicate whether the subject is authenticated as the individual (In Col 38, Lines 14-16, Teranishi discloses “an authentication result is outputted. The user side assistance device 43[1] transmits GC to the user device 41 using the communication part 433[1].”).
However, Teranishi does not explicitly disclose the generation of a key.
Carmignani discloses:
the authentication computing facility being distinct from the enrollment computing facility and the second transducer being distinct from the first transducer (In ¶ 127, Carmignani disclose “two or more different APS user devices (e.g., first APS user device 60a and second APS user device 60b) may be enrolled with the APSP for a single user (e.g., a single user persona (e.g., a single EBT B))…second APS user device 60b may then be enabled to authenticate second APS user device 60b with the APSP using the same EBT B from the enrollment of first user device 60a and an ABS b that may be captured during the authentication using second APS user device 60b” and further in ¶ 32 “a user device 60 (e.g., one, some, or each of devices 60a-60c of FIG. 1) may include a processor component 62, a memory component 63, a communications component 64, a sensor 65,” wherein the examiner notes the enrollment template comes from the first APS user device and its sensor which the authentication biometric is captured with the second APS user device, a different device with its own processor), wherein the authentication information includes a key of the subject (In ¶ 48, Carmignani discloses “If an evaluation of a user's EBT and ABS is successful at a sufficient number (e.g., 1 or more (e.g., m-number for m out of n secret sharing)) of the network nodes (e.g., if user authentication with the APSP is successful at a sufficient number of the nodes), the APS user device may receive and further decrypt enough seed shares from the node(s) for recovering or reconstructing the seed (or receive and further decrypt the seed from a node). Such a recovered or reconstructed seed may then be used by the APS user device for any suitable purpose, such as for enabling any suitable secure operation (e.g., seamless authentication, unique identification, access control, key generation, e-signature, etc.)”)
One in ordinary skill in the art of cryptography would have been motivated, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Teranishi’s approach by utilizing Carmignani’s approach of authenticating a user from a second device and recovering a key of the user upon successful authentication as the motivation would be that a user who holds more than one device can authenticate themselves from any of those devices against a single enrollment and the successful authentication would yield a key ensuring access to the environment or interaction the user is attempting to authenticate to (see Carmignani ¶¶ 127 and 48).
Regarding Claim 2, the combination of Teranishi and Carmignani disclose the limitations of claim 1.
However, Teranishi does not explicitly disclose the generation of a signature.
Carmignani discloses:
A method according to claim 1, wherein the processing of the authentication information includes causing the development of a signed message (In ¶ 48, Carmignani discloses “Such a recovered or reconstructed seed may then be used by the APS user device for any suitable purpose, such as for enabling any suitable secure operation (e.g., seamless authentication, unique identification, access control, key generation, e-signature, etc.)”).
One in ordinary skill in the art of cryptography would have been motivated, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Teranishi’s approach by utilizing Carmignani’s approach of a seed as the motivation would be that the recovered seed would act as an additional level of security by ensuring the seed or private key that has been recovered from the nodes allows a verification of a signature and for the use or access to the environment or interaction the user is attempting to authenticate to. (see Carmignani ¶ 48).
Regarding Claim 3, the combination of Teranishi and Carmignani disclose the limitations of Claim 2.
However, Teranishi does not explicitly disclose the generation of another key for signing.
Carmignani discloses:
wherein the computer processes further comprise causing the data exchange process to use the authentication shards to develop a further key of the subject and to cause the further key of the subject to be used to develop a second signed message (In ¶ 92, Carmignani discloses “attempt to verify the signatures SVE.sub.j of the received authentication circuit information ACI.sub.Cid_j for each unique circuit identifier C.sub.id using public device signing key pk.sub.d of earlier received data 208d, generate a verification acknowledgment ack′.sub.CID_j that may be indicative of whether or not the node was able to verify the signatures SVE.sub.j of the received authentication circuit information ACI.sub.Cid_j for each unique circuit identifier C.sub.id (e.g., confirm or deny such verification)”)
One in ordinary skill in the art of cryptography would have been motivated, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Teranishi’s approach by utilizing Carmignani’s approach of a seed as the motivation would be that the recovered seed would act as an additional level of security by ensuring the seed or private key that has been recovered from the nodes allows a verification of a signature and for the use or access to the environment or interaction the user is attempting to authenticate to. (see Carmignani ¶ 48).
Regarding Claim 4, the combination of Teranishi and Carmignani disclose the limitations of Claim 2.
However, Teranishi does not explicitly disclose the signing of the message using the subject key.
Carmignani discloses:
wherein the verification process includes using an authentication key of the individual in relation to the signed message to determine whether the subject is authenticated as the individual (In ¶ 144, Carmignani discloses “In response to receiving such a challenge (e.g., timestamped beacon data), APS user device 60a may be operative (e.g., at operations 614-620) to sign such a challenge with a private TPS key ski, and then store that signed challenge as unmodifiable information (e.g., on repository 80 (e.g., on a public blockchain)). This may be used for facilitating a secure operation, as the TP subsystem may then utilize that stored signed challenge (e.g., by confirming the signature with its public TPS key pk.sub.t) for securely determining that the user authenticated with the APSP to prove that APS user device 60a and user U received the challenge and thus was proximate beacon TPS user device 60c at the time of the timestamp.”)
One in ordinary skill in the art of cryptography would have been motivated, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Teranishi’s approach by utilizing Carmignani’s approach of a seed as the motivation would be that the recovered seed would act as an additional level of security by ensuring the seed or private key that has been recovered from the nodes allows a verification of a signature and for the use or access to the environment or interaction the user is attempting to authenticate to. (see Carmignani ¶ 48).
Regarding Claim 5, the combination of Teranishi and Carmignani disclose the limitations of Claim 4.
However, Teranishi does not explicitly disclose the use of an ECDSA (Elliptical Curve Digital Signature Algorithm) public and private key.
Carmignani discloses:
wherein the authentication key of the individual is an ECDSA public key that is used in the verification process in relation to the signed message, signed using a ECDSA private key of the subject to determine whether the subject is authenticated as the individual. (In ¶ 57, Carmignani discloses “For example, private user key sk.sub.u may be used as a private key for an ECDSA, and the corresponding public counterpart is public user key pk.sub.u (e.g., pk.sub.u=sk.sub.u×G, where G may be the elliptic curve base point).”)
One in ordinary skill in the art of cryptography would have been motivated, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Teranishi’s approach by utilizing Carmignani’s approach of a seed as the motivation would be that the recovered seed would act as an additional level of security by ensuring the seed or private key that has been recovered from the nodes allows a verification of a signature and for the use or access to the environment or interaction the user is attempting to authenticate to. (see Carmignani ¶ 48).
Regarding Claim 6, the combination of Teranishi and Carmignani disclose the limitations of Claim 1.
However, Teranishi does not explicitly disclose the use of a root private key.
Carmignani discloses:
wherein the key of the subject is a root private key (In ¶ 49, Carmignani discloses “Enrollment biometrics of a user may be captured and processed (e.g., by feature extraction through a neural network) as an EBT that, along with a secret seed, may then be split and one-way encrypted on the user device.”)
One in ordinary skill in the art of cryptography would have been motivated, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Teranishi’s approach by utilizing Carmignani’s approach of a seed as the motivation would be that the recovered seed would act as an additional level of security by ensuring the seed or private key that has been recovered from the nodes allows a verification of a signature and for the use or access to the environment or interaction the user is attempting to authenticate to. (see Carmignani ¶ 48).
Regarding Claim 7, the combination of Teranishi and Carmignani disclose the limitations of Claim 1.
However Teranishi does not explicitly disclose the use of a ECDSA private key.
Carmignani discloses:
wherein the key of the subject is an ECDSA (Elliptic Curve Digital Signature Algorithm) private key (In ¶ 57, Carmignani discloses “For example, private user key sk.sub.u may be used as a private key for an ECDSA, and the corresponding public counterpart is public user key pk.sub.u (e.g., pk.sub.u=sk.sub.u×G, where G may be the elliptic curve base point).”).
One in ordinary skill in the art of cryptography would have been motivated, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Teranishi’s approach by utilizing Carmignani’s approach of a seed as the motivation would be that the recovered seed would act as an additional level of security by ensuring the seed or private key that has been recovered from the nodes allows a verification of a signature and for the use or access to the environment or interaction the user is attempting to authenticate to. (see Carmignani ¶ 48).
Regarding Claim 8, the combination of Teranishi and Carmignani disclose the limitations of Claim 1.
However, Teranishi does not explicitly disclose the use of a major key.
Carmignani discloses:
wherein the key of the subject is a major key (In ¶ 49, Carmignani discloses “Enrollment biometrics of a user may be captured and processed (e.g., by feature extraction through a neural network) as an EBT that, along with a secret seed, may then be split and one-way encrypted on the user device.”)
One in ordinary skill in the art of cryptography would have been motivated, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Teranishi’s approach by utilizing Carmignani’s approach of a seed as the motivation would be that the recovered seed would act as an additional level of security by ensuring the seed or private key that has been recovered from the nodes allows a verification of a signature and for the use or access to the environment or interaction the user is attempting to authenticate to. (see Carmignani ¶ 48).
Regarding Claim 9, the combination of Teranishi and Carmignani disclose the limitations of Claim 8.
However, Teranishi does not explicitly disclose the use of minor key.
Carmignani discloses:
wherein a set of minor keys of the subject is associated with the major key of the subject (In ¶ 48, Carmignani discloses “the APS user device may receive and further decrypt enough seed shares from the node(s) for recovering or reconstructing the seed (or receive and further decrypt the seed from a node)”).
One in ordinary skill in the art of cryptography would have been motivated, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Teranishi’s approach by utilizing Carmignani’s approach of a seed as the motivation would be that the recovered seed would act as an additional level of security by ensuring the seed or private key that has been recovered from the nodes allows a verification of a signature and for the use or access to the environment or interaction the user is attempting to authenticate to. (see Carmignani ¶ 48).
Regarding Claim 10, the combination of Teranishi and Carmignani disclose the limitations of Claim 9.
However, Teranishi does not explicitly disclose the use of minor key.
Carmignani discloses:
wherein the data exchange process to develop the key of the subject includes causing a subset of the set of the minor keys of the subject to be used in developing the signed message (In ¶ 48, Carmignani discloses “the APS user device may receive and further decrypt enough seed shares from the node(s) for recovering or reconstructing the seed (or receive and further decrypt the seed from a node)”).
One in ordinary skill in the art of cryptography would have been motivated, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Teranishi’s approach by utilizing Carmignani’s approach of a seed as the motivation would be that the recovered seed would act as an additional level of security by ensuring the seed or private key that has been recovered from the nodes allows a verification of a signature and for the use or access to the environment or interaction the user is attempting to authenticate to. (see Carmignani ¶ 48).
Regarding Claim 11, the combination of Teranishi and Carmignani disclose the limitations of Claim 10.
However, Teranishi does not explicitly disclose the use of minor key.
Carmignani discloses:
wherein the verification process includes determining whether the subset of the set of minor keys of the subject is associated with a major key of the individual (In ¶ 48, Carmignani discloses “If an evaluation of a user's EBT and ABS is successful at a sufficient number (e.g., 1 or more (e.g., m-number for m out of n secret sharing)) of the network nodes (e.g., if user authentication with the APSP is successful at a sufficient number of the nodes), the APS user device may receive and further decrypt enough seed shares from the node(s) for recovering or reconstructing the seed (or receive and further decrypt the seed from a node). Such a recovered or reconstructed seed may then be used by the APS user device for any suitable purpose, such as for enabling any suitable secure operation”)
One in ordinary skill in the art of cryptography would have been motivated, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Teranishi’s approach by utilizing Carmignani’s approach of a seed as the motivation would be that the recovered seed would act as an additional level of security by ensuring the seed or private key that has been recovered from the nodes allows a verification of a signature and for the use or access to the environment or interaction the user is attempting to authenticate to. (see Carmignani ¶ 48).
Regarding Claim 12, the combination of Teranishi and Carmignani disclose the limitations of Claim 1.
However, Teranishi does not explicitly disclose the use of an individual’s public key.
Carmignani discloses:
Wherein the recited computer processes are carried out with access to a public key of the individual, but without access to the biometric data of the individual (In ¶ 47, Carmignani discloses “APS user device 60 may be configured to authenticate the device itself with the APSP (e.g., by properly signing, with a private key of the device, a challenge from each one of the various network nodes that may have access (e.g., locally and/or via repository 80) to a corresponding public key used during the device registration phase of the enrollment).”).
One in ordinary skill in the art of cryptography would have been motivated, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Teranishi’s approach by utilizing Carmignani’s approach of a seed as the motivation would be that the recovered seed would act as an additional level of security by ensuring the seed or private key that has been recovered from the nodes allows a verification of a signature and for the use or access to the environment or interaction the user is attempting to authenticate to. (see Carmignani ¶ 48).
Regarding Claim 13, the combination of Teranishi and Carmignani disclose:
A method according to claim 1, wherein the computer processes are performed by computing entities configured as information-sharing restricted with respect to a set of items of information selected from a group consisting of: the digital electronic signal; the biometric data of the individual; the biometric of the subject; the generated shards; the authentication information; the key of the subject; and a result of the verification process (In Col 37, Lines 17-22, Teranishi discloses “In the present exemplary embodiment, by employing a server machine as the user side assistance device, deviation from the MPC protocol by the user side assistance device is prevented. At this time, the user device only creates a legitimacy proof, and it is possible to omit generation of legitimacy proof by the server side assistance device.”)
Regarding Claim 14, the combination of Teranishi and Carmignani disclose the limitations of claim 1.
However, Teranishi does not explicitly disclose the encryption of the subject
Carmignani discloses:
A method according to claim 1, wherein the computer processes further comprise causing use of the key of the subject for encryption (In ¶ 51, Carmignani discloses “The ABS may be encrypted on the user's device, and may be matched against the encrypted EBT sent to the network node(s) during enrollment (e.g., using enrolled SMPC features (e.g., enrolled garbled circuits)).”)
One in ordinary skill in the art of cryptography would have been motivated, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Teranishi’s approach by utilizing Carmignani’s approach of encrypting the shares as the motivation would be ensure only authorized parties can obtain access to the subject data (see Carmignani ¶ 51).
Regarding Claim 15, the combination of Teranishi and Carmignani disclose the limitations of claim 1.
However, Teranishi does not explicitly disclose the encryption of the subject
Carmignani discloses:
A method according to claim 1, wherein the computer processes further comprise causing use of the key of the subject for decryption (In ¶ 128, Carmignani discloses “As another example, a single success key may be used to encrypt and decrypt multiple EBT shares provided to a single node, where each one of a first doubly encrypted EBT share of an EBT B and a second doubly encrypted EBT share of the same EBT B may be used along with a circuit to partially define ACI for a particular circuit identifier C.sub.id ”).
One in ordinary skill in the art of cryptography would have been motivated, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Teranishi’s approach by utilizing Carmignani’s approach of encrypting the shares as the motivation would be ensure only authorized parties can obtain access to the subject data (see Carmignani ¶ 48).
Regarding Claim 16, the combination of Teranishi and Carmignani disclose:
A method according to claim 1, wherein the computer processes further comprise: causing generation of generating further shards and causing distribution of the further shards to a subset of servers in the array to be used in a second authentication process (In Col 41, Lines 30-35, Teranishi discloses “In the present exemplary embodiment, for i=1, . . . , M, a counter for counting the number of times user authentication has been rejected is added to the user side assistance device 43[i] of the first exemplary embodiment, and in a case where the counter exceeds a determined threshold the user authentication is rejected.”, wherein the counter represents multiple authentication processes occurring repeating the steps outlined in Figure 7)
Regarding Claim 17, the combination of Teranishi and Carmignani disclose:
A method according to claim 1, wherein the computer processes further comprise, if the subject is authenticated as the individual, granting the subject access, based on a security policy, for a defined session, to a set selected from a group consisting of: one or more applications; a service; an operating system; a resource; a server; a computing facility; a set of data; an administrator configuration; and a transaction (In Col 27, Lines 63-66, Teranishi discloses “The apparatus authentication server device 42 is used in authentication when, for example, the user 44 uses the user device 41 to utilize some sort of web service.”)
Regarding Claim 35, Teranishi discloses:
A method for using biometric data to authenticate a subject as an individual (In the abstract, Teranishi discloses “An authentication system is provided with: a user device; user side assistance device(s) to assist user authentication that authenticates a user of the user device”) whose biometric data has been previously obtained using an enrollment computing facility that is coupled to a first transducer (In Col 31, Lines 2-12, Teranishi further discloses “In the present exemplary embodiment, in user authentication advance preparation the user 44 records verification information in advance. Various methods may be used as a method of recording the verification information in advance. FIG. 4 shows a case where the verification information is recorded in advance by using the acquisition part 4111 of the user device 41. However, in a case where, for example, a company records all new recruits together in an authentication system, a dedicated machine for recording the verification information may be prepared and used to perform recording in advance in the verification part.” Examiner notes, wherein the previously obtained data was recorded using a dedicated machine), the method utilizing computer processes comprising: under a condition wherein enrollment shards have been generated from the individual's biometric data by the enrollment computing facility (In Col 31, Line 27, Teranishi discloses “Step 513: a verification information distribution part 41222 inputs verification information and the number M of user side assistance devices 43, and outputs distributed shares v[0], v[1], . . . , v[M] of the verification information.”) and the enrollment computing facility has effectuated distribution thereof to a first plurality of servers in an array of servers (In Col 31, Line 34, Teranishi discloses “Step 515: the assistance communication part 4141 of the communication part 414 transmits the distributed share v[1] to the user side assistance device 43[1], and . . . , distributed share v[M] to the user side assistance device 43[M].”): causing generation of authentication shards from a digital electronic signal characterizing a biometric of the subject (In Col 32, Lines 27-30, Teranishi discloses “Step 713: the authentication information distribution part 41212 inputs authentication information and the number M of user side assistance devices 43, and outputs distributed shares s[0], s1], . . . , s[M] of the authentication information.”), such signal obtained using an authentication computing facility that is coupled to a second transducer (In Col 32, Line 22, Teranishi discloses “Step 711: the acquisition part 4111 obtains user unique information from the user 44.”), and causing distribution of the authentication shards to a second plurality of servers in the an array of servers (In Col 32, Line 31, Teranishi discloses “Step 714: for i=1, . . . , M, the assistance communication part 4141 of the communication part 414 transmits the distributed share s[i] of the authentication information to the user side assistance device 43[i].”); causing performance of a data exchange process which includes multiparty computation that involves communication among a subset of servers in the array and that also involves a subset of the of the enrollment shards (In Col 32, Line 59, Teranishi discloses “For i=1, . . . , M, the user side assistance device 43[i] inputs distributed share s[i] of the authentication information, distributed share v[i] of the verification information, advance computation data p[i] (if it exists), and verification protocol for user authentication, to the user side assistance device user authentication MPC part 4311[i]. In this way, “user authentication MPC” is executed. As an execution result, the user device 41 obtains the user authentication result share a[0]. For i=1, . . . M, the user side assistance device 43[i] obtains the user authentication result share a[i]. It is to be noted that details of the “user authentication MPC” are described later.” and further discloses in Col 25, Line 30, Teranishi discloses “The i-th user side assistance device performs user authentication by using v[i], f[i], the authentication information derivation algorithm, the verification information derivation algorithm, and the user authentication algorithm to perform MPC while carrying out intercommunication with other user side assistance devices.”) and causing processing of the signed message in a verification process to indicate whether the subject is authenticated as the individual (In Col 38, Lines 14-16, Teranishi discloses “an authentication result is outputted. The user side assistance device 43[1] transmits GC to the user device 41 using the communication part 433[1].”).
However, Teranishi does not explicitly disclose the generation of a signed message.
Carmignani discloses:
the authentication computing facility being distinct from the enrollment computing facility and the second transducer being distinct from the first transducer (In ¶ 127, Carmignani disclose “two or more different APS user devices (e.g., first APS user device 60a and second APS user device 60b) may be enrolled with the APSP for a single user (e.g., a single user persona (e.g., a single EBT B))…second APS user device 60b may then be enabled to authenticate second APS user device 60b with the APSP using the same EBT B from the enrollment of first user device 60a and an ABS b that may be captured during the authentication using second APS user device 60b” and further in ¶ 32 “a user device 60 (e.g., one, some, or each of devices 60a-60c of FIG. 1) may include a processor component 62, a memory component 63, a communications component 64, a sensor 65,” wherein the examiner notes the enrollment template comes from the first APS user device and its sensor which the authentication biometric is captured with the second APS user device, a different device with its own processor), and that uses a subset of the authentication shards to develop a signed message (In ¶ 48, Carmignani discloses “If an evaluation of a user's EBT and ABS is successful at a sufficient number (e.g., 1 or more (e.g., m-number for m out of n secret sharing)) of the network nodes (e.g., if user authentication with the APSP is successful at a sufficient number of the nodes), the APS user device may receive and further decrypt enough seed shares from the node(s) for recovering or reconstructing the seed (or receive and further decrypt the seed from a node). Such a recovered or reconstructed seed may then be used by the APS user device for any suitable purpose, such as for enabling any suitable secure operation (e.g., seamless authentication, unique identification, access control, key generation, e-signature, etc.)”) and causing processing of the signed message in a verification process to indicate whether the subject is authenticated as the individual (In ¶ 48, Carmignani discloses “Such a recovered or reconstructed seed may then be used by the APS user device for any suitable purpose, such as for enabling any suitable secure operation (e.g., seamless authentication, unique identification, access control, key generation, e-signature, etc.)”).
One in ordinary skill in the art of cryptography would have been motivated, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Teranishi’s approach by utilizing Carmignani’s approach of authenticating a user from a second device and recovering a key of the user upon successful authentication as the motivation would be that a user who holds more than one device can authenticate themselves from any of those devices against a single enrollment and the successful authentication would yield a key ensuring access to the environment or interaction the user is attempting to authenticate to (see Carmignani ¶¶ 127 and 48).
Claim 36 is directed to a method having functionality corresponding to the method of Claim 2, and are rejected by a similar rationale, mutatis mutandis.
Claims 37-46 are directed to a method having functionality corresponding to the method of Claims 4-13, and are rejected by a similar rationale, mutatis mutandis.
Claims 47-48 is directed to a method having functionality corresponding to the method of Claims 16-17, and are rejected by a similar rationale, mutatis mutandis.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Parthe et al. (US 20250106031) discloses a system for an automated real-time digital identity verification based on live biometric data.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHADI H KOBROSLI whose telephone number is (571)272-1952. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9am-5pm ET.
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/SHADI H KOBROSLI/Examiner, Art Unit 2492 /RUPAL DHARIA/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2492
