DETAILED ACTION
Status of Application: Claims 1,3-14 and 16-20 are present for examination at this time.
Claims 1,3-7, 14, and 16-20 are rejected.
Please refer to Forms 892 of record in this application and/or submitted IDSes to resolve any possible discrepancies in the listed reference numbers, titles, and/or author or inventor names.
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 .
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 3 and 16 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 pre-AIA the Applicant regards as the invention.
Claims 3 and 16 recite: “in response to the replica of the second identification matches the second identification, present, by the second network, the first identification on an interface of a user equipment associated with the callee; and in response to the replica of the second identification does not match the second identification, present, by the second network, a notification on the interface, the notification indicative of the caller being not verified” (emphasis added). [A]nd makes this a conjunctive requirement. The system cannot have both a match and a non-match from the same determination. As both states cannot be true the claim has no exact metes and bounds. For the purposes of prior art examination, the “and” was interpreted to be conditional and read as “or”.
Similar but nor mirrored claim 11 avoids this issue by use of the word “or”. This was used as a justification to apply “or” to claims 3 and 16.
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 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. All obviousness rationales stated below are rationales that would have been obvious prior to the earliest effective filing date of the application.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1, 3-7,14, and 16--20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over “Verified Calling Party Information Display Confirmation System” by Ranalli US2023/0362299A1 (“Ranalli”) in view of “End-to-End Management of Authenticated Communications” by Sharma et al., US2022/0182487A1(“Sharma”).
With respect to Claims 1 and 14, while Ranalli discloses a system (and related method) for securing subscriber identification, the system comprising: one or more processors; a non-transitory computer-readable memory storing computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors (See Ranalli at ¶¶61, 128 where the method can be run on a computer system), cause the system to: receive, at a first network, a request from a caller to establish a communication with a callee (Ranalli where the system receives a request from a calling party to connect to a call recipient, i.e., a callee), the request including a first identification of the caller (Ranalli at ¶10 where the request included a set of verified calling party attributes. Ranalli at ¶11 established that these attributes can inter alia be ca calling party name a calling party logo, a calling party image, etc…); retrieve, by the first network and using the first identification, a second identification of the caller from a database storing information associated with registered subscribers of the first network (Ranalli at ¶24 “In one embodiment, the method further comprises: retrieving the calling party image from a database storing a plurality of pre-vetted calling party images, wherein the calling party image is retrieved based on one or more of a calling party telephone number indicated by the call initiation request and the calling party name; and concatenating the retrieved calling party image to the subset of verified calling party attributes, prior to providing the subset of verified calling party attributes for display on the call recipient communication device.” Also see ¶¶67, 69); send, by the first network, the request and a replica of the second identification to a second network associated with the callee (Id. where thee system can provide these additional attributes to the terminal network, i.e., the second network which is the receiving network).
Ranalli does not explicitly state that which is known in the art as taught by Sharma. Sharma discloses: and determine, by the second network and based at least in part on the replica of the second identification, that the caller is a verified caller, (Sharma at ¶¶4, 19, 21 where the system outside the first network serves to determine an independent verification.
wherein determining that the caller is a verified caller includes: retrieving, by the second network and using the first identification, the second identification of the caller from the database; and determining, by the second network, whether the replica of the second identification matches the second identification (Sharma at ¶¶12, 22 where the system authenticates a received token. One of ordinary skill in the art that a common method of authenticating any security token to make sure it matches an expected value. Sharma specifically mentions that one authentication technique that can be used is “S/S” which is short for Stir/Shaken which checks for an identifier matching. It should also be noted that Ranalli too discloses using Stir/Shaken for authentication. Also see Sharma at ¶¶41,42 where called party is called at their device. Said device is a part of the second network and communicates with the authentication system via the second network structure is part of the retrieving and determining process.)
Reasons to combine/modify: Ranalli is analogous art to the claimed invention in that it is in the same field of endeavor: verifying caller identities. It is also directed to solving the same problem: avoiding spoofed IDs. Sharma too is analogous to the claimed invention for the same reasons: same field of endeavor, and pertinent to solving the same problem-avoiding spoofed IDs. Having verification on both ends serves to improve security by adding a second check that would detect a spoofed transmission, a backup verification. Therefore, for the foregoing reasons it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention herein, to combine Ranalli with Sharma.
Examiner notes that claim scope has changed. Claim 2’s scope was not completely moved up into Claim 1. In the previous version of the claims the “retrieve” step in claim 2 was not part of the determine step. While it may appear to be a subtle difference it is a difference in claim scope nonetheless, i.e., new Claim 1, has a different claim scope than the most immediate and examined version of Claim 2.
.
With respect to Claims 3 and 16 Ranalli in view of Sharma discloses the system of claim 1and related method, wherein the computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, further cause the system to: in response to the replica of the second identification matches the second identification, present, by the second network, the first identification on an interface of a user equipment associated with the callee (Ranalli at ¶150 where the system passes along the verification status and displays the ID information) ; and in response to the replica of the second identification does not match the second identification, present, by the second network, a notification on the interface, the notification indicative of the caller being not verified. (This limitation was unable to be addressed with prior art for the reasons listed above in the 35 U.S.C. § 112 rejection.
With respect to Claims 4 and 17 Ranalli in view of Sharma discloses the system of claim 1and related method, wherein identifications associated with the registered subscribers of the first network stored in the database are configured to be accessible by a plurality of mobile network operators including the second network (Ranalli at ¶7 where any provider using the Stir/Shaken protocol can use the techniques discloses in Ranalli).
With respect to Claims 5 and 18 Ranalli in view of Sharma discloses the system of claim 1and related method, wherein the computer-executable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors, further cause the system to: send, by the first network, the request and the replica of the second identification to the second network through at least one third network, wherein the at least one third network is configured to forward the replica of the second identification to the second network without authenticating the replica of the second identification.
With respect to claims 6 and 19 Ranalli in view of Sharma discloses the system of claim 1 and related method, wherein the first identification of the caller includes at least one of a phone number or a name, and the second identification of the caller includes at least a caller identity token (CIT) (Ranalli at ¶¶5, 14, 17, and 27, where there are multiple types of calling identification attributes that can be in the token.)
With respect to claims 7 and 20 Ranalli in view of Sharma discloses the system of claim 6 and related method, wherein the CIT is generated based at least in part on a user equipment associated with the caller when a subscription of the caller to the first network is activated (Sharma at ¶21 “The token can include a telephone number for the calling party, a telephone number for the called party, a date and time of the call request, a direction of the call request (e.g. from the called party to the calling party), information associated with the calling device (e.g., type allocation code (TAC), model, capabilities, etc.), subscription information for the authentication system (e.g., prepaid etc.), carrier network information”).
Reasons to combine/modify: Ranalli is analogous art to the claimed invention in that it is in the same field of endeavor: verifying caller identities. It is also directed to solving the same problem: avoiding spoofed IDs. Sharma too is analogous to the claimed invention for the same reasons: same field of endeavor, and pertinent to solving the same problem-avoiding spoofed IDs. Sharma also states at ¶22 “In this manner, upon registration, subscribers can specify the services to which they would like to subscribe, and can specify how they would like to interact with calling or called parties.” This allows for customization by the users to allow for tokens they can easily remember and have the system recognize. Many users prefer customizable security tokens, e.g., passwords. Therefore, for the foregoing reasons it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date herein, to combine Ranalli with Sharma.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 8 is deemed allowable as its last limitation is outside the prior art, specifically that the flag (non-token) replica is passed all the way to the call recipient instead of an authentication mechanism outside the first network. The dependent claims, 9-13 are deemed allowable by virtue of their dependency.
Response to Arguments
Examiner has read and considered Applicants’ arguments, and finds them to be unpersuasive. Applicants' arguments involve discussing why the previously cited prior art documents fail to disclose the amended limitations. Applicant argues that Claim 1 as amended (similar to but slightly different than the scope of now cancelled Claim 2) is no longer disclosed by Ranalli in view of Sharma, as Sharma does not disclose that the second network is part of the retrieving and determining process, but only an outside the network authentication system. That interpretation is a misreading of Sharma. Examiner directs Applicant to review Sharma at ¶¶41,42 where the called party is called at their device. Said device which is a part of the second network and communicates with the authentication system via the second network structure is part of the retrieving and determining process.)
Documents Considered but not Relied Upon
The documents below were considered.
“System And Method For Authenticating A Caller Of A Telephonic Call” by Hudson US2020/0220725A1 at ¶11 discusses using replicated keys with a blockchain system, and comparing said keys for authenticating a telephone call.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the 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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JOSHUA L SCHWARTZ whose telephone number is (571)270-7494. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 10a-6p. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Yuwen “Kevin” Pan can be reached at 571-272-7855. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JOSHUA L SCHWARTZ/ Primary Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2649
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