DETAILED ACTION
This Office Action is in response to application 18/527,207 filed on December 01, 2023.
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.
Claims 1-7 are pending and herein considered.
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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 12/01/23. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application No. JP2021-102510.0 filed on 06/21/2021.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-5, 7 are rejected under 35 USC § 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Regarding claim 1; claim 1 call for a device; however, the body of the claim does not positively recite any hardware element. “a processor”.. Regarding the claim a processor, one of ordinary skill in the art would understand that a “processor” could be a software processor (See “The Authoritative Dictionary of IEEE Standards Terms,” Seventh Edition, published in 2000). Because the elements of claim 1 are interpreted as merely software and the claim lacks any physical device or machine, the claim is directed to non-statutory subject matter. It is suggested that the claim be further amended to positively recite at least one hardware element within the body of the claim to make the claim statutory under 35 U.S.C. 101.
Regarding claims 2-5; claims 2-5 do not recite any hardware element to resolve the issue in the independent claim 1. Therefore, claims 2-12 are also non-statutory under 35 U.S.C. 101.
Regarding claim 7; claim 7 calls for a device; however, the body of the claim does not positively recite any hardware element. “a processor”. Regarding the claim a processor, one of ordinary skill in the art would understand that a “processor” could be a software processor (See “The Authoritative Dictionary of IEEE Standards Terms,” Seventh Edition, published in 2000). Because the elements of claim 7is interpreted as merely software and the claim lacks any physical device or machine, the claim is directed to non-statutory subject matter. It is suggested that the claim be further amended to positively recite at least one hardware element within the body of the claim to make the claim statutory under 35 U.S.C. 101.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6 is allowed.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: In interpreting the currently amended claims, in light of the specification as well arguments presented in the responses to the Office actions, the Examiner finds the claimed invention to be patentably distinct from the prior art of record.
U.S pub 2022/0150047 to Lee-Lee teaches electronic apparatus includes a memory storing a composite function in which at least two polynomials are composed and a processor configured to, based on a comparison operation command being received for a plurality of homomorphic ciphertexts, perform operation by reflecting the plurality of homomorphic ciphertexts to the composite function, and obtain a comparison result of the plurality of homomorphic ciphertexts based on the operation result, each of the at least two polynomials may output a value in a preset range for a value in a preset domain, and a domain of one of the at least two polynomials may be determined based on a range of a previous polynomial.
What is missing from the prior art is a teaching, motivation, or suggestion and combine the prior art in such a way as to render obvious act of performing a first homomorphic operation for the input ciphertext,
calculating a first ciphertext having a polynomial by using a predetermined polynomial for a result of the first homomorphic operation to extract a second ciphertext having a coefficient of a plaintext polynomial of the first ciphertext,
extracting a third ciphertext having another coefficient of a plaintext polynomial of the first ciphertext
and performing a homomorphic operation using the second ciphertext and the third ciphertext to calculate a fourth ciphertext as recited in claim 6 without the usage of impermissible hindsight reasoning.
. Thus, the prior art, when taken individually or in combination, does not fairly teach or suggest the limitations as a whole set forth in claim 6 and this claim is considered allowable. The dependent claims which further limit claim 6 are also allowed by virtue of their dependency.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Related Art
The following prior art made of record and cited on PTO-892, but not relied upon, is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure:
U.S PAT 11,637700 B1 to Kang-Kang teaches a method and apparatus for modulus refresh, where the method for modulus refresh of a ciphertext in homomorphic encryption includes receiving a first ciphertext corresponding to a first modulus, generating a second ciphertext by performing a blind rotation on the first ciphertext, and generating a target ciphertext corresponding to a second modulus greater than the first modulus based on the first ciphertext and the second ciphertext.
U.S Pub. 2021/0351913 A1 to NO-NO teaches encryption method using homomorphic encryption may include generating a ciphertext by encrypting data, and bootstrapping the ciphertext by performing a modular reduction based on a selection of one or more target points for a modulus corresponding to the ciphertext.
Conclusion
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/VU V TRAN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2491