DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
2. The amendment of claims 1-20, filed on 11/19/2025, is acknowledged and considered.
Claims 1-11, 14, and 16-20 are pending. Claims 12-13 and 15 are cancelled by Applicant. Claims 1, 10, and 17 are independent claims.
Priority
3. The current application has relationship to the following:
PCT/US2021/037235, filing date 06/14/2021
Response to Arguments
4. Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-11, 14, and 16-20 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
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.
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.
5. Claim(s) 1-11, 14, and 16-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Carmignani, et al. [US 20200259638] in view of Hoy, et al. [US 20170099140].
As per claim 1: Carmignani, teaches a non-transitory computer readable medium storing instructions that, when executed, cause a processor to:
share a secret between an initial authenticator and a further authenticator; [Carmignani: para 0046; encrypted biometric data in a distributed form on various nodes using any suitable threshold secret sharing (e.g., using Shamir's secret sharing), such as a secret sharing scheme that may be chosen so that the seed material may be split into several pieces or shares, a number of which may be required to reconstruct the seed material, whereby each share may be encrypted and stored on a respective node (e.g., one share on one node). the terms “initial authenticator” and “further authenticator” are not explicitly defined, thus, can broadly be in the form of any software or hardware such as an entity, device or user, or any component for authentication per se, and further the initial authenticator and the further authenticator suggest there are at least two authenticators. In Carmignani’s case, includes a secret sharing between various nodes (i.e. initial authenticator and further authenticator), where each node is associated to a user that is authenticated or to be authenticated]
**provide, to a key generator of an initial authenticator [**rejected under a secondary reference, discussion below], seed data to generate authentication data, the seed data including the secret, the secret being accessible to the initial authenticator and the further authenticator; and [Carmignani: para 0044-0045; the APS user device generate or obtain any suitable seed (e.g., secret value) used to provide or define any suitable keys. During such an authentication attempt, the enrolled APS user device may be enabled by the APSP to generate an authentication biometric sample of the user that may then be shared with and successfully evaluated by a network node with respect to the user's EBT (e.g., using SMPC for protecting the accessibility of the EBT itself) for revealing the success key to the network node. More examples on para 0052, 0067]
**register, using the authentication data [**rejected under a secondary reference, discussion below], the initial authenticator with a relying party. [Carmignani: para 0046; an APS user device may be configured to register a user and the device itself with the APSP and store encrypted seed material and encrypted biometric data in a distributed form on various nodes using any suitable threshold secret sharing. The relying party may be in the form of the APSP (authentication processing service platform (“APSP”))]
Carmignani suggest providing the “seed data to generate authentication data, the seed data including the secret, the secret being accessible to the initial authenticator and the further authenticator”, by disclosing user device used for user enrollment and/or user authentication with the APSP, where the APS user device generate or obtain any suitable seed (e.g., secret value) used to provide or define any suitable keys. [Carmignani: para 0044-0045, 0067]. As mentioned above, the terms “initial authenticator” and “further authenticator” are not explicitly defined, thus, can broadly be in the form of any software or hardware such as an entity, device or user, or any component for authentication per se, and further the initial authenticator and the further authenticator suggest there are at least two authenticators. As such, the limitation “share a secret between an initial authenticator and a further authenticator” suggest secret sharing between two entities, nodes/users, or resource. In Carmignani’s case, includes a secret sharing between various nodes (i.e. initial authenticator and further authenticator), where each node is associated to a user that is authenticated or to be authenticated. However, Carmignani did not clearly teach to “provide, to a key generator of an initial authenticator, seed data”.
Hoy discloses using physical objects to generate physical (e.g., public key-based) authenticators and, in particular, to use “everyday” physical objects to create a generator seed for a key generator that will use that seed to generate a key pair comprising a public key, and its associated private key. The physical object is used to create a digital representation that together with some uniqueness associated to the user, gives rise to a key generator seed value. Without knowledge of the physical object itself, how the physical object characteristic is converted, and the uniqueness value, an attacker cannot reproduce the key generator seed (or the key(s) generated from that seed) [Hoy: para 0051]. FIG. 4 depicts a user selects a physical object to serve as an authenticator. The physical object may be of any type, e.g., a coin, a pen, a pair of glasses, a computer mouse, etc. [Hoy: para 0052]. This suggest there may be multiple possible authenticators which likely will be to produce data (i.e. seed, keys, unique value) for authentication. The digital representation is fed into a key generator as a “seed” value to produce a key pair. Typically, the key generator is a public key generator algorithm such that the key generated is a public key of a key pair comprising the public key and an associated private (secret) key [Hoy: para 0054].As such one would be motivated to provide seed data “to a key generator of an initial authenticator”, to use the seed to generate a key pair and with the uniqueness value so that an attacker cannot reproduce the key generator seed.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Hoy with Carmignani to teach to provide seed data “to a key generator of an initial authenticator” for the reason to use the seed to generate a key pair and with the uniqueness value so that an attacker cannot reproduce the key generator seed [Hoy: para 0051].
Claim 2: Carmignani: para 0046; discussing the non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the seed data includes relying party data of the relying party.
Claim 3: Carmignani: para 0057 [a suitable public/private cryptosystem and the corresponding key generation process of the selected cryptosystem used to obtain private user key sk.sub.u and public user key pk.sub.u]; discussing the non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 2, wherein the authentication data includes a private-public key pair associated with the initial authenticator.
Claim 4: Carmignani: para 0030; discussing the non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 3, wherein the authentication data includes the initial authenticator.
Claim 5: Carmignani: para 0044, 0057 [keys (e.g., public key(s)) may be communicated to and stored on repository and/or one or more network nodes by the APS user device]; discussing the non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 2, wherein the authentication data includes a relying party specific private-public key pair associated with the initial authenticator, the relying party data and an earlier established private-public key pair associated with the initial authenticator, and wherein the instructions cause the processor further to output the replying party specific public key associated with the initial authenticator for sending to the relying party.
Claim 6: Carmignani: para 0046-0047 [seed with APSP data, authenticate (e.g., by properly signing, with a private key of the device, a challenge from each one of the various network nodes that have access to a corresponding public key used during the device registration phase of the enrollment]; discussing the non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the authentication data includes the relying party data and an earlier established public key associated with the further authenticator; and wherein the seed data includes relying party data and an earlier established public key associated with the further authenticator, and wherein the instructions cause the processor further to output unique/replying party specific public key associated with the further authenticator for sending to the relying party.
Claim 7: Carmignani: para 0044, 0047; discussing the non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions cause the processor further to output a structured data set, comprising the public key associated with the further authenticator; the structured data set being associated with a ring signature for sending to the relying party.
Claim 8: Carmignani: para 0044; discussing the non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 7, wherein the instructions cause the processor further to output a structured data set comprising the public key associated with the further authenticator and a public key associated with the initial authenticator.
Claim 9: Carmignani: para 0048, 0135 [signature, private key]; discussing the non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the instructions cause the processor further to: generate a signature using at least a private key associated with the further authenticator, and output the signature for sending to the relying party.
As per claim 10: Carmignani, et al. teaches a multiphase authentication system comprising a plurality of phases; the system to: [Carmignani: para 0]
establish an initial phase to establish a shared secret associated with an initial authenticator and a further authenticator, the shared secret being accessible by the initial authenticator and the further authenticator; [Carmignani: para 0046; encrypted biometric data in a distributed form on various nodes using any suitable threshold secret sharing (e.g., using Shamir's secret sharing), such as a secret sharing scheme. The terms “initial authenticator” and “further authenticator” are not explicitly defined, thus, can broadly be in the form of any software or hardware such as an entity, device or user, or any component for authentication per se, and further the initial authenticator and the further authenticator suggest there are at least two authenticators. In Carmignani’s case, includes a secret sharing between various nodes (i.e. initial authenticator and further authenticator), where each node is associated to a user that is authenticated or to be authenticated]
**provide, to a first key generator of an initial authenticator [**rejected under a secondary reference, discussion below], seed data to generate first authentication data, the first seed data including the shared secret; [Carmignani: para 0044-0045; the APS user device generate or obtain any suitable seed (e.g., secret value) used to provide or define any suitable keys. During such an authentication attempt, the enrolled APS user device may be enabled by the APSP to generate an authentication biometric sample of the user that may then be shared with and successfully evaluated by a network node with respect to the user's EBT (e.g., using SMPC for protecting the accessibility of the EBT itself) for revealing the success key to the network node. More examples on para 0052, 0067]
register, using the first authentication data, the initial authenticator with a relying party; and [Carmignani: para 0046; an APS user device may be configured to register a user and the device itself with the APSP and store encrypted seed material and encrypted biometric data in a distributed form on various nodes using any suitable threshold secret sharing. The relying party may be in the form of the APSP (authentication processing service platform (“APSP”))]
before registering the further authenticator with the relying party: [Carmignani: para 0046; during enrollment with the APSP, the APS user device generate and store on the network nodes any suitable mechanisms that may later (e.g., during authentication) enable any suitable protocol(s) to be carried out by the nodes for performing a matching function between the EBT of the enrollment and a later obtained authentication biometric sample (“ABS”) for potentially revealing the success key(s) to the node(s). Para 0049; Benefits of such enrollment and authentication, avoiding the long term storage of sensitive information (e.g., the seed, a biometric template, or even shares thereof) on a user device or on any central server (e.g., between APS enrollment and APS authentication or between distinct authentications), consistent cross-platform user experience (e.g., for APS user devices of various types and/or running various operating systems, for TPS user devices of various types and/or running various operating systems, for different phases of the APSP (e.g., APS enrollment, APS authentication, TPS enrollment, TPS authentication, various secure operations, etc.), fast and local user authentication on its own user device. See also para 0058, 0063]
**provide, to a second key generator of the further authenticator [**rejected under a secondary reference, discussion below], second seed data to generate second authentication data, the second seed data including the shared secret; [Carmignani: para 0046; a secret sharing scheme chosen so that the seed material may be split into several pieces or shares, a number of which may be required to reconstruct the seed material, whereby each share may be encrypted and stored on a respective node (e.g., one share on one node), whereby the seed may not be disclosed or accessible by an entity. The first secret sharing scheme used for the seed sharing and a second secret sharing scheme may be used for the biometric template sharing, where the first secret sharing scheme may be the same as the second secret sharing scheme or the first secret sharing scheme may differ from the second secret sharing scheme in any suitable way(s). The “second authentication data” may broadly be in the form of another share or multiple shares of a seed, where each of the shares of the seed may be the second seed data including the shared secret]
receive, at the further authenticator, a challenge from the relying party; and [Carmignani: para 0047; APS user device 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) to a corresponding public key used during the device registration phase of the enrollment)]
send, at the further authenticator, a challenge response, the challenge response being derived from the second authentication data to gain access to a resource. [Carmignani: para 00061; user device receive challenge r.sub.j of data from one or each of nodes n, generate a challenge response r.sub.jσ.sub.sku for each received challenge r.sub.j by signing that challenge r.sub.j with the device's private user key sk.sub.u (e.g., challenge response r.sub.jσ.sub.sku=Sign.sub.sku (r.sub.j)), and then send that challenge response r.sub.jσ.sub.sku back to the appropriate node j as at least a portion of data (e.g., according to application of user device).]
Carmignani suggest providing the “seed data to generate authentication data, the seed data including the secret, the secret being accessible to the initial authenticator and the further authenticator”, by disclosing user device used for user enrollment and/or user authentication with the APSP, where the APS user device generate or obtain any suitable seed (e.g., secret value) used to provide or define any suitable keys. [Carmignani: para 0044-0045, 0067]. As mentioned above, the terms “initial authenticator” and “further authenticator” are not explicitly defined, thus, can broadly be in the form of any software or hardware such as an entity, device or user, or any component for authentication per se, and further the initial authenticator and the further authenticator suggest there are at least two authenticators. As such, the limitation “share a secret between an initial authenticator and a further authenticator” suggest secret sharing between two entities, nodes/users, or resource. In Carmignani’s case, includes a secret sharing between various nodes (i.e. initial authenticator and further authenticator), where each node is associated to a user that is authenticated or to be authenticated. However, Carmignani did not clearly teach to provide seed data “to a key generator of an initial authenticator” and “a second key generator of the further authenticator”.
Hoy discloses using physical objects to generate physical (e.g., public key-based) authenticators and, in particular, to use “everyday” physical objects to create a generator seed for a key generator that will use that seed to generate a key pair comprising a public key, and its associated private key. The physical object is used to create a digital representation that together with some uniqueness associated to the user, gives rise to a key generator seed value. Without knowledge of the physical object itself, how the physical object characteristic is converted, and the uniqueness value, an attacker cannot reproduce the key generator seed (or the key(s) generated from that seed) [Hoy: para 0051]. FIG. 4 depicts a user selects a physical object to serve as an authenticator. The physical object may be of any type, e.g., a coin, a pen, a pair of glasses, a computer mouse, etc. [Hoy: para 0052]. This suggest there may be multiple possible authenticators which likely will be to produce the data (i.e. seed, keys, unique value) for authentication. The digital representation is fed into a key generator as a “seed” value to produce a key pair. Typically, the key generator is a public key generator algorithm such that the key generated is a public key of a key pair comprising the public key and an associated private (secret) key [Hoy: para 0054]. As such one would be motivated to provide seed data to a key generator of more than an authenticators (“to a key generator of an initial authenticator” and “a second key generator of the further authenticator”), is to be able to use the seed to generate a key pair and the uniqueness value so that an attacker cannot reproduce the key generator seed.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Hoy with Carmignani to teach providing seed data “to a key generator of an initial authenticator” and “a second key generator of the further authenticator” for the reason to use the seed to generate a key pair and with the uniqueness value so that an attacker cannot reproduce the key generator seed [Hoy: para 0051].
Claim 11: Carmignani: para 0044, 0046 [keys (e.g., public key(s)) may be communicated to and stored on repository and/or one or more network nodes by the APS user device]; discussing the system of claim 10, wherein the first authentication data a private-public authentication data; and wherein the first seed data includes relying party data associated with the relying party; and wherein the second authentication data.
Claim 12: Cancelled
Claim 13: Cancelled
Claim 14: Carmignani: para 0046 in view of Hoy: para 0051 [suggesting “second seed data”, under the same pretext and motivation as in claim 1]; discussing the system of claim 10, wherein the second seed data includes the relying party data associated with the relying party.
Claim 15: Cancelled
Claim 16: Carmignani: para 0046, 0057 [seed shares to different nodes, a suitable public/private cryptosystem]; discussing the non-transitory computer readable medium of claim 1, wherein the seed data includes: a first private-public key pair associated with the initial authenticator; a second private-public key pair associated with the further authenticator; and relying party data, the relying party data uniquely being associated with a respective relying party.
As per claim 17: Carmignani, et al. teaches a method comprising:
generating, using an initial authenticator, first authentication data using a secret that is accessible to the initial authenticator and a further authenticator; [Carmignani: para 0046; encrypted biometric data in a distributed form on various nodes using any suitable threshold secret sharing (e.g., using Shamir's secret sharing), such as a secret sharing scheme that may be chosen so that the seed material may be split into several pieces or shares, a number of which may be required to reconstruct the seed material, whereby each share may be encrypted and stored on a respective node (e.g., one share on one node). the terms “initial authenticator” and “further authenticator” are not explicitly defined, thus, can broadly be in the form of any software or hardware such as an entity, device or user, or any component for authentication per se, and further the initial authenticator and the further authenticator suggest there are at least two authenticators. In Carmignani’s case, includes a secret sharing between various nodes (i.e. initial authenticator and further authenticator), where each node is associated to a user that is authenticated or to be authenticated]
sending, using the initial authenticator, the first authentication data to a relying party to register the initial authenticator with the relying party; [Carmignani: para 0046; an APS user device may be configured to register a user and the device itself with the APSP and store encrypted seed material and encrypted biometric data in a distributed form on various nodes using any suitable threshold secret sharing. The relying party may be in the form of the APSP (authentication processing service platform (“APSP”))]
after the initial authenticator registers with the relying party, but before the further authenticator registers with the relying party: [Carmignani: para 0045-0046, 0060-0061, 0067; one node can be registered before another node registers, where each node or different node is registering]
generating, using the further authentication, second authentication data using the secret; and [Carmignani: para 0046; a secret sharing scheme chosen so that the seed material may be split into several pieces or shares, a number of which may be required to reconstruct the seed material, whereby each share may be encrypted and stored on a respective node (e.g., one share on one node), whereby the seed may not be disclosed or accessible by an entity. The first secret sharing scheme used for the seed sharing and a second secret sharing scheme may be used for the biometric template sharing, where the first secret sharing scheme may be the same as the second secret sharing scheme or the first secret sharing scheme may differ from the second secret sharing scheme in any suitable way(s). The “second authentication data” may broadly be in the form of another share or multiple shares of a seed, where each of the shares of the seed may be the second seed data including the shared secret]
**sending, using the further authenticator, the second authentication data [**rejected under a secondary reference, discussion below] to the relying party to gain access to a resource. [Carmignani: para 0048; f 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, the APS user device may receive and further decrypt enough seed shares from the node(s) for recovering or reconstructing the seed. 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.), with any suitable service locally on the APS user device and/or with any suitable service provided by any suitable third party subsystem (e.g., using the reconstructed seed or a key derived therefrom for enabling secure user access via a third party app or website browser to a server of a third party website (e.g., a social network site or banking site)]
Carmignani suggest providing the disclosing user device used for user enrollment and/or user authentication with the APSP, where the APS user device generate or obtain any suitable seed (e.g., secret value) used to provide or define any suitable keys. [Carmignani: para 0044-0045, 0067]. As mentioned above, the terms “initial authenticator” and “further authenticator” are not explicitly defined, thus, can broadly be in the form of any software or hardware such as an entity, device or user, or any component for authentication per se, and further the initial authenticator and the further authenticator suggest there are at least two authenticators. As such, the limitation “the further authenticator” suggest secret sharing between two entities, nodes/users, or component. In Carmignani’s case, includes a secret sharing between various nodes (i.e. initial authenticator and further authenticator), where each node is associated to a user that is authenticated or to be authenticated. However, Carmignani did not clearly teach to provide seed data “sending, using the further authenticator, the second authentication data”.
Hoy discloses using physical objects to generate physical (e.g., public key-based) authenticators and, in particular, to use “everyday” physical objects to create a generator seed for a key generator that will use that seed to generate a key pair comprising a public key, and its associated private key. The physical object is used to create a digital representation that together with some uniqueness associated to the user, gives rise to a key generator seed value. Without knowledge of the physical object itself, how the physical object characteristic is converted, and the uniqueness value, an attacker cannot reproduce the key generator seed (or the key(s) generated from that seed) [Hoy: para 0051]. FIG. 4 depicts a user selects a physical object to serve as an authenticator. The physical object may be of any type, e.g., a coin, a pen, a pair of glasses, a computer mouse, etc. [Hoy: para 0052]. This suggest there may be multiple possible authenticators which likely will be to produce the data (i.e. seed, keys, unique value) for authentication. As such one would be motivated to “sending, using the further authenticator, the second authentication data”, so as to be able to use unique data that an attacker cannot reproduce.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Hoy with Carmignani to teach “sending, using the further authenticator, the second authentication data” for the reason to provide unique data so that an attacker cannot reproduce from different authenticators [Hoy: para 0051].
Claim 18: Carmignani: para 0043 [a seed/secret value for generating shares of the seed forwarding encrypted shares to various respective nodes]; discussing the method of claim 17, wherein the first authentication data is generated using first seed data that includes the secret, the seed data including specific relying party data that uniquely identifies the relying party.
Claim 19: Carmignani: para 0030, 0107; discussing the method of claim 17, further comprising sending, using the initial authenticator, a proof of possession to the relying party to register the initial authenticator with the relying party.
Claim 20: Carmignani: para 0048, 0092; discussing the method of claim 17, wherein the proof of possession includes at least one of a ring signature or a signature in response to a challenge sent by the relying party to the initial authenticator.
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.
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Leynna Truvan
Examiner
Art Unit 2435
/L.TT/Examiner, Art Unit 2435
/AMIR MEHRMANESH/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2491