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 .
Detail Action
This office action is in response to the application 18/619,267 filed on 03/28/2024. Claims 1-19 are pending in this communication.
Examiner’s Note
The examiner is requesting the applicant’s representative to provide direct phone number and/or mobile phone number in next communication, which will be very helpful to advance the prosecution.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention. OR
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 18 & 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by SEMERIA; Bernard J. (US 2020/008,2070 A1).
Regarding Claim 1, SEMERIA anticipated an apparatus comprising memory circuitry, machine-readable instructions, and processor circuitry to execute the machine-readable instructions {[0170]} to:
obtain a hash value being indicative of an object path of an object; obtain specialization information being indicative of a location of a field of the object relative to the object {[0102], "A set of hash functions 967A–967D can then be used to generate diversification or key whitening data when generating the subsequent signed addresses 968B–968D. For example, a hash value can be derived by applying a hash function 967A to the address of the first pointer, the signed address 968A generated for the first pointer, or some combination of the first pointer and the first signed address 968A" … "the cycle can continue for each successive pointer... where the signed addresses are generated based on a pointer value, a key, and a hash value that is derived based on a specified combination of the previous pointer, the signed address of the previous pointer, or the hash value used to generate the signed address of the previous pointer”. Examiner’s note: SEMERIA's "data structure 962" is the object; each of its member pointers (Pointer E–Pointer H) is a field of it. Regarding ‘specialization information’ the spec describes “The sort of function specialization described above need not be limited to just a single function level. Hierarchies of functions, with the top-level function accepting an untyped parameter, may be specialized to particular types recursively”};
combine the hash value and the specialization information; and generate a cryptographic address of the field of the object, with the cryptographic address comprising the combination {[0101], "a signature 969 is applied to a field within the data structure 962 as an additional mechanism for authentication". Examiner’s note: the signed address itself (968B, 968C, 968D) is the field's cryptographic address, and it's built directly from that hash + location combination, per the same [0102] passage”}.
Regarding claim 18, claim 18 is claim to a method using the apparatus of claim 1. Therefore, claim 18 is rejected for the reasons set forth for claim 1.
Regarding claim 19, claim 19 is claim to a non-transitory, computer-readable medium using the apparatus of claim 1. Therefore, claim 19 is rejected for the reasons set forth for claim 1.
Allowable subject matter
Claims 2-17 will be allowable if written in independent form with base method claim 1 For allowability, the independent claims 18 & 19 are required to be in same scope with equivalent limitations of claim 2-17 as proposed for amended claim 1.
Reasons of allowance: what is missing from the prior arts is: wherein the type of information stored in the metadata is to be retrieved during decryption or specialization of the cryptographic address of the field of the object, and the metadata is linked to the cryptographic address.
Therefore, claims 2-17 are objected.
Conclusion
Following prior art has been consulted but is not applied:
ILIEV; Stefen et al. (US 2024/024,2188 A1) – Secure processing of central bank digital currency (CBDC) card payments: “the Object.hashcode( ) is typically implemented either by returning a pointer address or by assigning the object a random number and thus can result in different iteration orders over hash maps and hash sets” … “the signature data structure is created by the card issuer node … in which the signature is stored in the signatureBytes field”.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to QUAZI FAROOQUI whose telephone number is (571) 270-1034 or Quazi.farooqui@USPTO.GOV. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday 9:30 am to 6:30 pm, PST. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Bill Korzuch can be reached on (571) 272-7589 or William.Korzuch@USPTO.GOV. The fax phone number for Examiner Farooqui assigned is 571-270-2034.
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/QUAZI FAROOQUI/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2491