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 .
1. Claims 1-20 have been examined.
Claim Interpretation
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(f):
(f) Element in Claim for a Combination. – An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
2. The claims in this application are given their broadest reasonable interpretation using the plain meaning of the claim language in light of the specification as it would be understood by one of ordinary skill in the art. The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim element (also commonly referred to as a claim limitation) is limited by the description in the specification when 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is invoked.
As explained in MPEP § 2181, subsection I, claim limitations that meet the following three-prong test will be interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph:
(A) the claim limitation uses the term “means” or “step” or a term used as a substitute for “means” that is a generic placeholder (also called a nonce term or a non-structural term having no specific structural meaning) for performing the claimed function;
(B) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is modified by functional language, typically, but not always linked by the transition word “for” (e.g., “means for”) or another linking word or phrase, such as “configured to” or “so that”; and
(C) the term “means” or “step” or the generic placeholder is not modified by sufficient structure, material, or acts for performing the claimed function.
Use of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim with functional language creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites sufficient structure, material, or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Absence of the word “means” (or “step”) in a claim creates a rebuttable presumption that the claim limitation is not to be treated in accordance with 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. The presumption that the claim limitation is not interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, is rebutted when the claim limitation recites function without reciting sufficient structure, material or acts to entirely perform the recited function.
Claim limitations in this application that use the word “means” (or “step”) are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action. Conversely, claim limitations in this application that do not use the word “means” (or “step”) are not being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, except as otherwise indicated in an Office action.
3. This application includes one or more claim limitations that do not use the word “means,” but are nonetheless being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, because the claim limitation(s) uses a generic placeholder (e.g. “subunit”) that is coupled with functional language without reciting sufficient structure to perform the recited function and the generic placeholder is not preceded by a structural modifier. Such claim limitation(s) is/are: “storage subunit” and “cache subunit” in claims 1 and 4.
Because this/these claim limitation(s) is/are being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, it/they is/are being interpreted to cover the corresponding structure described in the specification as performing the claimed function, and equivalents thereof.
If applicant does not intend to have this/these limitation(s) interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, applicant may: (1) amend the claim limitation(s) to avoid it/them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph (e.g., by reciting sufficient structure to perform the claimed function); or (2) present a sufficient showing that the claim limitation(s) recite(s) sufficient structure to perform the claimed function so as to avoid it/them being interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph.
4. For claims 2 and 14, the “or” limitation has been given the broadest, reasonable interpretation of only requiring a single element from the given options in order to satisfy the requirements of the limitation.
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.
5. Claims 1-20 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 applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claims 1, 13 and 20 recite, “…calculate a plurality of first domain conversion ciphertexts sequentially, wherein the first domain conversion ciphertext is an intermediate ciphertext…” (emphasis added by Examiner). The claims recite calculating a plurality of first domain ciphertexts, and then the “wherein” clause states “the first domain ciphertext is an intermediate ciphertext”. It is unclear which of the plurality of ciphertexts is being referred to in the “wherein” clause. It is possible that the clause applies to all of the ciphertexts in the sequence (e.g. “wherein each of the first domain conversion ciphertexts is an intermediate ciphertext”) or a particular ciphertext in the sequence (e.g. “wherein the initial first domain conversion ciphertext is an intermediate ciphertext”).
Claims 2-12 and 14-19 inherit the deficiency of the claim they depend on.
6. 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.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
7. Claims 1-3, 5, 8-9, 12-15, 17 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Falk et al. (U.S. Patent 12,250,297; hereafter “Falk”), and further in view of Yuan (U.S. Patent Application Publication 2019/0123894).
For claims 1, 13 and 20, Falk teaches a privacy calculation unit, method and non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storing a program that is executable by a device (note column 32, lines 5-10, storage medium having computer code), comprising:
a first calculation subunit including circuitry (note column 3, lines 30-38, processors execution encryption and decryption) configured to calculate a plurality of first domain conversion ciphertexts sequentially (note column 6, lines 8-18 and column 23, lines 1-5, conversion of encrypted list data is performed iteratively, i.e. sequentially), wherein the first domain conversion ciphertext is an intermediate ciphertext when first to-be-converted data is converted from a first privacy-preserving computation domain to a second privacy-preserving computation domain (note column 23, lines 44-50, public key homomorphic encryption is an intermediate ciphertext when converting homomorphic encryption, i.e. first privacy-preserving computation domain, to secret sharing encryption, i.e. second privacy-preserving computation domain);
a storage subunit configured to store (note column 3, lines 52, servers store data elements in storage); and
a communication subunit including circuitry configured to send (note column 3, lines 8-13, servers send data through a communication channel), a preorder first domain conversion ciphertext to a target privacy calculation unit other than the current privacy calculation unit and to enable the target privacy calculation unit to generate first converted data corresponding to the first to-be-converted data in the second privacy-preserving computation domain according to the preorder first domain conversion ciphertext (note column 23, lines 58-64 and column 24, lines 5-30, one server sends ciphertext to a target server, enabling target server to generate converted data using secret sharing).
Falk differs from the claimed invention in that they fail to teach:
a storage subunit configured to store the calculated first domain conversion ciphertexts received from the first calculation subunit; and
a communication subunit including circuitry configured to send, in a process in which the first calculation subunit calculates a postorder first domain conversion ciphertext, a preorder first domain conversion ciphertext.
Yuan teaches:
a storage subunit configured to store the calculated first domain conversion ciphertexts received from the first calculation subunit (note paragraph [0073], encrypted packets are stored in a queue at the egress interface); and
a communication subunit including circuitry (note paragraphs [0041]-[0042], hardware processing unit includes ingress and egress interfaces) configured to send, in a process in which the first calculation subunit calculates a postorder first domain conversion ciphertext, a preorder first domain conversion ciphertext (note paragraphs [0060] and [0070]-[0072], encryption of egress data packets may be performed simultaneously in parallel by multiple hardware encryption engines; i.e. a postorder packet is encrypted while a preorder packet is being sent through the egress interface queue).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the homomorphic to secret sharing for privacy encryption of Falk and the hardware parallel encryption processing of packets of Yuan. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to combine Falk and Yuan because hardware parallel processing of encryption can shorten process time and increase network efficiency (note paragraph [0028] of Yuan).
For claims 2 and 14, the combination of Falk and Yuan teaches claims 1 and 13, wherein the first privacy-preserving computation domain is a homomorphic encryption domain, and the second privacy-preserving computation domain is a secret sharing domain (note column 23, lines 44-50 of Falk, public key homomorphic encryption is converted to secret sharing encryption), or the first privacy-preserving computation domain is the secret sharing domain, and the second privacy-preserving computation domain is the homomorphic encryption domain.
For claims 3 and 15, the combination of Falk and Yuan teaches claims 2 and 14, wherein when the first privacy-preserving computation domain is the homomorphic encryption domain, and the second privacy-preserving computation domain is the secret sharing domain (note column 23, lines 44-50 of Falk, public key homomorphic encryption is converted to secret sharing encryption), the first calculation subunit includes circuitry configured to obtain a random shared value, and calculate the first domain conversion ciphertexts according to the random shared value and the first to-be-converted data (note column 23, lines 55-57 and column 24, lines 5-11 of Falk, random element r is obtained and homomorphic ciphertext is computed according to r and to be converted data x), to enable the target privacy calculation unit to decrypt the first domain conversion ciphertexts based on a private key of the target privacy calculation unit, to obtain the first converted data corresponding to the first to-be-converted data in the secret sharing domain, wherein the current privacy calculation unit uses the random shared value as an output, and the target privacy calculation unit uses the first converted data as an output (note column 23, lines 58-64 and column 24, lines 11-30 of Falk, target server decrypts the ciphertext using its secret key and obtains converted data corresponding to x and r).
For claims 5 and 17, the combination of Falk and Yuan teaches claims 3 and 15, wherein the first calculation subunit includes circuitry configured to calculate the postorder first domain conversion ciphertext after calculating the preorder first domain conversion ciphertext (note column 6, lines 8-18 and column 23, lines 1-5 of Falk, conversion of encrypted list data is performed iteratively, i.e. postorder is calculated after preorder), and the storage subunit stores the preorder first domain conversion ciphertext received from the first calculation subunit (note paragraph [0073] of Yuan, encrypted packets are stored in a queue at the egress interface).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the homomorphic to secret sharing for privacy encryption of Falk and the hardware parallel encryption processing of packets of Yuan. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to combine Falk and Yuan because hardware parallel processing of encryption can shorten process time and increase network efficiency (note paragraph [0028] of Yuan).
For claim 8, the combination of Falk and Yuan teaches claim 2, wherein the communication subunit includes circuitry configured to receive a second domain conversion ciphertext from a first source privacy calculation unit other than the current privacy calculation unit (note column 3, lines 8-13 of Falk, servers send data through a communication channel), and store the second domain conversion ciphertext into the storage subunit (note paragraph [0043] of Yuan, ingress packets are stored in packet scheduler queue), wherein the second domain conversion ciphertext is an intermediate ciphertext when third to-be-converted data is converted from the homomorphic encryption domain to the secret sharing domain, and the second domain conversion ciphertext is calculated by the first source privacy calculation unit based on a generated random shared value and the third to-be-converted data (note column 23, lines 55-57 and column 24, lines 5-11 of Falk, random element r is obtained and homomorphic ciphertext is computed according to r and to be converted data x); and
the first calculation subunit includes circuitry configured to decrypt the second domain conversion ciphertext based on a private key of the current privacy calculation unit, to obtain second converted data corresponding the third to-be-converted data in the secret sharing domain (note column 23, lines 58-64 and column 24, lines 11-30 of Falk, target server decrypts the ciphertext using its secret key and obtains converted data corresponding to x and r).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the homomorphic to secret sharing for privacy encryption of Falk and the hardware parallel encryption processing of packets of Yuan. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to combine Falk and Yuan because hardware parallel processing of encryption can shorten process time and increase network efficiency (note paragraph [0028] of Yuan).
For claim 9, the combination of Falk and Yuan teaches claim 8, wherein the first calculation subunit is configured to read, before completing decryption on a preorder second domain conversion ciphertext, a postorder second domain conversion ciphertext from the storage subunit (note paragraphs [0043]-[0044] of Yuan, data packets received from ingress interface are scheduled for decryption; paragraph [0060] of Yuan, multiple decryption tasks may be executed simultaneously; i.e. postorder packet read before completion of preorder packet), to decrypt the postorder second domain conversion ciphertext after completing the decryption on the preorder second domain conversion ciphertext (note paragraphs [0043] and [0057] of Yuan, packets are scheduled by priority).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the homomorphic to secret sharing for privacy encryption of Falk and the hardware parallel encryption processing of packets of Yuan. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to combine Falk and Yuan because hardware parallel processing of encryption can shorten process time and increase network efficiency (note paragraph [0028] of Yuan).
For claim 12, the combination of Falk and Yuan teaches claim 1, wherein the privacy calculation unit further comprises a second calculation subunit, wherein the first calculation subunit includes circuitry configured to calculate data in a homomorphic encryption domain, and the second calculation subunit includes circuitry configured to calculate data in a secret sharing domain (note paragraphs [0046] and [0057] of Yuan, hardware engine includes a pool of calculation subunits capable of executing different encryption algorithms; note column 23, lines 44-50 of Falk, public key homomorphic encryption and secret sharing encryption algorithms are used by each server).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the homomorphic to secret sharing for privacy encryption of Falk and the hardware parallel encryption processing of packets of Yuan. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to combine Falk and Yuan because hardware parallel processing of encryption can shorten process time and increase network efficiency (note paragraph [0028] of Yuan).
8. Claims 4 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Falk and Yuan as applied to claims 3 and 15 above, and further in view of Kihara et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication 2014/0028404; hereafter “Kihara”).
For claims 4 and 16, the combination of Falk and Yuan teaches claims 3 and 15, wherein the privacy calculation unit further comprises:
a pseudo-random number generation subunit including circuitry configured to generate a pseudo-random number (note column 13, lines 29-30 of Falk, server generates and stores a random data element); and
a cache subunit configured to cache the generated pseudo-random number received from the pseudo-random number generation subunit (note column 13, lines 29-30 of Falk, server generates and stores a random data element),
wherein the first calculation subunit includes circuitry configured to read the pseudo-random number from the cache subunit as the random shared value (note column 13, lines 30-35 of Falk, server reads and encrypts random data element).
The combination of Falk and Yuan differs from the claimed invention in that they fail to teach:
a pseudo-random number generation subunit including circuitry configured to generate a pseudo-random number according to a preset clock frequency
Kihara teaches:
a pseudo-random number generation subunit including circuitry configured to generate a pseudo-random number according to a preset clock frequency (note paragraphs [0041]-[0043], pseudorandom number is generated based on an oscillation frequency of clock signal)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the combination of Falk and Yuan and the generation of a pseudorandom number using clock frequency of Kihara. One of ordinary skill would have been motivated to combine Falk, Yuan and Kihara because it would improve the security of the pseudorandom number by generating highly irregular random numbers with a simple configuration (note paragraph [0010] of Kihara).
Allowable Subject Matter
9. Claims 6-7, 10-11 and 18-19 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
For claims 6 and 18, the prior art of record, alone or in combination, fails to teach the following limitations in conjunction with the rest of the claimed limitations:
perform homomorphic encryption on the first to-be-converted data based on a public key of the current privacy calculation unit, to obtain the first domain conversion ciphertexts, to enable the target privacy calculation unit to calculate, according to the first domain conversion ciphertexts and a first homomorphic ciphertext obtained by performing homomorphic encryption on second to-be-converted data corresponding to the first to-be-converted data based on the public key of the current privacy calculation unit, the first converted data corresponding to the first to-be-converted data and the second to-be-converted data in the homomorphic encryption domain, wherein the current privacy calculation unit has no output, and the target privacy calculation unit uses the first converted data as an output.
For claim 10, the prior art of record, alone or in combination, fails to teach the following limitations in conjunction with the rest of the claimed limitations:
the first calculation subunit includes circuitry configured to read the third domain conversion ciphertext and the fifth to-be-converted data from the storage subunit, and perform homomorphic encryption on the fifth to-be-converted data based on a public key of the current privacy calculation unit, to obtain a second homomorphic ciphertext, and calculate third converted data corresponding to the fourth to-be-converted data and the fifth to-be-converted data in the homomorphic encryption domain according to the second homomorphic ciphertext and the third domain conversion ciphertext.
Claims 7, 11 and 19 inherit the allowable subject matter from the claims they depend from.
Conclusion
10. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Lu et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication 2023/0327856; hereafter “Lu”) discloses multi-party computation where data encrypted in the secret sharing domain is converted to the homomorphic encryption domain (note paragraphs [0075]-[0076]). Lu also discloses an embodiment that converts data encrypted with homomorphic encryption to secret sharing (note paragraphs [0080]-[0081]).
Woodruff (U.S. Patent Application Publication 2023/0071782) discloses receiving and decrypting blocks of data in parallel (note paragraphs [0039]-[0040] and [0069]).
Lim et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication 2021/0376997) discloses an artificial intelligence calculation semiconductor where ciphertexts may be generated in parallel (note paragraph [0047]).
Khoyi et al. (U.S. Patent Application Publication 2015/0372807) discloses transformation pipelined streams for sending and receiving data from a server (note Fig. 5 and paragraphs [0081]-[0084]).
11. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DAVID J PEARSON whose telephone number is (571)272-0711. The examiner can normally be reached 8:30 - 6:00 pm; Monday through Friday.
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DAVID J. PEARSON
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2407
/David J Pearson/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2407