DETAILED ACTION
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 Objections
The claims are objected to because they include reference characters which are not enclosed within parentheses.
Reference characters corresponding to elements recited in the detailed description of the drawings and used in conjunction with the recitation of the same element or group of elements in the claims should be enclosed within parentheses so as to avoid confusion with other numbers or characters which may appear in the claims. See MPEP § 608.01(m). Reference characters (HKDF, ECDSA, CNN) used for terms in the claims should be parenthesized on first appearance for clarity. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 3 is objected to because of the following informalities: It is unclear of the reference character HKDF is for “hash-based message authentication code” or for “hash-based key derivation function”. Appropriate correction is required.
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.
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 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: “model for identifying” in claim 10.
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.
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.
Claim limitation “model for identifying” invokes 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph. However, the written description fails to disclose the corresponding structure, material, or acts for performing the entire claimed function and to clearly link the structure, material, or acts to the function. Therefore, claims 10-15 are indefinite and are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, second paragraph.
Applicant may:
(a) Amend the claim so that the claim limitation will no longer be interpreted as a limitation under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph;
(b) Amend the written description of the specification such that it expressly recites what structure, material, or acts perform the entire claimed function, without introducing any new matter (35 U.S.C. 132(a)); or
(c) Amend the written description of the specification such that it clearly links the structure, material, or acts disclosed therein to the function recited in the claim, without introducing any new matter (35 U.S.C. 132(a)).
If applicant is of the opinion that the written description of the specification already implicitly or inherently discloses the corresponding structure, material, or acts and clearly links them to the function so that one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize what structure, material, or acts perform the claimed function, applicant should clarify the record by either:
(a) Amending the written description of the specification such that it expressly recites the corresponding structure, material, or acts for performing the claimed function and clearly links or associates the structure, material, or acts to the claimed function, without introducing any new matter (35 U.S.C. 132(a)); or
(b) Stating on the record what the corresponding structure, material, or acts, which are implicitly or inherently set forth in the written description of the specification, perform the claimed function. For more information, see 37 CFR 1.75(d) and MPEP §§ 608.01(o) and 2181.
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 (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 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)(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.
Claim(s) 1-3 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Neumann (US-20240073012).
a. Referring to claim 1:
Regarding claims 1, Neumann teaches an electrocardiogram based two-factor authentication method comprising: collecting electrocardiogram (ECG) data from a user (Para 132 and 53…. ECG data from a user); training a machine learning model based on the ECG data (Para 138…. training an ML model); and generating a private user key and a public user key (Para 136-139… generating cryptographic/cluster keypair); characterized in that, in the generating, the private user key and the public user key are generated by a hash-based function taking a vector containing weight parameters of the machine learning model as input, recreation and/or recompilation of the private key requiring electrocardiogram based user identification by the machine learning model (Fig 7 and Para 136-139 and 53-57….. cluster key generated using interconnection metrics of the ML model).
a. Referring to claim 2:
Regarding claims 2, Neumann teaches the method according to claim 1, characterized in that, training the machine learning model includes: sampling a waveform of the ECG data (Para 113… wavelet transform); characterized in that, the machine learning model is trained on a mixture of heartbeat data collected from the user as well as data collected from other users (Para 137…. training the ML model based on a plurality of biological extractions).
a. Referring to claim 3:
Regarding claims 3, Neumann teaches the method according to claim 1, characterized in that, the hash-based function is a key derivation function based on a hash-based message authentication code, HKDF (Para 56…. key derivation hash-based function).
a. Referring to claim 9:
Regarding claims 9, Neumann teaches the method according to claim 1, characterized in that, the machine learning model is a convolutional neural network, CNN, which CNN takes an ECG segment as an input in order to identify a user (Para 131…. neural network).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 4-8 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: .
The primary reason for indicating allowable subject matter are the limitations of extracting a vector containing parameters of a machine learning model; passing the vector to the HKDF to create a pseudo-random private key; wherein, the pseudo-random private key is passed onto an asymmetric key generation algorithm in order to generate a public key.
Claims 10-15 are allowable pending the 35 U.S.C. 112 rejection.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
The primary reason for indicating allowable subject matter are the limitations of at least one wearable device equipped with at least one sensor for capturing ECG signals of a user, communication means and a memory; characterized in that, the memory of the at least one wearable device is only accessible after at least the user is authenticated using the CNN model stored on the server, said CNN being trained with the stored user ECG data.
The prior art disclosed by Neumann teaches an apparatus for generating cryptographic keys associated with a biological extraction. The apparatus includes at least a processor and a memory communicatively connected to the at least a processor. The memory instructs the processor to receive a plurality of biological extractions from a plurality of users; classify each of the plurality of biological extractions to a plurality of biological extraction clusters; generate an interconnection metric as a function of a comparison between the plurality of biological extraction clusters; generate an interconnection metric as a function of a comparison between the plurality of biological extraction clusters using a metric machine learning model and generate a cluster key associated with the interconnection metric and a biological extraction cluster of the plurality of biological extraction clusters.
The prior art fails to teach the unique limitations shown above and recited in the claims of the instant invention.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to IZUNNA OKEKE whose telephone number is (571)270-3854. The examiner can normally be reached Mon - Fri 8 - 4 EST.
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/IZUNNA OKEKE/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2497