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 .
DETAILED ACTION
The present office action is responsive to communications received on 04/29/2024.
Status of Claims
Claims 1-20 are pending.
Foreign Priority Claim is Untimely
The foreign priority claim filed on 04/29/2024 was not entered because the foreign priority claim was not filed during the time period set forth in 37 CFR 1.55. For original applications filed under 35 U.S.C. 111(a) (other than a design application) on or after November 29, 2000, the time period is during the pendency of the application and within the later of four months from the actual filing date of the application or sixteen months from the filing date of the prior foreign application. In addition, if the application was filed on or after September 16, 2012, the claim for foreign priority must be presented in an application data sheet. See 37 CFR 1.55(d)(1). For national stage applications under 35 U.S.C. 371, the claim for priority must be made within the time limit set forth in the PCT and the Regulations under the PCT. See 37 CFR 1.55(d)(2). If applicant desires priority under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d), (f), 365(a) or (b), or 386(a) based upon a prior foreign application, applicant must file a petition for an unintentionally delayed priority claim under 37 CFR 1.55(e). The petition must be accompanied by (1) the priority claim under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d), (f), 365(a) or (b), or 386(a) in accordance with 37 CFR 1.55 identifying the prior foreign application to which priority is claimed, unless previously submitted; (2) a certified copy of the foreign application, unless previously submitted or an exception under 37 CFR 1.55 applies; (3) the petition fee under 37 CFR 1.17(m); and (4) a statement that the entire delay between the date the claim was due under 37 CFR 1.55 and the date the claim was filed was unintentional. The Director may require additional information where there is a question whether the delay was unintentional. The petition should be addressed to: Mail Stop Petition, Commissioner for Patents, P.O. Box 1450, Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450.
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 15-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 for reciting software per se.
With respect to claim 15 the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because it recites a system and upon review of the application there is no definition for a system and its components to definitively comprise hardware and based on broadest reasonable interpretation it could be software, therefore failing step 1 of the 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance (“2019 PEG”).
With respect to dependent claims 14-20 do not cure the deficiencies of independent claim 15 and are therefore directed to non-statutory subject matter and are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101.
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)(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.
Claim(s) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Gunti et al. (US 20170006022 A1) hereinafter referred to as Gunti.
With respect to claim 1, Gunti discloses: A method, comprising: receiving an indication of an expiry of a first certificate of a virtual appliance in a virtualized environment via a certificate management agent of a gateway device in communication with the appliance; (Gunti ¶95 “At 710, automatically periodically accessing a plurality of computing nodes [virtual appliances] in a computing system for certificate expiration [indication of an expiry of a first certificate] of a certificate of the plurality of computing nodes, wherein the automatically periodically accessing is provided by a centralized management tool [management agent] of the computing system.”)
and performing a certificate replacement process responsive to determining that the expiry of the first certificate exceeds a threshold, wherein the certificate replacement process includes: (Gunti ¶99 “direct the centralized management tool to replace the impending [exceeds a threshold] expiring certificates with new certificates.”)
sending a request to the appliance via an agent associated with the appliance; (Gunti ¶49 discloses steps of provisioning a certificate which in this case the provisioning is based on replacing an expiring certificate as mapped above. Gunti ¶49 recites “At 310, accessing a certificate signing request from a computing node [appliance] by a centralized management tool of the computing system.” The agent sends a request to the appliance via an API [agent associated with the appliance], according to Gunti ¶23).
receiving, from the appliance, a certificate signing request (CSR); (Gunti ¶49 “centralized management tool 120 receives a CSR from node 110”)
sending the CSR to an external certificate authority; (Gunti ¶50 “centralized management tool 120 transmits the CSR (received from node 110) to certificate authority 130.”)
receiving a second certificate from the certificate authority; (Gunti ¶51 “centralized management tool 120 receives signed X.509 certificates from certificate authority 130 [second certificate].”)
and replacing the first certificate with the second certificate. (Gunti ¶59 “providing the signed certificate to the computing node, by the centralized management tool, wherein the signed certificate [second certificate] is for replacing the untrusted self-signed certificate [first certificate] at the computing node such that there is automated provisioning of the signed certificate at the computing node to establish trust of the computing node in the computing system.”).
With respect to claims 8 and 15 the claims recite a non-transitory machine-readable medium and a method respectively. The claims have slight difference in verbiage but recite the same limitations as claim 1 and are therefore rejected based on the same rationale.
With respect to claim 2, Gunti discloses: The method of claim 1, wherein the method includes the agent associated with the appliance periodically polling an application programming interface (API) of the appliance to determine the expiry of the first certificate. (Gunti ¶71 “centralized management tool 120 periodically monitors [periodically polling] for the expiration of certificates in a node [appliance].” Which uses an API according to Gunti ¶23).
With respect to claims 9 and 16 the claims recite a non-transitory machine-readable medium and a method respectively. The claims have slight difference in verbiage but recite the same limitations as claim 2 and are therefore rejected based on the same rationale.
With respect to claim 3, Gunti discloses: The method of claim 1, wherein the method includes receiving the indication of the expiry of the first certificate from the agent associated with the appliance via a certificate management agent associated with a gateway device. (Gunti ¶23 discloses that node API [agent associated with the appliance] communicates with the centralized management [certificate management agent]; wherein Gutni ¶73 teaches the agent receiving indication of expiry date of the first certificate from the node which is understood to mean through the node API).
With respect to claims 10 and 17 the claims recite a non-transitory machine-readable medium and a method respectively. The claims have slight difference in verbiage but recite the same limitations as claim 3 and are therefore rejected based on the same rationale.
With respect to claim 4, Gunti discloses: The method of claim 1, wherein the method includes generating a public key and a private key by the appliance responsive to receiving the request via the agent associated with the appliance. (Gunti ¶34 teaches in a CSR the node [appliance] generates data that would be included in the certificate when reciting “information that will be included in the certificate such as your organization name, common name (domain name), locality, and country. It also contains the public key that will be included in the certificate. A private key is usually created at the same time that you create the CSR.”)
With respect to claims 11 and 18 the claims recite a non-transitory machine-readable medium and a method respectively. The claims have slight difference in verbiage but recite the same limitations as claim 4 and are therefore rejected based on the same rationale.
With respect to claim 5, Gunti discloses: The method of claim 4, wherein the method includes preserving the private key by the appliance. (Gunti ¶34 teaches in a CSR the node [appliance] generates and preserves the public/private keys on the device during the CSR processing as understood by the examiner).
With respect to claims 12 and 19 the claims recite a non-transitory machine-readable medium and a method respectively. The claims have slight difference in verbiage but recite the same limitations as claim 5 and are therefore rejected based on the same rationale.
With respect to claim 6, Gunti discloses: The method of claim 1, wherein the gateway device is not connected to an internet. (Looking at Gunti Fig. 1 the centralized management tool 120 is local to the system and not a remote/cloud service connected to the system via the internet).
With respect to claims 13 and 20 the claims recite a non-transitory machine-readable medium and a method respectively. The claims have slight difference in verbiage but recite the same limitations as claim 6 and are therefore rejected based on the same rationale.
With respect to claim 7, Gunti discloses: The method of claim 1, wherein replacing the first certificate with the second certificate includes sending the second certificate to the appliance. (Gunti ¶59 “providing [sending] the signed certificate to the computing node [appliance], by the centralized management tool [agent]” after being obtained from the certification authority).
With respect to claim 14 the claim recites a non-transitory machine-readable medium. The claim has slight difference in verbiage but recites the same limitations as claim 7 and is therefore rejected based on the same rationale.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Rao (US 9614833 B1) col 8 lines 10-35 “an agent on the server 500 communicating with the management tool on another server, may discover the certificates by parsing the web server configuration data 532 to identify each digital certificate associated with a given an IP address, port, and hostname combination. This may occur for multiple configured hosts (e.g., for multiple virtual host configurations). Once discovered the management tool 524 may retrieve and identify metadata associated with each certificate as needed to manage a certificate renewal process. For example, the management tool 524 may renew a set of certificates for a common an IP address, port, and hostname combination at specified time prior to an expiration of a certificate validity period. Once renewed, the management tool may add the certificates to the certificate store 534 and update server configuration 532.”
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HANY S GADALLA whose telephone number is (571)272-2322. The examiner can normally be reached Mon to Fri 8:00AM - 4:00PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Carl Colin can be reached on (571) 272-3862. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/HANY S. GADALLA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2493