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
Applicant’s amendment filed 04/02/2026 has been entered. Applicant has amended claims 1, 5, 10 and 14. Currently claims 1, 3-10 and 12-20 are pending in this application.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments with respect to claims 1 and 10 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection.
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 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 of this title, 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.
Claims 1, 3-5, 10, 12-14 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Schvey et al. (US 2018/0349621 A1), hereinafter, “Schvey” in view of Lenz et al. (US 2019/0132295 A1), hereinafter, “Lenz” and further in view of Mehedy et al. (US 2019/0342084 A1), hereinafter, “Mehedy”.
Regarding Claims 1 and 10, Schvey discloses a data management system configured to manage data usage between organizations participating in a distributed ledger system, wherein
in a node of first organization (See, Fig. 5, Numeral 502), data is encrypted and passed to a node of the second organization (See, Fig. 5, Numerals 508 and Paragraph 0071, “Node A 502 encrypts the data based on the session key and transmits the data and its TLS certificate via network 510 to Node B 508”), and
the encrypted data is decrypted, and predetermined processing is executed on the decrypted data (See, Paragraph 0071, “Node B 508 decrypts the message to retrieve the data in the message and processes the data accordingly”);
wherein the encrypted data is passed from the node of the first organization to the node of the second organization via communications not involving the distributed ledger (See, Fig. 5, “3. Transmit encrypted data” and Paragraph 0045, “The communication network for system 100 is set up as a peer-to-peer network, with known identifies for each node in the network. The connections between nodes is authenticated through the use of TLS certificates, as described herein, and only those nodes whose TLS certificates are included within an approved list are allowed to connect to the network” and Paragraph 0071, “Node A 502 encrypts the data based on the session key and transmits the data and its TLS certificate via network 510 to Node B 508”).
Schvey does not explicitly disclose decrypting data in an encrypted region of a node of a second organization.
Lenz discloses decrypting data in an encrypted region of a node of a second organization (See, Paragraphs 0043, 0062 and 0085).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to decrypt, the encrypted data in the system of Schvey, in an encrypted region of a node of a second organization as taught by Lenz because TEE enclaves are isolated environments or private regions of memory which are secured from being accessible by programs and applications running on the platform, including the operating system in order to secure decryption of encrypted data within the second node (See, Lenz, Paragraph 0043).
Schvey does not explicitly disclose on-chain regions and off-chain regions in the nodes and wherein encrypted data is passed from the first off-chain region of the first node to the second off-chain region of the second node.
Mehedy discloses multiple nodes comprising on-chain regions and off-chain regions and wherein encrypted data is passed form the first off-chain region of the first node to the second off-chain region of the second node (See, Paragraphs 0006, 0024, 0032, 0033 and 0051).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have, for the nodes of different organizations in the system of Schvey, on-chain regions and off-chain regions and wherein encrypted data is passed form the first off-chain region of the first node to the second off-chain region of the second node as taught by Mehedy to store data off-chain and put their hash in the blockchain ledger for a reference so that blockchain itself is not bloated with large files over time (See, Paragraph 0004).
Regarding Claims 3 and 12, the rejection of claims 1 and 10 is incorporated and the combination of Schvey, Lenz and Mehedy further discloses wherein in the nodes of the first and second organizations, the encrypted data is managed in a distributed ledger as metadata (See, Schvey, Paragraphs 0008, 0009 and 0012).
Regarding Claims 4 and 13, the rejection of claims 3 and 12 is incorporated and the combination of Schvey, Lenz and Mehedy further discloses wherein in the nodes of the first and second organizations, the metadata on the distributed ledger is made confidential by a smart contract operating using a private smart contract function (See, Schvey, Paragraphs 0012, 0038 and 0057).
Regarding Claims 5 and 14, the rejection of claims 4 and 13 is incorporated and the combination of Schvey, Lenz and Mehedy further discloses wherein
While Schvey discloses TLS session establishment and session key to encrypt and decrypt the data, Schvey does not explicitly disclose generating such session key in an encrypted region of the node.
Lenz in the same reference discloses generating keys in an encrypted region in an off-chain region of the node (See, Paragraphs 0042, 0047, 0048 and 0057).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to generate, for data in the system of Schvey, in an encrypted region in an off-chain region of the node as taught by Lenz because TEE enclaves are isolated environments or private regions of memory which are secured from being accessible by programs and applications running on the platform, including the operating system in order to securely encrypt data within the first node (See, Lenz, Paragraph 0043).
Regarding Claims 19 and 20, the rejection of claims 1 and 11 is incorporated and the combination of Schvey, Lenz and Mehedy as applied above does not explicitly disclose wherein in the node of the first organization, the data is encrypted on an encrypted region created using an encrypted region creation function built into a computation apparatus.
Lenz in the same reference disclose encrypting data on an encrypted region created using an encrypted region creation function built into a computation apparatus (See, Paragraphs 0042, 0047, 0048 and 0057).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to encrypt, data in the system of Schvey, on an encrypted region created using an encrypted region creation function built into a computation apparatus as taught by Lenz because TEE enclaves are isolated environments or private regions of memory which are secured from being accessible by programs and applications running on the platform, including the operating system in order to securely encrypt data within the first node (See, Lenz, Paragraph 0043).
Claims 6-8 and 15-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Schvey in view Lenz and Mehedy and further in view of Ojha et al. (US 2020/0119910 A1), hereinafter, “Ojha”.
Regarding Claims 6 and 15, the rejection of claims 5 and 14 is incorporated and the combination of Schvey, Lenz and Mehedy further discloses wherein in the node of the first organization, the generated key is encrypted using a common key in the encrypted region, and the encryption key is managed (See, Lenz, Paragraph 0057, Since the feature of generating the encryption key in the encrypted region has been combined in the rejection of claims 5 and 14 and this claim further limit the combined feature, a separate motivation to combine statement is not needed. See rejection of claims 5 and 14) but fails to disclose encryption key is shared via a key management smart contract in a distributed ledger node in the distributed ledger system.
Ojha discloses encryption key is shared via a key management smart contract in a distributed ledger node in a distributed ledger system (See, Paragraphs 0006, 0070).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to share, in the system of Schvey and Lenz, encryption key via a key management smart contract in a distributed ledger node in a distributed ledger system as taught by Ojha in order to automatically synchronize the ledger key based on a smart contract.
Regarding Claims 7 and 16, the rejection of claims 6 and 15 is incorporated and the combination of Schvey, Lenz, Mehedy and Ojha further discloses wherein in the node of the first organization, in the key management smart contract, the first organization, which is an owner of a key managed by the key management smart contract, grants the second organization predetermined authority and enables the second organization to use the key (See, Schvey, Paragraphs 0038 and 0040 as combined with Lenz, Mehedy and Ojha).
Regarding Claims 8 and 17, the rejection of claims 7 and 16 is incorporated and the combination of Schvey, Lenz, Mehedy and Ojha further discloses wherein in the node of the second organization, upon receipt of the encrypted data from the node of the first organization, the data is decrypted using the key in its own encrypted region, and predetermined processing is executed on the decrypted data (See, Schvey, Paragraph 0071 as combined with Ojha).
Claims 9 and 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Schvey in view of Lenz, Mehedy, Ojha and further in view of Oberhofer et al. (US 2020/0007311 A1), hereinafter, “Oberhofer”.
Regarding Claims 9 and 18, the rejection of claims 8 and 17 is incorporated and the combination of Schvey, Lenz, Mehedy and Ojha further discloses wherein in the node of the second organization, when the data is decrypted and subjected to the predetermined processing, a trail is written (See, Schvey, Paragraph 0051) but fails to disclose trail is written into the distributed ledger using a trail management smart contract.
Oberhofer discloses writing trail into distributed ledger using a trail management smart contract (See, Paragraphs 0044, 0058 and 0059).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to write, in the combined system of Schvey, Lenz, Mehedy and Ojha, trail into distributed ledger using a trail management smart contract as taught by Oberhofer so that the smart contract may specify user profile, authorization details, authentication details, roles, etc., all be included in the transaction as specific fields prior to consensus being reached and the transaction being committed (See, Oberhofer, Paragraph 0044).
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to YOGESH PALIWAL whose telephone number is (571)270-1807. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9:00AM-5:00PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Amir Mehrmanesh can be reached at (571)270-3351. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/YOGESH PALIWAL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2435
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