DETAILED ACTION
This communication is in response to Application No. 18/690,353 filed on 3/8/2024. The preliminary amendment presented on 3/8/2024, which amends claims 1-9, is hereby acknowledged. Claims 1-9 have been examined.
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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 3/8/2024 and 3/26/2025 is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Objections
Claims 1 and 4-9 are objected to because of the following informalities:
In claim 1, line 3, the acronym “OTA server” should be corrected as –Over The Air (OTA) server--. Similar correction should be made for all acronyms in claims 4-9 when presenting first time.
Appropriate correction is required.
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.
Claims 1 and 5-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chastain et al. (hereinafter Chastain)(US 2015/0127938) in view of Shah et al. (hereinafter Shah)(US 2022/0141644).
Regarding claim 1, Chastain teaches as follows:
A method for updating a secure element cooperating with a telecommunication terminal in a telecommunication network, said updating being performed by an OTA server (the process can commence with the OTA server forwarding an OTA message to the N-OIF for transmission to the UICC of the mobile device (equivalent to applicant’s secure element). This can be part of a group provisioning effort, such as a software update that is to be distributed to a group of mobile devices, see, ¶ [0035] and figure 5A), said method comprising:
Sending from said OTA server to said secure element a trigger of polling message through a LwM2M channel, in order to ask to said secure element to establish a https channel with said OTA server, said OTA server updating said secure element through said https channel after establishment of said https channel (at 2a, the OTA server can prepare a message for delivery to the UICC and sends it to the N-OIF. The OTA server may encrypt the message using an OTA server keyset. At 2b, the N-OIF can prepare the message for transmission to the U-OIF. This may involve the following: verifying that the UICC is registered and reachable via HTTP; converting the message protocol to HTTP; and/or encryption using an OTA IWF Keyset. At 2c, the U-OIF can receive the message… At 2h, the UICC terminating entity can receive the message and can perform actions based on the content of the message (e.g., adjusting configuration parameters, executing software updates, storing settings, and so forth), see, ¶ [0035] and figure 5A and 5B).
Chastain teaches all limitations as presented above except for the LwM2M channel between the OTA server and the secure element.
Shah teaches as follows:
A remote SIM provisioning object may include information indicating a SIM profile update protocol supported by a LwM2M client computing device, such as a IoT device. SIM profile update protocols may be communication protocols a LwM2M client computing device, such as a IoT device, is configured to use to retrieve a SIM profile package. Examples of SIM profile update protocols may include the Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP), the secured-CoAP (CoAPs), Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) 1.1, HTTP Secure (HTTPS) 1.1, or any other suitable communication protocol (see, ¶ [0061]);
the IoT device 302 and the server 304 may be configured to communicate using one or more communication protocols, such as the User Datagram Protocol (UDP), Short Message Service (SMS), Internet Protocol (IP) protocols, Non-IP protocols, Transmission Control Protocol (TCP), etc. As an example, the IoT device 302 may be an LwM2M client computing device. As an example, the server 304 may be an LwM2M server (see, ¶ [0099] and figure 3A)(any communication using one or more communication protocols between the LwM2M client and the LwM2M server is equivalent to applicant’s LwM2M channel); and
the IoT device 302 may be configured with an LwM2M client 302a that uses the LwM2M device management protocol. The LwM2M device management protocol defines an extensible resource and data model. The LwM2M client 302a may employ a service-layer transfer protocol such as CoAP 302b and/or HTTP 302d to enable, among other things secure data transfer (see, ¶ [0100] and figure 3A).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Chastain with Shah to include the LwM2M communication channel as taught by Shah in order to efficiently support M2M communications for IoT devices.
Regarding claims 5 and 8, Chastain in view of Shah teaches similar limitations as presented above, and further teaches as follows:
The OTA server and the secure element having a processor (the communication device 800 shown in FIG. 8 or portions thereof can serve as a representation of one or more of the devices of FIGS. 1-5 and 7 including end user devices (equivalent to applicant’s secure element), customer premises equipment, remote management servers, interworking functions, and/or OTA servers. The controller 806 (equivalent to applicant’s processor) can perform the functions 762 and/or 766, see, ¶ [0069] and figure 8).
Regarding claims 6-7 and 9, Chastain in view of Shah teaches similar limitations as presented above, Shah further teaches as follows:
The LwM2M server and the LwM2M client (the IoT device 302 may be configured with an LwM2M client 302a that uses the LwM2M device management protocol. The LwM2M device management protocol defines an extensible resource and data model. The LwM2M client 302a may employ a service-layer transfer protocol such as CoAP 302b and/or HTTP 302d to enable, among other things secure data transfer (see, ¶ [0100] and figure 3A).
Therefore, they are rejected for similar reason as presented above.
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chastain et al. (hereinafter Chastain)(US 2015/0127938) in view of Shah et al. (hereinafter Shah)(US 2022/0141644), and further in view of Loreskar et al. (hereinafter Loreskar)(US 2022/0210652).
Regarding claim 2, Chastain in view of Shah teaches all limitations as presented above except for the counter.
Loreskar teaches as follows:
The two entities at the two ends of the first secure channel and/or the two entities at the ends of the second secure channel each maintain a counter which is monotonically incremented upon exchange of messages, wherein sent messages include a value derived from the sending entity's counter, and wherein the receiving end entity only accepts as valid messages with the value derived from a counter value higher than the receiving end's current counter value. Thereby, security can be enhanced by providing for replay protection (see, ¶ [0036]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Chastain in view of Shah with Loreskar to include the counter incrementing upon exchange of messages as taught by Loreskar in order to efficiently enhance security.
Claims 3-4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Chastain et al. (hereinafter Chastain)(US 2015/0127938) in view of Shah et al. (hereinafter Shah)(US 2022/0141644), and further in view of Chun et al. (hereinafter Chun)(US 2020/0175867).
Regarding claims 3-4, Chastain teaches as follows:
At 2a, the OTA server can prepare a message for delivery to the UICC and sends it to the N-OIF. The OTA server may encrypt the message using an OTA server keyset (see, ¶ [0035] and figure 5A-B).
Chastain in view of Shah teaches all limitations as presented above except for using ICCID as keyset for encryption.
Chun teaches as follows:
The vehicle 210 may encrypt the authentication number using the internal information of the vehicle 210 such as VIN, ICCID, and IMEI as a key and may transmit the encrypted authentication number to the server 220 (see, ¶ [0062] and figure 2).
Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Chastain in view of Shah with Chun to include using the ICCID as key for encryption as taught by Chun in order to efficiently personalize (diversify) message for recipients with unique identifier.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Jeong S Park whose telephone number is (571)270-1597. The examiner can normally be reached Monday through Friday 8:00-4:30 ET.
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/JEONG S PARK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2454
February 15, 2026