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 on 10/31/2025 has been entered. Applicant has amended claims 1, 2, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11 and 13-16. Currently claims 1-11 and 13-16 are pending in this application.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments with respect to claims 1, 6 and 11 have been considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues that:
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In response to applicant’s argument that “This AS includes information attesting to the TEE’s capabilities and contextual information before the trusted task in executed”. Please note that claim language only recites collecting information from the tenant container during execution of the tenant container” and not during the execution of any trusted task in tenant container. Smith clearly discloses identifying collection of information from the tenant container by an endpoint agent resident of the computing device during execution of the tenant container. Please note that both TEE and the container instantiated within TEE could be interpreted as tenant containers because they are used to execute client’s trusted task upon verification of attestation signal. Furthermore, Smith at Paragraph 0037 recites, “Prior to sending an AS to client 101, service provider 102n may initiate its TEE environment for the purpose of supporting the attestation process. More specifically, TEM 314 may cause service provider 102n to instantiate enough of its TEE environment to support attestation, i.e., to support a representation to client 101 of its TEE capabilities” and Paragraph 0038 recites, “TEM 314 may cause service provider 102n to send an attestation signal to client 101 that includes information about the instantiated containers/realms. In some embodiments, the containers/realms are instantiated to a degree that is sufficient to allow attestation to the client of the service provider's ability to maintain such containers/realms in a TEE”. As a result, it is clear that TEE and containers/realms within TEE are being executed during the collection of information and as noted above claims do no requires collection of information during execution of trusted tasks. As a result, the arguments are not persuasive and the rejection is maintained.
Applicant further argued:
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As pointed above, both TEE and the container/realms instantiated within TEE could be interpreted as tenant containers because they are instantiated to executed client’s trusted task upon verification of attestation signal. Information about TEE as well as information about containers/realms in included in the attestation signal (See, Paragraph 0036, “AS may include information attesting to the nature and type of TEE(s) on service provider 102n In addition, the AS may include contextual information relevant to the trusted task. Non-limiting examples of such contextual information include the service provider's expected allocation of computing resources (processor, memory, input/output, storage, etc.), combinations thereof, and the like. Alternatively or additionally, contextual information in the AS may include context obtainable from one or more sensors, such as the location of service provider 102n (e.g., obtained using a global positioning system), the mobility of service provider 102n (e.g., from an accelerometer), power information (e.g., battery life), policies or Service Level Agreement (SLA) constraints” and Paragraph 0038 recites, “TEM 314 may cause service provider 102n to send an attestation signal to client 101 that includes information about the instantiated containers/realms”. As a result, the arguments are not persuasive and the rejection is maintained.
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 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) 1-3, 5-8, 10-11, 13-14 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Smith (US 2014/0096182 A1), hereinafter, “Smith”.
Regarding Claims 1, 6 and 11, discloses a method, corresponding computing device and computer program product for securing a tenant container, the computing device being adapted for comprising:
processing circuitry (See, Fig. 3, Numeral 310);
at least one memory (See, Fig. 3, Numeral 312) connected to the processing circuitry and storing program code that is executed by the processing circuitry to perform operations comprising:
identifying collection of information from the tenant container by an endpoint agent resident on the computing device during execution of the tenant container (See, Paragraph 0036, “TTEM 314 when executed by processor 310 may cause service provider to, in response to receiving a TTIS, send an attestation signal (AS) to client 101” and Paragraph 0038, “In instances where a TTIS includes security and/or compartmentalization context, TEM 314 may cause service provider 102n to instantiate containers/realms pertinent to such context. By way of example, if a TTIS specifies that data associated with a trusted task is subject to multi-level security policy that classifies some of the data as top secret, other data as sensitive, and still other data as unclassified, TEM 314 may cause service provider 102n to initiate containers/realms in its TEE for each of the top secret data, the sensitive data, and the unclassified data. Each container/realm may be affiliated with associated resources, e.g., storage resources, processing resources, network resources, combinations thereof, and the like. Subsequently, TEM 314 may cause service provider 102n to send an attestation signal to client 101 that includes information about the instantiated containers/realms. In some embodiments, the containers/realms are instantiated to a degree that is sufficient to allow attestation to the client of the service provider's ability to maintain such containers/realms in a TEE”) and Paragraph 0037 recites, “Prior to sending an AS to client 101, service provider 102n may initiate its TEE environment for the purpose of supporting the attestation process. More specifically, TEM 314 may cause service provider 102n to instantiate enough of its TEE environment to support attestation, i.e., to support a representation to client 101 of its TEE capabilities”);
extracting a summary of collected information (See, Paragraph 0036, “The AS may include information that may affect client 101's decision to schedule the trusted task on service provider 102n capabilities to the client. For example, the AS may include information attesting to the nature and type of TEE(s) on service provider 102n. In addition, the AS may include contextual information relevant to the trusted task. Non-limiting examples of such contextual information include the service provider's expected allocation of computing resources (processor, memory, input/output, storage, etc.), combinations thereof, and the like. Alternatively or additionally, contextual information in the AS may include context obtainable from one or more sensors, such as the location of service provider 102n (e.g., obtained using a global positioning system), the mobility of service provider 102n (e.g., from an accelerometer), power information (e.g., battery life), policies or Service Level Agreement (SLA) constraints” and Paragraph 0038 recites, “TEM 314 may cause service provider 102n to send an attestation signal to client 101 that includes information about the instantiated containers/realms”); and
signing the summary of the collected information using a signing key (See, Fig. 5, “Service Provider Attestation Module” and Paragraph 0070, “In any case, the service provider 102n may sign its attestation proof with in appropriate private key, e.g., ID-E, if it wishes to remain anonymous. Like ID-C, the nature of ID-E may vary depending on the TEE capabilities of service provider 102n. For example, where service provider 102n's TEE is configured to use secure enclave, ID-E may be the private EPID of service provider 102n. Likewise if service provider 102n is equipped to provide a TEE using virtualization (as in the case of a trusted platform module), ID-E may take the form of an AIK”),
wherein the signing key is not accessible to one or more processes that are being executed on the computing device (See, Paragraph 0070, “the service provider 102n may sign its attestation proof with in appropriate private key, e.g., ID-E, if it wishes to remain anonymous. Like ID-C, the nature of ID-E may vary depending on the TEE capabilities of service provider 102n. For example, where service provider 102n's TEE is configured to use secure enclave, ID-E may be the private EPID of service provider 102n. Likewise if service provider 102n is equipped to provide a TEE using virtualization (as in the case of a trusted platform module), ID-E may take the form of an AIK”),
wherein at least some of the information collected from the tenant container by the endpoint agent is accessible for extraction of the summary of the collected information (See, Paragraph 0051, “The method may then proceed to block 411, wherein the client analyzes the attestation proof offered by the service provider and determines whether an acceptable TEE can be instantiated on the service provider”).
Regarding Claims 2, 7 and 13, the rejection of claims 1, 6 and 11 is incorporated and Smith further discloses transmit the signed summary to one or more of: a tenant associated with the tenant container and a vendor associated with the tenant container (See, Paragraphs 0014 and 0038).
Regarding Claims 3, 8 and 14, the rejection of claims 1, 6 and 11 is incorporated and Smith further discloses wherein identify the collection of information related to the tenant container further comprises: determine one or more rules applied by the endpoint agent for collecting the information from the tenant container during execution of the tenant container (See, Paragraph 0044-0045).
Regarding Claims 5, 10 and 16, the rejection of claims 1, 6 and 11 is incorporated and Smith further discloses wherein the information from the tenant container comprises at least one of metadata, events, and alerts related to multiple software processes, relationships between the software processes, private data, Personal Identifiable Information (PII), operation of the computing device, and operating system configuration changes (See, Paragraph 0036 and 0069).
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 4, 9 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Smith in view of Yu et al. (US 2020/0349252 A1), hereinafter, “Yu”.
Regarding Claims 4, 9 and 15, the rejection of claims 1, 6 and 11 is incorporated and Smith further discloses whereby execution of the program code causes the computing device to perform further operations comprising: transmitting the summary of the collected information to the tenant or the vendor of the container (See, Paragraph 0083); but does not explicitly disclose receiving a request for inspecting of the summary from a tenant or vendor of the container and receiving an indication related to verification of the authenticity of the summary from the tenant or the vendor of the container (See, Paragraphs 0053, 0087 and 0108).
Yu discloses receiving a request for inspecting of a summary from a tenant or vendor of a container and receiving an indication related to verification of the authenticity of the summary from the tenant or the vendor of the container (See, Paragraphs 0049, 0071, 0053, 0087 and 0108).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to receive, in the system of Smith, a request for inspecting of a summary from a tenant or vendor of a container and receiving an indication related to verification of the authenticity of the summary from the tenant or the vendor of the container as taught by Yu in order to perform an attestation process is performed to verify (prove) that the TEE is operating as expected, and is executing the code that is expected to be executed therein (See, Yu, Paragraph 0004).
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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