DETAILED ACTION
Response to Amendment
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
This is in reply to papers filed on 2026-01-27. Claims 1-20 are pending. Claims 1, 8, 15 is/are independent.
The objections to informalities in the claims are withdrawn in view of Applicant’s amendments, but note new objections set forth below.
The rejection(s) of claims under 35 U.S.C. § 112 are withdrawn in view of Applicant’s amendments, but note new rejections set forth below.
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).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments have been fully considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection.
With respect to claim(s) 1 (see page(s) 10 of Applicant’s Remarks), Applicant argues that the amended claims are not indefinite. However, as detailed below in the rejections under 35 U.S.C. § 112, the claim as amended is self-contradictory and indefinite. The recent amendments have not resolved the issue and have made the conflict more stark. Accordingly, this argument is found unpersuasive.
With respect to claim(s) 1 (see page(s) 11-13 of Applicant’s Remarks), Applicant argues that the prior art of record (in particular, U.S. Patent 8634560 to Ng et al. (hereinafter "Ng '560")) does not disclose various aspects of an agent independent of an application where the agent handles authentications and secret renewals for the application. However, claim(s) 1, 8, and 15 (and by extension, dependent claims , 2-7, 9-14, 16-20), as best understood, cannot be examined with respect to the prior art because undue confusion and uncertainty exist as to the proper interpretation of the limitations. See In re Steele, 305 F.2d 859, 134 USPQ 292 (CCPA 1962) (rejection under 35 U.S.C. 103 should not be based on considerable speculation about the meaning of terms employed in a claim or assumptions that must be made as to the scope). See also MPEP § 2173.06. Examiner notes that new grounds of rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 103 (perhaps over Ng '560 in view of U.S. Publication 20170012953 to Ylonen (hereinafter "Ylonen '953")) should be expected if the current rejections under 35 U.S.C. 112 are cured. Ylonen '953 explicitly discloses an independent agent on a client node [Ylonen '953 ¶ 0167, 0323] that performs authentication operations [Ylonen '953 ¶ 0318] and credential renewals [Ylonen '953 ¶ 0271, 0541-0585] for an application [Ylonen '953 ¶ 0159, 0286, 0810-0813].
For all these reasons, Applicant's arguments are found unpersuasive.
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the remaining claim(s) is/are based on Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1 and have been considered as detailed above.
Claim Objections
Claim(s) 1-7 is/are objected to because of the following informalities: The examiner suggests the following corrections:
Claim(s) 1 et seq.:
Replacement of "secrete" with "secret" everywhere it occurs
Dependent claims 2-7 are objected to for the reasons presented above with respect to objected claims 1 and in view of their dependence thereon.
Claim Rejections - 35 U.S.C. § 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.
Claim(s) 1-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. § 112 ¶ 2 (pre-AIA ) as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
Claim 1 recites (with emphasis added):
periodically polling, by a credentials management component associated with the agent, a secrets management service (“SMS”), deployed in the distributed computing platform, for a renewed version of the secret, wherein the polling comprises providing the SMS with metadata identifying a current version of the secret,
wherein the SMS automatically renews the secret pursuant to a specified rollover policy and determines, based on the metadata identifying the current version of the secret on the node, whether to distribute the renewed version of the secret to the node, without being promoted by the node . . .
This situation is self-contradictory. The polling transmission from the node comprising the metadata is a prompt from the node. When the SMS determines, based on that metadata, to distribute the new secret, the SMS is necessarily acting in response to a prompt from the node, which the claim forbids it to do. These requirements cannot be reconciled, leaving a person having ordinary skill in the art unable to determine what the Applicant does and does not regard as the invention. See Ex parte Kenichi Miyazaki, 89 U.S.P.Q. 2d 1207, *11 (BPAI 2008).
Claims 8, 15 suffer the same defects as claim 1 mutadis mutandis.
Dependent claims 2-7, 9-14, 16-20 are rejected for the reasons presented above with respect to rejected claims 1, 8, 15 and in view of their dependence thereon.
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 extension fee 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 THEODORE C PARSONS whose telephone number is (571)270-1475. The examiner can normally be reached on MTWRF 7:30-4:30.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jung Kim can be reached on (571) 272-3804. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/THEODORE C PARSONS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2494
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