DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for foreign priority based on an application filed in France on July 28, 2023. It is noted that applicant requested the office to obtain the certified copy of the foreign application through the priority document exchange. The office made an attempt to obtain the certified copy of the foreign application through the priority document exchange on December 28, 2024 but unfortunately the retrieval was unsuccessful.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement filed July 26, 2024 has been placed in the application file and the information referred to therein has been considered as to the merits.
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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-5 and 7-13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by US patent 12,393,651 granted to Yogerst et al.
Regarding claim 1, Yogerst meets the claimed limitations as follows:
“A method for rendering a code implemented by a first mobile apparatus, characterized by comprising:
obtaining a digital certificate; obtaining information representing a time and/or a location;” {see column 7, lines 18-42};
“obtaining a code generated using a code generating model based on the information representing the time and/or the location;” {see column 7, line 63 to column 8, line 3 (process images suitable for input into machine learning models); and column 8, lines 36-60}
“and displaying the code along with at least one element that is comprised in the digital certificate on a display of the first mobile apparatus, the code generating model being a deep generative model and the entropy of the code is lower than a given threshold, the code being a graphical code displayed as a background of the digital certificate.” {see column 2, lines 55-58} and Figures 1 and 4.
Examiner Note
The claimed certificate is considered to be equivalent to the digital ID documents in the Yogerst reference (see page 11, lines 16-19 of applicant’s specification).
The claimed code is considered to be equivalent to the time-based marker in the Yogerst reference (see page 2, lines 2-14 of applicant’s specification).
Regarding claim 2, Yogerst meets the claimed limitations as follows:
“The method according to claim 1, wherein generating the code comprises: inputting the information representing the time and/or the location to the code generating model.” {see column 7, lines 18-24; and column 8, lines 1-3} and Figures 1 and 4.
Regarding claim 3, Yogerst meets the claimed limitations as follows:
“The method according to claim 1, wherein generating the code comprises parameterizing the code generating model using the information representing the time and/or the location.” {see column 7, line 18 to column 8, lines 3} and Figures 1 and 4.
Regarding claim 4, Yogerst meets the claimed limitations as follows:
“The method according to claim 1, further comprising, prior to obtaining the information representing the time and/or the location: receiving a user input for rendering a code, wherein the location represented by the obtained information is: an estimated location associated with the user input, a predefined area including the estimated location, or, a reference location in the predefined area; and/or, the time represented by the obtained information is: a time point associated with the user input, a period comprising the time point associated with the user input, or, a reference time point in the period.” {see column 7, line 18 to column 8, lines 1-3} and Figures 1 and 4.
Regarding claim 5, Yogerst meets the claimed limitations as follows:
“The method according to claim 1, wherein the information representing the time and/or the location comprises encrypted information produced by using a cryptographic technique.” {see column 2, lines 41-44} and Figures 1 and 4.
Regarding claim 7, Yogerst meets the claimed limitations as follows:
“The method according to claim 1, wherein the information representing the time comprises a time code; and/or the information representing the location comprises information identifying a geolocation, or, information identifying a Bluetooth beacon or a base station.” {see column 7, lines 18-26} and Figures 1 and 4.
Regarding claim 8, Yogerst meets the claimed limitations as follows:
“The method according to claim 1, further comprising, prior to the displaying step: combining the code and the at least one element that is comprised in the digital certificate to obtain a combined image.” {see column 11, line 40 to column 12, line 3}.
Regarding claim 9, Yogerst meets the claimed limitations as follows:
“A method for authenticating a digital certificate, comprising the method according to claim 1, and further comprising following steps implemented by a second mobile apparatus: obtaining the information representing the time and/or the location, obtaining a second code generated using the code generating model based on the information, and displaying the second code on a display of the second mobile apparatus, wherein the second code is same as the code.” {see column 11, line 40 to column 12, line 3}.
Regarding claim 10, Yogerst meets the claimed limitations as follows:
“The method according to claim 9, further comprises: displaying an option to display a third code, or, displaying a third code, wherein the third code is generated by using the model based on information that represents an adjacent time and/or an adjacent location, the adjacent time being a time adjacent to the time represented by the obtained information or adjacent to a current time, the adjacent location being a location adjacent to the location represented by the obtained information or adjacent to a current location.” {see column 11, line 40 to column 12, line 3}.
Claim 11 is an apparatus claim that is substantially equivalent to method claim 1. Yogerst further teaches a display, a memory and a processor (see column 15, line 35 to column 16, line 7). Therefore claim 11 is rejected by a similar rationale.
Claim 12 is a system claim that is substantially equivalent to method claim 1. Yogerst further teaches a display, a memory and a processor (see column 15, line 35 to column 16, line 7). Therefore claim 12 is rejected by a similar rationale.
Claim 13 is a computer program product claim that is substantially equivalent to method claim 1. Yogerst further teaches a computer-readable media (see column 15, line 35 to column 16, line 7). Therefore claim 13 is rejected by a similar rationale.
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 (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 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.
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US patent 12,393,651 granted to Yogerst et al. and further in view of US patent publication 20210328801 granted to Sly et al.
Regarding claim 6, Yogerst discloses everything claimed as applied above (see claim 5), however Yogerst fails to specifically teach the encrypted information containing a hash value corresponding to the time and the location. In an analogous art, Sly discloses a system and method of using a digital passport for verifying the identity of a user where current geolocation signatures are generated and hashed {see Sly; paragraph [0126]}. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine Sly’s method for using a digital passport with Yogerst’s method for validating identification documents. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine the two in order to detect and prevent replay attacks by malicious actors trying to impersonate the owner of the digital ID document {see Sly; paragraph [0047]}.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MATTHEW B SMITHERS whose telephone number is (571)272-3876. The examiner can normally be reached 8:00-4:00 (Teleworking).
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/MATTHEW SMITHERS/
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2437