DETAILED ACTION
Response to Amendment
This action is in response to amendment filed April 28, 2026 for the application # 18/795,728 filed on August 06, 2024. Claims 1-20 are pending and are directed toward CRYPTOGRAPHICALLY SECURE MECHANISM FOR REMOTELY CONTROLLING AN AUTONOMOUS VEHICLE.
Any claim objection/rejection not repeated below is withdrawn due to Applicant's amendment.
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 . 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.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with regards to claims 1-20 have been fully considered, but they are moot because of new grounds of rejection.
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, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11, 12, 14, 15, and 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Canavor et al. (US 2016/0285863, Pub. Date: Sep. 29, 2016), in view of Lamm et al. (US 2016/0282864, Pub. Date: Sep. 29, 2016), hereinafter referred to as Canavor and Lamm.
As per claim 1, Canavor teaches a method comprising:
receiving, at an autonomous vehicle, a message from a remote vehicle (Generally, messages may be received with authentication information ( e.g., digital signature or other proof of access to a credential) that is specific to an originator ( e.g., unmanned aerial vehicle or command and control server) of the message and/or, if different than the originator, an entity that provided the message ( e.g., the unmanned aerial vehicle from which the message was received when that unmanned aerial vehicle did not originate the message). Canavor, [0033]), the message including a signed body portion and a triple comprising a public identifier, public key, and certificate of the remote vehicle (The unmanned aerial vehicle certificate may be a structured collection of data that includes or otherwise specifies the public cryptographic key. In some embodiments, the unmanned aerial vehicle digital certificate and other digital certificates described herein are X.509 certificates, although, other ways of encoding a public cryptographic key are considered as being within the scope of the present disclosure. Canavor, [0037]. Examiner NOTE: each X.509 certificate includes a public key, digital signature, and information about both the identity associated with the certificate and its issuing certificate authority);
authenticating, by the autonomous vehicle, the message by verifying the certificate of the remote vehicle (the process 700 includes receiving and authenticating 702 (e.g., determining whether to trust) a message package, such as described above. For example, determining whether to trust the message may include determining whether the digital signature is valid, whether the digital certificate is trusted, whether the digital certificate is otherwise valid (e.g., unexpired) and processing content of the message. Other information, such as a TTL value and/or a time stamp of the message, may also be used to determine whether the message is trusted. Canavor, [0070]); and
executing, by the autonomous vehicle, one or more control instructions included in the signed body portion to alter operation of the autonomous vehicle (For instance, the unmanned aerial vehicle 104 may operate in accordance with a first set of executable instructions as a result of determining that the message 106 is authentic and trustworthy. The unmanned aerial vehicle 104 may execute another set of executable instructions as a result of the unmanned aerial vehicle 104 determining that the message 106 is not trustworthy. As discussed in more detail below, the various ways in which the unmanned aerial vehicle 104 can process trustworthy or untrustworthy messages may vary in accordance with various embodiments and in accordance with the specific capabilities of the unmanned aerial vehicle, Canavor, [0035]). Canavor does not teach that control instructions are in the message from the remote vehicle to manipulate one or more subsystems of the autonomous vehicle. Lamm however teaches control instructions are in the message from the remote vehicle to manipulate one or more subsystems of the autonomous vehicle (As explained below, a feature of the invention is that "remote control" of an unmanned aerial vehicle is performed by a control system on-board an autonomous ground vehicle. That is, the "remote controller" is non human. An autonomous ground vehicle provides remote control of one or more unmanned aerial vehicles. Lamm, [0017]).
Canavor in view of Lamm are analogous art to the claimed invention, because they are from a similar field of endeavor of systems, components and methodologies for providing secure communication between computer systems. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Canavor in view of Lamm in view of Kumar. This would have been desirable because This strategy effectively allows a high intelligence autonomous robot to remotely control less intelligent robot(s) without human intervention (Lamm, [0020]).
As per claim 4, Canavor in view of Lamm teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the message is encrypted using a public key of the autonomous vehicle and the autonomous vehicle decrypts the message using its private key (Canavor, [0110]).
As per claim 5, Canavor in view of Lamm teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the public identifier in the triple is derived from unique physical characteristics of the remote vehicle (Canavor, [0111]).
As per claim 7, Canavor in view of Lamm teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising the autonomous vehicle transmitting an acknowledgement message back to the remote vehicle indicating receipt and execution of the one or more control instructions (Canavor, [0090]).
Claims 8, 11, 12, 14, 15, and 18-20 have limitations similar to those treated in the above rejection, and are met by the references as discussed above, and are rejected for the same reasons of obviousness as used above.
Claims 2, 6, 9, 13, and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Canavor et al. (US 2016/0285863, Pub. Date: Sep. 29, 2016), in view of Lamm et al. (US 2016/0282864, Pub. Date: Sep. 29, 2016), in view of Kumar et al. (US 10,250,383, Filed: Sep. 21, 2018), hereinafter referred to as Canavor, Lamm and Kumar.
As per claim 2, Canavor in view of Lamm teaches the method of claim 1, but does not teach blockchain, Kumar, however teaches further comprising logging the message into a blockchain data structure after authenticating the message (The Domain Key Broker may store transactions in a local database and dispatch events to a distributed ledger as a network peer of a blockchain service. Kumar, Column 2, lines 7-10).
Canavor in view of Lamm in view of Kumar are analogous art to the claimed invention, because they are from a similar field of endeavor of systems, components and methodologies for providing secure communication between computer systems. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Canavor in view of Lamm in view of Kumar. This would have been desirable because there is a need for a decentralized, distributed and dynamic mechanism to authenticate a IoT device (Kumar, Column 1, lines 32-34).
As per claim 6, Canavor in view of Lamm teaches the method of claim 1, but does not teach TLS, Kumar, however teaches wherein the message is transmitted over a secure channel established using transport layer security (TLS) between the autonomous vehicle and remote vehicle (The communications between a domain key agent 105 and domain key service 106 may be configured to occur on a IoT gateway address for the domain 101 associated with the SSID 361, well-known service port and transport protocol such as for example the Transport Layer Security (TLS). Kumar, Column 4, lines 52-57).
Canavor in view of Lamm in view of Kumar are analogous art to the claimed invention, because they are from a similar field of endeavor of systems, components and methodologies for providing secure communication between computer systems. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Canavor in view of Lamm in view of Kumar. This would have been desirable because the two unmanned aerial vehicles may mutually authenticate one another in a handshake process to establish a cryptographically protected communications session (e.g., an encrypted communications session) and, the handshake process may fail unless both unmanned aerial vehicles do not successfully authenticate to one another (Canavor, [0094]).
Claims 9, 13, and 16 have limitations similar to those treated in the above rejection, and are met by the references as discussed above, and are rejected for the same reasons of obviousness as used above.
Claims 3, 10, and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Canavor et al. (US 2016/0285863, Pub. Date: Sep. 29, 2016), in view of Lamm et al. (US 2016/0282864, Pub. Date: Sep. 29, 2016), in view of LIN et al.: (GSIS: A SECURE AND PRIVACY-PRESERVING PROTOCOL FOR VEHICULAR COMMUNICATIONS, IEEE, pages 3442-3456, NOVEMBER 2007), hereinafter referred to as Canavor, Lamm and LIN.
As per claim 3, Canavor in view of Lamm teaches the method of claim 1, but does not teach an emergency vehicle, LIN, however teaches wherein the remote vehicle is an emergency vehicle and the autonomous vehicle is a non-emergency vehicle (Note that, with IBC, any string can serve as a valid public key for an RSU or an emergency vehicle, such as the location of the RSU, the unique number and the code of the RSU, or the emergency vehicle’s license plate number, LIN, page 3443).
Canavor in view of Lamm in view of LIN are analogous art to the claimed invention, because they are from a similar field of endeavor of systems, components and methodologies for providing secure communication between computer systems. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Canavor in view of Lamm in view of LIN. This would have been desirable because by adopting any publicly known ID of an RSU or an emergency vehicle, such as the location of the RSU or the emergency vehicle’s license plate number, as the public key, the certificate management in the VANETs can greatly be simplified as compared with that in the traditional public key infrastructure (LIN, page 3443).
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 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 date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to OLEG KORSAK whose telephone number is (571)270-1938. The examiner can normally be reached on 5:00 AM- 4:00 PM.
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/OLEG KORSAK/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2492
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