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
Claims 1-10 are pending in this Office Action.
Claims 1-2, 6-10 are amended.
There are no new or cancelled claims.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement filed on 1/8/26 has been considered.
Foreign Priority
The foreign priority documents have NOT been received or entered.
If perfected, the application would claim to a priority date of 3/4/22.
The 35 U.S.C. 112(b) rejection is withdrawn based on applicant’s amendments.
Examiner suggested amendment
Due to the saturation of mature art in the area of dynamic code authentication, the examiner suggestions further detailing the first and second codes from the instant specification para 186 with any details of the enable/disable functions of the equipment in claim 6.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed in the amendment filed 1/8/26, have been fully considered but are moot in view of new grounds of rejection. The reasons set forth below.
Applicant’s invention as claimed:
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1-10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US Patent Publication 2016/0112412 by Roth et al. in view of U.S. Patent Publication No. 2016/0055322 by Thomas.
Regarding claim 1, the Roth reference teaches:
1. An industrial control apparatus which performs dynamic authentication code-based authentication (Roth: page 1, para 3), comprising:
a processor configured to:
perform communication with a user terminal and a central server (Roth: page 3, para 24); and
transmit an authentication request of a dynamic authentication code generated by the user terminal to the central server, and change an operating mode based on a result of the authentication executed by the central server (Roth: page 3, para 23-24),
wherein the central server is configured to perform the authentication of the user terminal, based on the dynamic authentication code (Roth: page 3, para 23-24),
wherein the dynamic authentication code is received from a user terminal, is input by the user through an interface apparatus, or is read through the interface apparatus (Roth: page 3, para 23-24),
wherein the dynamic authentication code is generated by using seed data and a code generation function (Roth: page 4, para 30; page 1, para 13),
wherein driving of the code generation function is initiated at a point in time when the user is registered (Roth: page 1, para 15, page 2, para 20),
wherein the seed data includes a unique value of the user terminal or a management program installed on the user terminal, apparatus information, and time data (Roth: page 2, para 21),
wherein the unique value of the user terminal is a value for identifying the user terminal or the management program installed on the user terminal (Roth: page 2, para 21; page 1, para 13),
wherein the time data indicates a point in time when the authentication request is made or a point in time when the dynamic authentication code is generated (Roth: page 2, para 20-21).
Roth fails to teach serial numbers with the seed data.
In analogous art, the Thomas reference teaches:
wherein the apparatus information is a serial number of the industrial control apparatus (Thomas: page 4, para 61-62) in order to reduce unintended disclosure to unauthorized or unverified parties (Thomas: page 1, para 2-4).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date to combine the use of serial numbers of Thomas with the dynamic authentication of Roth in order to reduce unintended disclosure to unauthorized or unverified parties (Thomas: page 1, para 2-4).
2. The industrial control apparatus of claim 1, wherein, when the authentication is performed by the central server, the processor receives identification information of the user from the central server and performs login processing based on the identification information (Roth: page 3, para 24-25).
3. The industrial control apparatus of claim 2, wherein the dynamic authentication code includes secret data of the user terminal, and wherein the secret data are used for the central server to search for the identification information (Roth: page 4, para 37).
4. The industrial control apparatus of claim 3, wherein the secret data are a unique value which is generated by the central server when the user terminal requests registration from an application for controlling the industrial control apparatus and is allocated only to the user terminal to identify the user terminal (Thomas: page 4, para 61-62).
5. The industrial control apparatus of claim 2, wherein the identification information is a user identification (ID) which is input or generated by the user terminal when the user terminal requests registration from an application for controlling the industrial control apparatus (Roth: Figure 1, tag 111, Page 2, para 24).
6. The industrial control apparatus of claim 2, wherein, when the login is completed, the processor changes the operating mode from a disable mode to an enable mode and controls at least one field equipment based on a control command received from the user terminal in a state of the enable mode (Roth: page 3, para 23-24).
Claim 7 is rejected as being substantially similar to claim 1.
Claim 8 is rejected as being substantially similar to claim 6.
Claim 9 is rejected as being substantially similar to claim 1.
Claim 10 is rejected as being substantially similar to claim 1.
Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure:
US Patent No. 9038157 by Santiago, Jr et al.
US Patent No. 8370638 by Duane et al.
US Patent Publication No. 20140259116 by Birk et al.
US Patent Publication No. 20150312250 by Redberg et al.
US Patent Publication No. 20140373170 by Brudnicki et al.
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 BENJAMIN R BRUCKART whose telephone number is (571)272-3982. The examiner can normally be reached M-TH: 7-6p.
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BENJAMIN R. BRUCKART
Supervisory Patent Examiner
Art Unit 2424
/BENJAMIN R BRUCKART/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2424