DETAILED ACTION
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
2. Claims 21-40 are pending. Claims 21, 34 and 38 are independent.
3 Two IDSes submitted on 7/31/2024 and 5/8/2026 have been considered.
Claim Objections
4. Claim 37 is objected for incorrect claim dependency. Claim 37, which is currently depending on claim 35, recites “the two-bit value” (emphasis added). However, claim 35 does not include the recited two-bit value but claim 36 introduces “a two-bit value”; therefore, claim 37 has incorrect claim dependency and should be amended to depend on claim 36.
5. Claims 22-24, 26-28, 30-33 and 36-37 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. Claim 21 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sierra (US PG Pub. 2020/0336303) in view of Everson (US PG Pub. 2022/0321545).
As regarding claim 21, Sierra discloses One or more non-transitory, computer-readable media having instructions that, when executed, cause processing circuitry to:
generate a salt value based on a derived key from a key derivation function and a cipher seed [para. 58 and 68];
generate a nonce based on the salt value and an initialization vector [para. 68]; and
Sierra does not disclose to generate an encrypted message based on the nonce and a pair of encapsulating security payload (ESP) keys. However, Everson discloses it [para. 46-47].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the effective filing of the invention to modify Sierra’s system to further comprise the missing claim limitation, as disclosed by Everson, in order to conform to ESP protocol.
9. Claims 25 and 29 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sierra (US PG Pub. 2020/0336303) in view of Everson (US PG Pub. 2022/0321545) and further in view of Hatborn (US PG Pub. 2021/0075621).
As regarding claim 25, Sierra and Everson do not disclose that the cipher seed is a security association (SA) security parameter index (SPI). However, Hatborn discloses it [para. 36; security association index including seed].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the effective filing of the invention to modify Sierra’s system to further comprise the missing claim limitation, as disclosed by Hatborn, as one of plurality alternative security association attributes used to generate encryption/decryption key.
As regarding claim 29, Sierra, Everson and Hatborn further discloses The one or more non-transitory, computer-readable media of claim 21, wherein the cipher seed is a nonce [Hatborn para. 36; security association index including nonces used to seed].
10. Claims 34 and 35 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sierra (US PG Pub. 2020/0336303) in view of Bursell (US PG Pub. 2021/0058238).
As regarding claim 34, Sierra discloses An apparatus comprising:
processing circuitry to:
generate a first salt value for a first Internet protocol security (IPsec) security association (SA) based on a first portion of a derived key from a key derivation function [para. 58];
generate a second salt value for a second IPsec SA based on a second portion of the derived key [para. 58 and 65];
Sierra does not disclose salt values for IPsec SA. However, Bursell discloses it [para. 41].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the effective filing of the invention to modify Sierra’s security protocal to further comprise IPSec protocol, as disclosed by Bursell, as an alternative security protocol among a plurality of security protocols that protect communication channels.
Sierra and Bursell further disclose that generate first and second nonces based on the first and second salt values, respectively [Sierra para. 68-69]; and
generate first and second encrypted messages based on the first and second nonces, respectively [Bursell para. 59-63]; and
interface circuitry to communicatively couple the processing circuitry with a component of a device [Sierra para. 83].
As regarding claim 35, Sierra and Bursell further disclose The apparatus of claim 34, wherein the first portion of the derived key comprises a first 32-bit portion of the derived key and the second portion of the derived key comprises a second 32-bit portion of the derived key [Bursell para. 58].
Conclusion
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/THONG TRUONG/
Examiner, Art Unit 2433
/JEFFREY C PWU/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2433
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