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
This is a reply to the application filed on 10/07/2024, in which, claim(s) 1-19 are pending. Claim(s) 1 and 18-19 are independent.
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d). Receipt is acknowledged of papers submitted under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d), which papers have been placed of record in the file.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 10/07/2024, has been reviewed. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the examiner is considering the information disclosure statement.
Drawings
The drawings filed on 10/07/2024 are accepted by The Examiner.
Claim Objections
Claims 1, 2 and 18-19 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 1 and claims 18-19 limitation “based on the number of second communication terminals” should be “based on a number of second communication terminals” as the term “number of second communication terminals” is mentioned the very first time in the claims 1, 18 and 19.
Claim 2 limitation “to calculate a high reliability based on the number of communication terminals” should be “to calculate a high reliability based on a number of communication terminals” as the term “number of communication terminals” is mentioned the very first time in the claim 2 and the parent claim 1.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-17 and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Claim 1 recites “An information processing apparatus” in the preamble and "a calculating unit” and “a determining unit”, in the claim body. As recited in the body of the claim, the claimed apparatus lacks a structural component because the unit can be implemented as software only. Therefore, claim 1 is directed to non-statutory subject matter for lack of a hardware component. The Examiner respectfully suggests that the claim be further amended to positively recite at least one hardware element within the body of the claim to make the claim statutory subject matter under 35 U.S.C. 101 such as “a calculating circuitry” and “a determining circuitry”.
Dependent claims 2-17 don't cure the deficiency of claim 1 and are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 for their dependency upon claim 1.
Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter recited in 35 U.S.C. 101 (process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter) because claim 19 recites “A program that causes a computer to realize” in the preamble and "a calculation function” and “a determination function”, in the claim body. Therefore, claim 19 is directed to software (a non-statutory subject matter). The Examiner respectfully suggests that the claim be further amended to positively recite at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter such as “A communication terminal comprising one or more hardware processors to execute:”.
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 of this title, 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.
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.
Claims 1, 18, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yonggang et al. (CN106897901A, cited by applicant in the 10/07/2024 IDS) in view of Shweta Jain (US 2020/0336907 A1).
Regarding Claims 1, 18, and 19, Yonggang discloses an information processing apparatus, comprising:
a calculating unit configured to calculate, based on the number of second communication terminals having generated a location proof of a first communication terminal, a reliability of the location proof (Abstract, “In the location proof generation stage, when a prover (P) starts to use the bicycle or finish the use of the bicycle, a broadcast recruitment request is sent to multiple witnesses (W) (as number of second communication terminals) nearby, the Ws around makes a response to the request of the P, the P distributes sub-secrets of the P to the Ws through a secure channel, the Ws embed the received sub-secrets into a location proof generated for the P and the location proof is returned to P”, refer to Fig. 1, W1, W2 and W3 provides different location proof to P); and
a determining unit configured to determine, based on the calculated reliability, a presence or absence of authenticity of the location proof of the first communication terminal (Abstract, “In the location proof verification stage, before the P needs to perform fee settlement with a verifier (V), the P makes a statement that the P is in a specific place at a specific time for the V, The V and a security certificate authority (CA) verify the truthfulness of the position and the time in the statement subsequently”, i.e., to determine the authenticity of the location proof, see also Fig. 1),
Yonggang does not explicitly teach but Jain teaches
a location proof is a location certificate ([0007], “a location certificate”),
Yonggang and Jain are analogous art as they are in the same field of endeavor of information security. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Jain with the disclosure of Yonggang. The motivation/suggestion would have been for validating the location context (Jain, [0007]).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 2 is objected to as being dependent upon rejected base claim 1, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim 1.
Claims 3-17 are allowable in view of their dependencies on claim 2.
Claim 2 is allowable over prior arts (Yonggang et al. (CN106897901A, cited by applicant in the 10/07/2024 IDS) in view of Shweta Jain (US 2020/0336907 A1)) since the prior arts taken individually or in combination fails to particular discloses, fairly suggest or render obvious the following italic limitations:
calculate a high reliability based on the number of communication terminals of which the reliability is high as compared to reliability based on the number of communication terminals of which the reliability is low.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHENG-FENG HUANG whose telephone number is (571)272-6186. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday: 9 am - 5 pm.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Eleni A Shiferaw can be reached at (571) 272-3867. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/CHENG-FENG HUANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2497
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