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 .
This action is in response to the preliminary amendment filed on 3/27/2025. Claims 7-25 are pending and have been considered below.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 7,8,10-12,14,16-17,19-20,23-24 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang et al. (CN 110830396; see attached translation) in view of Ji et al. (US 2019/334651).
Regarding claim 7:
Wang discloses a system and method, applied to a network device (abstract; figures; para 72), wherein the method comprises:
broadcasting a system information (para 88, partially reproduced herein with emphasis {base station sends a random access response, its physical signal is transmitted on a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH)} [i.e. information is broadcasted over shared channel]; see para 87), indicating channel key generation, wherein the system information comprises a preamble and a resource configuration of a physical random access channel (para 87 {random access response consists of a preamble identifier, a tracking area (TA) adjustment, an uplink authorization});
receiving, on the physical random access channel, a first message from a user equipment, wherein the first message comprises the preamble (para 85 {mobile terminal (UE in FIG. 4) sends a random access request to the base station (gNB in FIG. 4) after completing network selection and cell selection, and starts a random access process. The form of a random access request is a preamble frame, which consists of a cyclic prefix, a preamble, and a protection timestamp}; para 86 {when a mobile terminal sends a random access request, its physical signal is transmitted in a physical random access channel (PRACH)});
sending a second message to the user equipment, wherein the second message comprises configuration information of a first time-frequency resource (see para 89 {base station and the mobile terminal analyze their own received signals at the physical layer and perform channel estimation to obtain their own channel characteristic information, including intensity characteristic information and phase characteristic information}; para 90 {In the third step, it is assumed that the frequency domain response of the transmission sequence…});
receiving, on the first time-frequency resource, a third message from the user equipment (para 89-90; para 105-106 { mobile terminal performs channel estimation and extracts channel characteristics … base station performs channel estimation and extracts channel features through the base station channel feature extraction module shown in FIG. 3, and outputs the strength feature information and phase feature information used to quantize the key bits and sends them to the base station quantization module shown}; para 107 {quantize and generate the initial key bits according to the strength feature information and phase feature information}); and
performing channel measurement based on the third message, to obtain a channel key, wherein data encryption and integrity protection between the network device and the user equipment is performed, based on the channel key, before a security mode is enabled (para 122 {One-way Hash functions can be implemented using algorithms such as MD5, SHA-1, SHA-2, and SHA-3}; para 123 { In the ninth step, the mobile terminal and the base station perform security enhancement processing on the extracted information bits KA and KA ′, respectively, to obtain the final physical layer key}; para 124 { In the ninth step, the security enhancement is still implemented by a one-way hash function}; para 128 {uses the physical layer key to encrypt the IMSI and other private information}; figures; and see throughout the disclosure).
Wang discloses all of the subject matter as described above, except for specifically teaching that system information indicating that channel key generation is supported
However, Ji in the same field of endeavor discloses a system and method for message transmission where system information block (SIB) indicating that channel key generation is supported (para 272 { base station sends, to the terminal, indication information used to indicate a manner of scrambling the first channel/first information}; para 273 {… includes: The indication information may be used to indicate a manner of determining a scrambling code initialization seed of the first channel/first information and/or a scrambling code initialization method}; para 275 {indication information may be located in a system message (a MIB or a SIB), and be sent by the base station to the terminal by using a PBCH or a PDSCH}; and see throughout the disclosure).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use teachings of Ji in Wang in order to improve anti interference capability in message transmission [5,6] (KSR: Combining Prior Art Elements According to Known Methods to Yield Predictable Results).
Regarding claim 8:
Wang and Ji disclose all of the subject matter as described above and wherein the method further comprises: determining, based on the first message, that the user equipment has a channel key generation capability (Ji, para 272-275; and throughout).
Regarding claim 10:
Wang and Ji disclose all of the subject matter as described above and wherein performing the channel measurement based on the third message, to obtain the channel key comprises: performing the channel measurement based on a demodulation reference signal in the second message, to obtain the channel key (Wang, para 13,36; para 46 [perform channel estimation on the mobile terminal and extract the channel features]; and throughout).
Regarding claim 11:
Wang and Ji disclose all of the subject matter as described above and wherein the user equipment performs the channel measurement based on the second message to obtain the channel key (para 46 {perform channel estimation on the mobile terminal and extract the channel features, output the strength feature information and phase feature information used to quantize the key}; para 89-90; and throughout disclosure).
Regarding claim 12:
Wang and Ji disclose all of the subject matter as described above and wherein performing the channel measurement based on the third message, to obtain the channel key comprises: extracting a channel feature; and generating the channel key based on the channel feature (para 89-90; para 105-106 { mobile terminal performs channel estimation and extracts channel characteristics … base station performs channel estimation and extracts channel features through the base station channel feature extraction module shown in FIG. 3, and outputs the strength feature information and phase feature information used to quantize the key}; and see throughout).
Regarding claim 14:
Wang discloses a system and method, applied to a user equipment (figures; abstract), wherein the method comprises:
receiving a system information (para 87; para 88 {base station sends a random access response, its physical signal is transmitted on a physical downlink shared channel (PDSCH)} [i.e. information is broadcasted over shared channel]), wherein the system information indicates that a network device supports channel key generation, and the system information block comprises a preamble and a resource configuration of a physical random access channel (para 87 {random access response consists of a preamble identifier, a tracking area (TA) adjustment, an uplink authorization});
sending, on the physical random access channel, a first message to the network device, wherein the first message comprises the preamble (para 85 {mobile terminal (UE in FIG. 4) sends a random access request to the base station (gNB in FIG. 4) after completing network selection and cell selection, and starts a random access process. The form of a random access request is a preamble frame, which consists of a cyclic prefix, a preamble, and a protection timestamp}; para 86 {when a mobile terminal sends a random access request, its physical signal is transmitted in a physical random access channel (PRACH)});
receiving a second message from the network device, wherein the second message comprises configuration information of a first time-frequency resource (para 89 {base station and the mobile terminal analyze their own received signals at the physical layer and perform channel estimation to obtain their own channel characteristic information, including intensity characteristic information and phase characteristic information}; para 90 {In the third step, it is assumed that the frequency domain response of the transmission sequence…});
performing channel measurement based on the second message, to obtain a channel key, wherein data encryption and integrity protection between the network device and the user equipment is performed, based on the channel key, before a security mode is enabled (para 122 {One-way Hash functions can be implemented using algorithms such as MD5, SHA-1, SHA-2, and SHA-3}; para 123 { In the ninth step, the mobile terminal and the base station perform security enhancement processing on the extracted information bits KA and KA ′, respectively, to obtain the final physical layer key}; para 124 { In the ninth step, the security enhancement is still implemented by a one-way hash function}; para 128 {uses the physical layer key to encrypt the IMSI and other private information}; figures); and
sending, on the first time-frequency resource, a third message to the network device (para 89-90; para 105-106 { mobile terminal performs channel estimation and extracts channel characteristics … base station performs channel estimation and extracts channel features through the base station channel feature extraction module shown in FIG. 3, and outputs the strength feature information and phase feature information used to quantize the key bits and sends them to the base station quantization module shown}; para 107 {quantize and generate the initial key bits according to the strength feature information and phase feature information}; and see throughout the disclosure).
Wang discloses all of the subject matter as described above, except for specifically teaching that system information indicating that channel key generation is supported
However, Ji in the same field of endeavor discloses a system and method for message transmission where system information block (SIB) indicating that channel key generation is supported (para 272 { base station sends, to the terminal, indication information used to indicate a manner of scrambling the first channel/first information}; para 273 {… includes: The indication information may be used to indicate a manner of determining a scrambling code initialization seed of the first channel/first information and/or a scrambling code initialization method}; para 275 {indication information may be located in a system message (a MIB or a SIB), and be sent by the base station to the terminal by using a PBCH or a PDSCH}; and see throughout the disclosure).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to use teachings of Ji in Wang in order to improve anti interference capability in message transmission [5,6] (KSR: Combining Prior Art Elements According to Known Methods to Yield Predictable Results).
Regarding claim 16:
Wang and Ji disclose all of the subject matter as described above and wherein the network device performs the channel measurement based on the third message to obtain the channel key (Wang, para 13,36; para 46 [perform channel estimation on the mobile terminal and extract the channel features]; figures; and see throughout).
Regarding claim 19:
Wang and Ji disclose all of the subject matter as described above in claim 14, and further disclose a communication apparatus (Wang, apparatus shown in figure 1-3 [essentially have processor and memory]), comprising at least one processor (Ji, para 296-299); at least one memory configured to store computer program code comprises instructions, when executed (Ji, para 350,357-359; figures 4-8; and throughout), perform the functions as described above, thus claim 19 is rejected with similar rationale under the combined teachings of the prior art as above.
Regarding claims 17 and 24:
Wang and Ji disclose all of the subject matter as described above and wherein performing the channel measurement based on the second message, to obtain the channel key comprises: extracting a channel feature; and generating the channel key based on the channel feature (para 89-90; para 105-106 { mobile terminal performs channel estimation and extracts channel characteristics … base station performs channel estimation and extracts channel features through the base station channel feature extraction module shown in FIG. 3, and outputs the strength feature information and phase feature information used to quantize the key}; and see throughout).
Regarding claim 20:
Wang and Ji disclose all of the subject matter as described above and determine, based on the first message, that the user equipment has a channel key generation capability (Ji, para 272-275; and throughout).
Regarding claim 23:
Wang and Ji disclose all of the subject matter as described above and wherein the user equipment performs the channel measurement based on the second message to obtain the channel key (para 46 {perform channel estimation on the mobile terminal and extract the channel features, output the strength feature information and phase feature information used to quantize the key}; para 89-90; and throughout disclosure).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 9,13,15,18,21,22,25 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.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Dai et al. (US 2024/0137758) discloses a system and method for physical channel encryption in wireless networks.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HIRDEPAL SINGH whose telephone number is (571)270-1688. The examiner can normally be reached 8:00-5:00 M-F.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Hannah S Wang can be reached on (571) 272-9018. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/HIRDEPAL SINGH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2631
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