CTFR 18/895,224 CTFR 100858 DETAILED ACTION The objection to the specification is withdrawn based on amendments filed 03/09/2026. The 112(b) rejection is withdrawn based on the amendments filed 03/09/2026. The 101 rejection is withdrawn based on the amendments filed 03/09/2026. Claims 1-20 are pending. Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status 07-03-aia AIA 15-10-aia The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA. Response to Arguments 07-37 AIA Applicant's arguments filed 03/09/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. 07-37-08 Regarding applicant’s argument that the cited art fails to disclose a peer-to-peer structure, it is noted that the features upon which applicant relies (i.e., peer-to-peer structure) are not recited in the rejected claim(s). Although the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are not read into the claims. See In re Van Geuns , 988 F.2d 1181, 26 USPQ2d 1057 (Fed. Cir. 1993). Regarding applicant’s argument that the cited art fails to teach “computing devices that are neighbors”, Examiner respectfully disagrees. Under a broadest reasonable interpretation, Slaughter does teach “computing devices that are neighbors” at least in Fig. 1. In Figure 1, candidate CAs Certificate Authority A-C communicate via Network 132. Slaughter further elaborates that candidate CAs may be homogenous (Col. 6, lines 32-45, e.g., The candidate CAs may be homogenous (all regional CAs of a service provider) ). Therefore, the candidate CAs (computing devices) are neighbors. Regarding applicant’s argument that the cited art fails to teach “determining a candidate list based on evaluating the trust model of neighboring computing devices”, examiner respectfully disagrees. Slaughter at least in Col. 3, lines 16-34 teaches that the candidate CAs are subordinate CAs that are signed by the root CA. Hence, a trust model is formed because the subordinate CAs are verified by the root CA. Regarding applicant’s argument that the claimed subject matter includes peer computing devices that evaluate each other’s trust relationship it is noted that the features upon which applicant relies (i.e., peer computing devices that evaluate each other’s trust relationships) are not recited in the rejected claim(s). Although the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are not read into the claims. See In re Van Geuns , 988 F.2d 1181, 26 USPQ2d 1057 (Fed. Cir. 1993). Regarding applicant’s argument that “the combination of prior art systems would requirement substantial modification of the system’s architecture and would change the fundamental principle of operation” these arguments are mere allegations since Applicant did not provide a reasoning as to why the combination would require substantial modification of the system’s architecture. For all the above reasons, amended Claims 1, 12, and 20 remain rejected. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103 07-06 AIA 15-10-15 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. 07-20-aia AIA 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. 07-20-02-aia AIA 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. 07-21-aia AIA Claim (s) 1-4, 7-13, and 15-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US Patent No. 12,101,417 B1 to Slaughter et al. (Slaughter) in view of US Patent No. US 10,063,382 B1 to Mehta et al (Mehta) . Regarding claim 1, Slaughter teaches a method for renewing a digital certificate, comprising: providing a trust model that defines a chain of trust among computing devices in an enterprise environment (Slaughter Col. 3, lines 16-34, e.g., Generally, each entity is signed by the one above it in the hierarchy to create a chain of trust. The root CA is self-signed and signs all subordinate CAs immediately below it. These in turn sign the entities below them, either additional subordinate CAs or the ultimate end entity certificates ); determining, by a processor, that at least one of the computing devices is at least one of unavailable and unreachable (Slaughter Col. 5, lines 1-6, e.g., when a CA fails or when a network supporting a CA fails ); determining, by the processor, a proxy device from the computing devices based on the trust model (Slaughter Col. 5, lines 1-6, e.g., Selection may be based on other criterion such as the availability of a CA, based on having a fallback CA (e.g., when a CA fails or when a network supporting a CA fails) ) using a candidate list determined based on computing devices that are neighbors (Slaughter Col. 3, lines 16-34, e.g., In some embodiments described herein, the candidate CAs that are selected from by the certificate manager may all be subordinate to the same root CA. For example, some systems may implement separate subordinate CAs for different regions or separate subordinate CAs for certificates with ECC keys and one for RSA keys. Subordinate CAs that have the same root CA may create signed certificates having a different chain of trust than other subordinate CAs that have the same root CA. The certificates issued by the certificate management system will share a common PKI root hierarchy, in embodiments ; See also Fig. 1, e.g., CAs A-C are part of Network(s) 132) , and wherein the candidate list is determined based on an evaluation of trust models of the computing devices that are neighbors (Slaughter Col. 3, lines 16-34, e.g., Generally, each entity is signed by the one above it in the hierarchy to create a chain of trust. The root CA is self-signed and signs all subordinate CAs immediately below it. These in turn sign the entities below them, either additional subordinate CAs or the ultimate end entity certificates ); obtaining, by the processor, a [ temporary ] digital certificate from the proxy device (Slaughter Col. 2, lines 46-67, e.g., a certificate manager that processes the requests received by the interface applies a selection technique and distributes the requests to various different CAs (candidate CAs), in embodiments. The certificate manager receives back the signed certificates and transfers the signed certificates to the entity that made the request for that signed certificate ); and storing, by the processor, the [ temporary ] digital certificate to perform future authentications (Slaughter Col. 6, lines 18-31, e.g., Entities I-III in FIG. 1 may include any entity (e.g., an administrator, client, user, a subject itself, or the like) that makes certificate signing requests for or on behalf of a subject (e.g., for a domain or server, where the certificate will be stored and used, etc.) ) , and communicating, by the processor, the [ temporary ] digital certificate to other computing devices in the trust model to maintain a local trust chain (Slaughter Col. 7, lines 26-32, e.g., The certificate manager responds to the certificate signing requests (made in block 202) by transferring the signed certificates (210) to the requesting entity ; Col. 3, lines 16-34, e.g., Generally, each entity is signed by the one above it in the hierarchy to create a chain of trust. The root CA is self-signed and signs all subordinate CAs immediately below it. These in turn sign the entities below them, either additional subordinate CAs or the ultimate end entity certificates ). Slaughter does not explicitly teach, but Mehta teaches the digital certificates being temporary (Mehta Col. 5-6, lines 52-67, 1-4, e.g., When the initially-selected CA is available then the certificate is obtained from the CA by the multi-CA PKI application 306 and the certificate is sent to the requestor by the multi-CA PKI application 306…… When the initially-selected CA is not available, a back-up CA is chosen by the multi-CA PKI application 306 ). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the teachings of Slaughter with the teachings of Mehta with reasonable expectation of success. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the modification for the benefit of ensuring high availability of certificate authorities (Mehta Col. 6, lines 27-34, e.g., By using the Multi-CA PKI service 306 , any client can plug-in their CA or third party CA to the Multi-CA PKI 306 . This solves the problem of tying down certificate requests to only one CA. This also ensures the high availability of PKI certificates by automatically changing over to secondary CA when the first CA is unavailable. In other words, when one CA is down, certificate service 306 can point to another CA until the main CA comes up ). Regarding claim 2, most of the limitations of this claim have been noted in the rejection of claim 1. Slaughter further teaches wherein the determining the proxy device is based on an election process among the computing devices (Slaughter Col. 2, lines 46-67, e.g., a certificate manager that processes the requests received by the interface applies a selection technique and distributes the requests to various different CAs (candidate CAs) ). Regarding claim 3, most of the limitations of this claim have been noted in the rejection of claim 2. Slaughter further teaches wherein the election process is based on parameters associated with at least one of the computing devices, and digital certificates of the computing devices (Slaughter Col. 4, lines 32-46, e.g., characteristics of the network may be used in selection of a particular CA from the group of candidate CAs ). Regarding claim 4, most of the limitations of this claim have been noted in the rejection of claim 3. Slaughter further teaches wherein the parameters include at least one of an uptime of the computing devices, and a length of expiry of the digital certificates (Slaughter Col. 4, lines 32-46, e.g., characteristics of the network may be used in selection of a particular CA from the group of candidate CAs. For example, the health of the network, availability of a particular CA on a particular network, network load being applied to a CA, and the like may be used in the selection…… Characteristics of the CAs may be used in selection from the group of candidate CAs…… Other characteristics of the CA such as availability, or a current load level being experienced at the CA may be used in the selection, in embodiments ; See also Col. 8, lines 22-62). Regarding claim 7, most of the limitations of this claim have been noted in the rejection of claim 1. Slaughter and Mehta do not explicitly teach, deleting the temporary certificate in response to the at least one computing device that is at least one of unavailable and unreachable becoming available or reachable . However, Mehta teaches pointing to another CA until the main CA comes up (Mehta Col. 6, lines 27-34, e.g., This also ensures the high availability of PKI certificates by automatically changing over to secondary CA when the first CA is unavailable. In other words, when one CA is down, certificate service 306 can point to another CA until the main CA comes up ). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified Slaughter in view of Mehta to include “deleting the temporary certificate” because Slaughter in view of Mehta teaches that relying on the other CA/certificate is only temporary until the main CA comes up, therefore when the main CA comes up, it will be used again and therefore “deleting the temporary certificate” would yield the expected result of saving storage by deleting data that is no longer needed. Regarding claim 8, most of the limitations of this claim have been noted in the rejection of claim 1 . Slaughter and Mehta do not explicitly teach deleting the local trust chain in response to that at least one commuting device that is a least one of unavailable and unreachable becoming available or reachable However, Mehta teaches pointing to another CA until the main CA comes up (Mehta Col. 6, lines 27-34, e.g., This also ensures the high availability of PKI certificates by automatically changing over to secondary CA when the first CA is unavailable. In other words, when one CA is down, certificate service 306 can point to another CA until the main CA comes up ). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified Slaughter in view of Mehta to include “deleting the local trust chain” because Slaughter in view of Mehta teaches that relying on the other CA/certificate is only temporary until the main CA comes up, therefore when the main CA comes up, it will be used again and therefore “deleting the local trust chain” would yield the expected result of saving storage by deleting data that is no longer needed. Regarding claim 9, most of the limitations of this claim have been noted in the rejection of claim 1 . Slaughter further teaches wherein the candidate list is determined based on a verification of digital certificates associated with the computing devices that are neighbors (Slaughter Col. 3, lines 16-34, e.g., Generally, each entity is signed by the one above it in the hierarchy to create a chain of trust. The root CA is self-signed and signs all subordinate CAs immediately below it. These in turn sign the entities below them, either additional subordinate CAs or the ultimate end entity certificates ). Regarding claim 10, most of the limitations of this claim have been noted in the rejection of claim 1. Slaughter further teaches wherein the determining the proxy device is based on a nomination of one computing device of the computing devices of the trust model (Slaughter Col. 8, lines 43-62, e.g., the technique may include selecting a CA based on other criteria (block 410) via round-robin, or least connections, or based characteristics of the request, characteristics of the network or characteristics of the CAs, for example). In any of the cases, once a CA has been selected, the process may return to block 402, receiving another CSR and processing is accordingly ). Regarding claim 11, most of the limitations of this claim have been noted in the rejection of claim 1. Slaughter further teaches wherein the obtaining the temporary digital certificate is based on a certificate that is self-signed with a keypair of the proxy device (Slaughter Col. 2, lines 46-67, e.g., a certificate manager that processes the requests received by the interface applies a selection technique and distributes the requests to various different CAs (candidate CAs), in embodiments. The certificate manager receives back the signed certificates and transfers the signed certificates to the entity that made the request for that signed certificate ). Regarding claim 12, Slaughter teaches a system for renewing a digital certificate, comprising: one or more processors (Slaughter Col. 10, lines 35-49, e.g., one or more processors 810 ); a computer-readable storage medium storing instructions (Slaughter Col. 11, lines 15-42, e.g., System memory 820 may be configured to store program instructions and/or data accessible by processor ) which, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to: store a trust model that defines a chain of trust among computing devices in an enterprise environment (Slaughter Col. 3, lines 16-34, e.g., each entity is signed by the one above it in the hierarchy to create a chain of trust. The root CA is self-signed and signs all subordinate CAs immediately below it. These in turn sign the entities below them, either additional subordinate CAs or the ultimate end entity certificates ). The rest of the claim limitations recite a system of the method of claim 1, and is similarly analyzed. Regarding claim 13, the claim recites a system of the method of claim 2, and is similarly analyzed. Regarding claim 15, the claim recites a system of the method of claim 7, and is similarly analyzed. Regarding claim 16, the claim recites a system of the method of claim 8, and is similarly analyzed. Regarding claim 17, the claim recites a system of the method of claim 9, and is similarly analyzed. Regarding claim 18, the claim recites a system of the method of claim 10, and is similarly analyzed. Regarding claim 19, it recites a system of the method of claim 11 and is similarly analyzed. Regarding claim 20, Slaughter teaches a computer-readable storage device storing instructions (Slaughter Col. 11, lines 15-42, e.g., System memory 820 may be configured to store program instructions and/or data accessible by processor ) which, when executed by one or more processors (Slaughter Col. 10, lines 35-49, e.g., one or more processors 810 ), cause the one or more processors to: store a trust model that defines a chain of trust among computing devices in an enterprise environment (Slaughter Col. 3, lines 16-34, e.g., Generally, each entity is signed by the one above it in the hierarchy to create a chain of trust. The root CA is self-signed and signs all subordinate CAs immediately below it. These in turn sign the entities below them, either additional subordinate CAs or the ultimate end entity certificates ). The rest of the claim limitation recites a computer-readable storage device of the system of claim 12, and is similarly analyzed . 07-21-aia AIA Claim (s) 5-6 and 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Slaughter in view of Mehta, and in further view of US 20240364677 A1 to Ezrielev et al. (Ezrielev) . Regarding claim 5, most of the limitations of this claim have been noted in the rejection of claim 2. Slaughter and Mehta do not explicitly teach, but Ezrielev teaches wherein the election process is based on votes from one or more computing devices that are weighted (Ezrielev [0051-0052], e.g., In the context of restoring the certificate of or access of the admin 122, the relevant group of voters may be the tenant admins…… the voting operation may involve multiple tenant admins and/or applications…… To increase the reliability of the voting operations, the votes of the voting entities may be given different weights. The weight of a particular voter (or vote) may be based on seniority, traffic volume, type of authentication, possession of an irrevocable digital asset, or the like or combination thereof ). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the combined teachings of Slaughter and Mehta with the teachings of Ezrielev with reasonable expectation of success. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make the modification for the benefit of quick validation while also upholding the required security measures (Ezrielev [0065], e.g., Advantageously, instead of performing an arduous process to reinstate the admin, existing users, such as the tenant admins, can quickly validate the entity claiming to be the admin while maintaining required security measures ). Regarding claim 6, most of the limitations of this claim have been noted in the rejection of claim 2. Slaughter and Mehta do not explicitly teach, but Ezrielev teaches wherein the election process is based on a defined communication port (Ezrielev [0049], e.g., The tenant admins 124 and 126 may vote by accessing a certain URL, selecting “yes” or “no” on a webpage presented by the voting engine 120, or in other manner. The voting may be achieved using a digital questionnaire or in another manner. The voting engine 120 may collect and tabulate the votes and if the decision to reinstate is affirmative, initiate the installation of the new certificate for the admin 122 . See also paragraphs [0059] and [0061]; Note URLs contain a communication protocol (e.g., http, https) which use a default communication port (e.g., 80, 443)). The motivation to combine is the same as that of claim 5. Regarding claim 14, most of the limitations of this claim have been noted in the rejection of claim 13. Slaughter further teaches wherein the election process is based on at least one of parameters associated with at least one of the computing devices, and digital certificates of the computing devices (Slaughter Col. 4, lines 32-46, e.g., characteristics of the network may be used in selection of a particular CA from the group of candidate CAs ), [ votes from the computing devices that are weighted, and a defined communication port ]. Slaughter and Mehta do not explicitly teach, but Ezrielev teaches votes from the computing devices that are weighted (Ezrielev [0051-0052], e.g., In the context of restoring the certificate of or access of the admin 122, the relevant group of voters may be the tenant admins…… the voting operation may involve multiple tenant admins and/or applications…… To increase the reliability of the voting operations, the votes of the voting entities may be given different weights. The weight of a particular voter (or vote) may be based on seniority, traffic volume, type of authentication, possession of an irrevocable digital asset, or the like or combination thereof ), and a defined communication port (Ezrielev [0049], e.g., The tenant admins 124 and 126 may vote by accessing a certain URL, selecting “yes” or “no” on a webpage presented by the voting engine 120, or in other manner. The voting may be achieved using a digital questionnaire or in another manner. The voting engine 120 may collect and tabulate the votes and if the decision to reinstate is affirmative, initiate the installation of the new certificate for the admin 122 . See also paragraphs [0059] and [0061]; Note URLs contain a communication protocol (e.g., http, https) which use a default communication port (e.g., 80, 443)). The motivation to combine is the same as that of claim 5. Conclusion 07-40 AIA 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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) 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 mailing date of this final action. Contact Information Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to LAWRENCE TRUONG whose telephone number is (571)272-6973. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 8:00 am - 4 pm ET. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ali Shayanfar can be reached at (571) 270-1050. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /LAWRENCE TRUONG/Examiner, Art Unit 2434 /NOURA ZOUBAIR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2434 Application/Control Number: 18/895,224 Page 2 Art Unit: 2434 Application/Control Number: 18/895,224 Page 3 Art Unit: 2434 Application/Control Number: 18/895,224 Page 4 Art Unit: 2434
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