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
1. This action is responsive to: an original application filed on 25 September 2024.
2. Claims 1-20 are currently pending and claims 1, 13 and 20 are independent claims.
Information Disclosure Statement
3. The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 25 September 2024. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Priority
4. Priority date claimed has been considered.
Drawings
5. The drawings filed on 25 September 2024 are accepted by the examiner.
Double Patenting
6. The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the claims at issue are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); and In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on a nonstatutory double patenting ground provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with this application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The USPTO internet Web site contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit http://www.uspto.gov/forms/. The filing date of the application will determine what form should be used. A web-based eTerminal Disclaimer may be filled out completely online using web-screens. An eTerminal Disclaimer that meets all requirements is auto-processed and approved immediately upon submission. For more information about eTerminal Disclaimers, refer to http://www.uspto.gov/patents /process/ file/efs/guidance /eTD-info-I.jsp.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under the grounds of non-statutory obviousness-type double patenting, as they are deemed unpatentable over claims 1-20 of US Patent application No. 17/872,354. Although the conflicting claims are not identical, they are considered not patentably distinct from one another, as they convey the same inventive concept. Specifically, both sets of claims disclose a method for generating a safe image from a steganographic image by filtering List Significant Bit (LSB) data. Furthermore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, at the time of the invention’s filing, to employ this approach to prevent and protect data from embedded malware in images, thereby rendering the claims unpatentable.
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Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C §103 as being unpatentable over Lwowski et al. (US Publication No. 20210192019), hereinafter Lwowski and in view of MacLeod et al. (US Publication No. 20180351969), hereinafter MacLeod.
Regarding claim 1:
at least one processor (Lwowski, ¶24).
a communication interface communicatively coupled to the at least one processor (Lwowski, ¶25).
and a memory storing computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computing platform to (Lwowski, ¶52):
generate a copy of a first image (Lwowski, ¶35), embedded with steganographic modifications comprising modifications to one or bits of a plurality of pixels of the first image, wherein the steganographic modifications comprise malicious software (Lwowski, FIG.2, ¶46, ¶26-27) wherein, it changed the highest number of bits in the image, effectively obfuscating the most amount of steganographic content. Even though the DDSP model changed the highest number of bits within each image.
generate a safe first image of the copy of the first image by changing or modifying one or more bits beginning from a least significant bit of at least one pixel of the copy of the first image, wherein generating the safe first image of the copy of the first image renders the steganographic modifications ineffective (Lwowski, ¶39, ¶47), wherein the encoder 300 downsamples the scaled digital data to generate a purified version of the dataset or data file (Step 604). The purified version of the data is fed to the decoder 302 of the generator 202, where it is upsampled to resize the purified data to its original size observed at the input of the generator 202 (Step 606). The upsampling can include interpolating new data elements between the data elements of the enlarged dataset or data file to produce an upsampled purified version. The resized dataset or data file is then rescaled such that the magnitude of the individual elements in the upsampled purified version of the image data are converted from the second value range to the first (e.g., original) value range of the received digital data (Step 608) and dataset used to embed malware payloads using the LSB steganography algorithm,
route the safe first image to a first user device (Lwowski, ¶30), wherein the output of the Tanh activation layer 350, 352 is a purified version of the original digital data received at the receiving device 102.
Lwowski does not explicitly suggest, route the first image to an isolation zone system and perform, based on results of execution of the steganographic modifications of the first image in the isolation zone system, one or more security actions; however, in a same field of endeavor MacLeod discloses this limitation (MacLeod, FIG.8, step 825, ¶50-51, ¶132), wherein detecting steganography on the device and in-line with the firewall, dangerous files can be detected, isolated and removed before they can release their secret payload and the steganography remediation action may include terminating processing and transmission of a file that is trying to pass the firewall. The steganography remediation action may include isolating the file.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to include the method of producing purified/safe steganographic image of Lwowski with the use of isolation environment, disclosed in MacLeod to perform integrated real-time detection of security threats to protect devices, and networks, from malicious attacks and data loss, stated by MacLeod at ¶26.
Regarding claim 2:
wherein the one or more security actions comprise: flagging an outside source of the first image as a malicious entity (Lwowski, ¶2, ¶27).
Regarding claim 3:
wherein embedding the first image with the steganographic modifications comprises accessing a stored image at the computing platform, and modifying the stored image through steganography (Lwowski, ¶7).
Regarding claim 4:
wherein embedding the first image with the steganographic modifications comprises directing the computing platform to store an image with steganographic modifications (Lwowski, ¶21).
Regarding claim 5:
wherein the memory stores additional computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computing platform to: receive a second image (Lwowski, ¶26).
Lwowski does not explicitly suggest, route the second image to the isolation zone system; automatically cause, at the isolation zone system through one or more commands directing the isolation zone system to execute the second image, execution of the second image; identify, based on execution of the second image, whether or not the second image contains a second steganographic modification; and based on identifying that the second image contains the second steganographic modification comprises malicious software: generate a safe second image by changing or modifying one or more bits beginning from a least significant bit of at least one color component of a plurality of pixels of the second image, wherein generating the safe second image renders the second steganographic modifications of the second image ineffective, and store the safe second image rather than the second image however in a same field of endeavor MacLeod discloses this limitation (MacLeod, FIG.8, step 825, ¶50, 57).
Regarding claim 6:
wherein the steganographic modifications embedded in the first image comprise modifications to one or more color components of the plurality of pixels (Lwowski, ¶39).
Regarding claim 7:
wherein the safe first image is generated by changing or modifying at least one of four bits beginning from a least significant bit of at least one color component of all pixels of the first image (Lwowski, ¶30).
Regarding claim 8:
wherein the memory stores computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computing platform to: store the safe first image rather than the first image (Lwowski, ¶23).
Regarding claim 9:
wherein routing the safe first image to the first user device is responsive to receiving a request from the first user device to view the first image (Lwowski, ¶7).
Regarding claim 10:
wherein the memory stores additional computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computing platform to: receive a third image; compare the third image to a plurality of stored verified images; identify that the third image matches an image from the plurality of stored verified images; store the identified image rather than the third image, wherein storing the identified image rather than the third image renders any steganographic modifications of the third image ineffective; and route the identified image to the first user device based on a request from the first user device to view the third image (Lwowski, ¶23, ¶37, 44).
Regarding claim 11:
wherein the memory stores additional computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computing platform to: receive the first image (Lwowski, ¶5).
Regarding claim 12:
Lwowski does not explicitly suggest, wherein the memory stores additional computer-readable instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the computing platform to: automatically cause, at the isolation zone system through one or more commands directing the isolation zone system to execute the steganographic modifications of the first image, execution of the steganographic modifications of the first image; however, in a same field of endeavor MacLeod discloses this limitation (MacLeod, FIG.8, step 825, ¶50).
Regarding claim 13:
at a computing platform, the computing platform having at least one processor and memory (Lwowski, ¶24-25),
generating a copy of a first image (Lwowski, ¶35), embedded with steganographic modifications comprising modifications to one or bits of a plurality of pixels of the first image, wherein the steganographic modifications comprise malicious software (Lwowski, FIG.2, ¶46, ¶26-27) wherein, it changed the highest number of bits in the image, effectively obfuscating the most amount of steganographic content. Even though the DDSP model changed the highest number of bits within each image.
generating a safe first image of the copy of the first image by changing or modifying one or more bits beginning from a least significant bit of at least one pixel of the copy of the first image, wherein generating the safe first image of the copy of the first image renders the steganographic modifications ineffective (Lwowski, ¶39, ¶47), wherein the encoder 300 downsamples the scaled digital data to generate a purified version of the dataset or data file (Step 604). The purified version of the data is fed to the decoder 302 of the generator 202, where it is upsampled to resize the purified data to its original size observed at the input of the generator 202 (Step 606). The upsampling can include interpolating new data elements between the data elements of the enlarged dataset or data file to produce an upsampled purified version. The resized dataset or data file is then rescaled such that the magnitude of the individual elements in the upsampled purified version of the image data are converted from the second value range to the first (e.g., original) value range of the received digital data (Step 608) and dataset used to embed malware payloads using the LSB steganography algorithm,
routing the safe first image to a first user device (Lwowski, ¶30), wherein the output of the Tanh activation layer 350, 352 is a purified version of the original digital data received at the receiving device 102.
Lwowski does not explicitly suggest, routing the first image to an isolation zone system and performing, based on results of execution of the steganographic modifications of the first image in the isolation zone system, one or more security actions; however, in a same field of endeavor MacLeod discloses this limitation (MacLeod, FIG.8, step 825, ¶50-51, ¶132), wherein detecting steganography on the device and in-line with the firewall, dangerous files can be detected, isolated and removed before they can release their secret payload and the steganography remediation action may include terminating processing and transmission of a file that is trying to pass the firewall. The steganography remediation action may include isolating the file.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to include the method of producing purified/safe steganographic image of Lwowski with the use of isolation environment, disclosed in MacLeod to perform integrated real-time detection of security threats to protect devices, and networks, from malicious attacks and data loss, stated by MacLeod at ¶26.
Regarding claim 14:
wherein the one or more security actions comprises: flagging an outside source of the first image as malicious entity (Lwowski, ¶2, ¶27).
Regarding claim 15:
wherein embedding the first image with steganographic modifications comprises accessing a stored image at the computing platform, and modifying the stored image through steganography (Lwowski, ¶7).
Regarding claim 16:
wherein embedding the first image with the steganographic modifications comprises directing the computing platform to store an image with the steganographic modifications (Lwowski, ¶21).
Regarding claim 17:
further comprising: receiving a second image (Lwowski, ¶26).
Lwowski does not explicitly suggest, routing the second image to the isolation zone system; automatically causing, at the isolation zone system through one or more commands directing the isolation zone system to execute the second image, execution of the second image; identifying, based on execution of the second image, whether or not the second image contains a second steganographic modification; and based on identifying that the second image contains the second steganographic modification comprising malicious software: generating a safe second image by changing or modifying one or more bits beginning from a least significant bit of at least one color component of a plurality of pixels of the second image, wherein generating the safe second image renders the second steganographic modifications of the second image ineffective, and storing the safe second image rather than the second image; however in a same field of endeavor MacLeod discloses this limitation (MacLeod, FIG.8, step 825, ¶50, 57).
Regarding claim 18:
wherein the steganographic modifications embedded in the first image comprise modifications to one or more color components of the plurality of pixels (Lwowski, ¶39).
Regarding claim 19:
wherein the safe first image is generated by changing or modifying at least one of four bits beginning from a least significant bit of at least one color component of all pixels of the first image (Lwowski, ¶30).
Regarding claim 20:
One or more non-transitory computer-readable media storing instructions that, when executed by a computing platform comprising at least one processor, memory, and a communication interface, cause the computing platform to (Lwowski, ¶24-25, ¶52):
generate a copy of a first image (Lwowski, ¶35), embedded with steganographic modifications comprising modifications to one or bits of a plurality of pixels of the first image, wherein the steganographic modifications comprise malicious software (Lwowski, FIG.2, ¶46, ¶26-27) wherein, it changed the highest number of bits in the image, effectively obfuscating the most amount of steganographic content. Even though the DDSP model changed the highest number of bits within each image.
generate a safe first image of the copy of the first image by changing or modifying one or more bits beginning from a least significant bit of at least one pixel of the copy of the first image, wherein generating the safe first image of the copy of the first image renders the steganographic modifications ineffective (Lwowski, ¶39, ¶47), wherein the encoder 300 downsamples the scaled digital data to generate a purified version of the dataset or data file (Step 604). The purified version of the data is fed to the decoder 302 of the generator 202, where it is upsampled to resize the purified data to its original size observed at the input of the generator 202 (Step 606). The upsampling can include interpolating new data elements between the data elements of the enlarged dataset or data file to produce an upsampled purified version. The resized dataset or data file is then rescaled such that the magnitude of the individual elements in the upsampled purified version of the image data are converted from the second value range to the first (e.g., original) value range of the received digital data (Step 608) and dataset used to embed malware payloads using the LSB steganography algorithm,
route the safe first image to a first user device (Lwowski, ¶30), wherein the output of the Tanh activation layer 350, 352 is a purified version of the original digital data received at the receiving device 102.
Lwowski does not explicitly suggest, route the first image to an isolation zone system and perform, based on results of execution of the steganographic modifications of the first image in the isolation zone system, one or more security actions; however, in a same field of endeavor MacLeod discloses this limitation (MacLeod, FIG.8, step 825, ¶50-51, ¶132), wherein detecting steganography on the device and in-line with the firewall, dangerous files can be detected, isolated and removed before they can release their secret payload and the steganography remediation action may include terminating processing and transmission of a file that is trying to pass the firewall. The steganography remediation action may include isolating the file.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time the invention was filed to include the method of producing purified/safe steganographic image of Lwowski with the use of isolation environment, disclosed in MacLeod to perform integrated real-time detection of security threats to protect devices, and networks, from malicious attacks and data loss, stated by MacLeod at ¶26.
Conclusion
8. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Monjour Rahim whose telephone number is (571)270-3890.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Shewaye Gelagay can be reached on 571-272-4219. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/Monjur Rahim/
Patent Examiner
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Art Unit: 2436; Phone: 571.270.3890
E-mail: monjur.rahim@uspto.gov
Fax: 571.270.4890