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
Claims 1 – 17 filed on 09/26/2024 are presently pending in the application and have been examined below, of which claims 1, 8, and 12 are presented in independent form.
Drawings
The drawings were received on 09/26/2024. All drawings except Fig. 8B are accepted.
Drawings Objection
The drawing 8B is objected to under 37 CFR 1.83(a). The drawings must show every feature of the invention specified in the claims. The drawing 8B does not permit examination for the following reasons. The drawing depicts several numbered boxes without any textual explanation and/or labeling. Figure capture in para [0017] of SPECS is formal without any clarification.
The drawing 8B does not provide any valuable information. This drawing in present form is meaningless preventing clear understanding of what is what and what the drawing depicts. On the other hand, according to SPECS, [0056-0058] and [0067-0073], the routine marked as 804 is a central point of the invention that requires clear explanation in Fig. 8B including respective labeling and the routine interactions with other units, i.e., Fig. 8B should indicate the relationship to Figs. 8A, 9A, 9B, and 10.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 CFR 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 CFR 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the examiner, the applicant will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) dated 09/26/2024 has been received and considered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101, non-statutory
(Directed to a Judicial Exception without an Inventive Concept/Significantly More)
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
therefore, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1 – 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Step 1 Statutory Category:
Independent claim 1 is directed to an encipher core with functions that may be performed by software via implementation of respective virtual units and/or modules. Accordingly, the encipher core of claim 1 may be directed to software per se which is qualified as non-statutory subject matter. The respective dependent claims are rejected by virtue of their dependency.
Independent claims 8 and 12 are directed to a medium and a method, respectively. Therefore, these claims fall within the four statutory categories of invention, and thus must be further analyzed at Step 2A to determine if the claims are directed to a judicial exception (See MPEP 2106.03, subsection II).
Step 2A Prong 1 Judicial exception:
Limitations of independent claims 8 and 12 have been identified as elements or part of the abstract idea itself. The claims recite a series of steps instructing
receive a plaintext…;
receive …a round key…;
add the round key to the result array in accordance with an AddRoundKey transformation…;
shift the bytes of the plaintext in accordance with a ShiftRows transformation…;
The above system steps appear to recite operations which may be performed by a human being. A human being may mentally perform certain actions like execution of a standard functions AddRoundKey and ShiftRows of the AES algorithm for performing required mathematical operations, e.g., key addition or bytes shift, using respective computing equipment with installed known software. MPEP states that it is still a Mental Process if the action is aided by devices (emphases added).
According to MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2), subsection III, where it examples a claim to "performing a mental process on a computer environment” as a Mental Process.
Step 2A Prong 2 Integration into a practical application:
The following claim limitations are identified as additional elements not part of the abstract idea itself:
converting a first portion of the plaintext into a first result using a first lookup table…;
converting a second portion of the plaintext into a second result using a second lookup table…;
The above recited claim limitations are interpreted as known computing actions providing merely well-documented extra-solution activity, i.e., performing well documented mathematical computing operations using standard functions of the Advanced Encryption Standard, AES, algorithm, see D. L. Evans, P. J. Bond, K. H. Brown, Advanced Encryption Standard (AES). NIST, FIPS-197, (2001, updated 2023). Although not explicitly recited, these additional limitations are interpreted as being implemented on a generic computing device or system. These limitations appear to recite general purpose computer machines which are merely implementing the abstract idea within a computer environment. See General purposes machine MPEP 2106.05(b)(I).
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the combination of data receiving and data operations using known functions of AES without further details fail to integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
Step 2B Significantly more: The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception, support in para. [0056-0058] of SPECS.
The above identified claim limitations have been identified as General-Purpose Machine which are merely implementing the abstract idea within a computer environment. See MPEP 2106.05(b)(I). When taken individually or viewed as an ordered combination the claims as a whole do not appear to amount to significantly more (also known as an “inventive concept”) than the abstract idea.
Overall, claims 8, 12 are written very broad, they list mathematical operations applying well documented functions of AES using general purpose computer machines without anything more. Applicant disclosed an inventive concept as an implementation of an allegedly new encipher routine as replacement in traditional AES using combinations of the known transformation modules belonging to the Cipher() function instead of sequential implementation of the standard AES transformations that should optimize and improve efficiency of a standard AES algorithm, support in [0056-0058, 0067-0073] of SPECS. As noted above, new software is a non-statutory subject matter making respective claims unpatentable. The new features important for practical application are disclosed in SPECS but not even mentioned in claims. Depended claims are rejected upon their dependence on respective base claims.
Based on the above rational the claims 1 – 17 have been deemed to ineligible subject matter under 35 USC 101.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that
form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless – (a)(1) the claimed invention was patented,
described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public
before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 2 and 5 – 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a) (1) as being anticipated by J. Daemen, V. Rijmen, The Design of Rijndael. The Advanced Encryption Standard. 2d ed., Springer, 2020) (hereafter DR2020).
As per claim 1 DR2020 discloses: An encipher core, comprising: a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing a first lookup table, a second lookup table, a plaintext, and a round key, (Examiner note: the lookup table is essentially equivalent to other known in the prior art terms of substitution table, substitution box, SubBytes or S-Box, see DR2020, sec. 4) (DR2020 in sec. 4.2.1 discloses structure and implementation of look-up table, SubBytes() function, a substitution box, S-box() function of AES) the first lookup table constructed by performing a byte substitution in accordance with a SubBytes transformation conforming to requirements of an Advanced Encryption Standard followed by a multiplication in GF(28) by three modulo x4 + 1, the second lookup table constructed by performing the byte substitution in accordance with the SubBytes transformation conforming to the requirements of the Advanced Encryption Standard followed by a multiplication in GF(28) by two modulo x4 + 1, (DR2020 in sec. 4.3.2 discloses properties and applications of Galois Field, i.e., GF(28), including addition and multiplication in GF(28) using modulo of the fixed polynomials);
the plaintext being a data message to be encrypted having a plurality of bytes, the round key being a cipher key having a plurality of bytes; a ShiftRows subassembly operable to shift the bytes of the plaintext in accordance with a ShiftRows transformation conforming to the requirements of the Advanced Encryption Standard; (DR2020 in sec. 3.4.2 discloses properties of ShiftRows() transformation including examples for the recited operations);
a combined SubBytes and MixColumns subassembly including four combined SubBytes and MixColumns modules, each of the combined SubBytes and MixColumns modules including: a first data conversion engine operable to convert a first portion of the plaintext into a first result using the first lookup table; (DR2020 in sec. 4.1.2 discloses combinations of transformation modules S-box, i.e., SubBytes, and MixColumns into a single logic function for optimized implementation in the AES algorithm);
a second data conversion engine operable to convert a second portion of the plaintext into a second result using the second lookup table (DR2020 in sec. 10.2, 11.1 discloses implementation of data conversion AES modules for transformation of specified portions of a plaintext into ciphertext using byte substitution according to respective lookup table);
and a bitwise even parity checker operable to accept as operands the first result, the second result, and a third portion of the plaintext to produce a result array row; (DR2020 in sec. 2.2 discloses properties and implementation of the parity-check matrix for bitwise encoding operations for respective text portions);
and an AddRoundKey subassembly operable to add the round key to the result array in accordance with an AddRoundKey transformation conforming to the requirements of the Advanced Encryption Standard to produce a ciphertext indicative of the plaintext (DR2020 in sec. 10.2.1 discloses implementation of the AddRoundKey transformation module for the data encryption addressing the recited operations),
the result array formed by the result array rows from the four combined SubBytes and MixColumns modules, wherein the combined SubBytes and MixColumns subassembly conforms to the requirements of the Advanced Encryption Standard such that the ciphertext can be reverted to the plaintext using a decipher core conforming to the requirements of the Advanced Encryption Standard (DR2020 in sec 4.1.2 discloses different combinations of four transformation modules according to the AES standard with examples for respective data encoding addressing the recited limitations),
As per claim 2 DR2020 discloses: The encipher core of claim 1, wherein the first lookup table has 256 first values, each of the 256 first values having one byte, and the second lookup table has 256 second values, each of the 256 second values having one byte (Examiner note: claim 2 repeats a definition of a look-up table, for the AES-256 format as disclosed by DR2020 in secs. 4, 4.1.2, 4.2.1 and 4.3).
As per claim 5 DR2020 discloses: The encipher core of claim 1, wherein the plaintext has 16 bytes arranged into four plaintext rows including a first plaintext row, a second plaintext row, a third plaintext row, and a fourth plaintext row, each of the plaintext rows having four bytes, and the round key has 16 bytes. (DR2020 in secs.4.2, 5.3.3, Application B discloses structure of 16-bytes values, respective matrix constructions for encryption/decryption operations).
As per claim 6 DR2020 discloses: The encipher core of claim 5, wherein the ShiftRows subassembly is operable to shift the bytes of the plaintext such that the first plaintext row is shifted by zero bytes, the second plaintext row is shifted by one byte, the third plaintext row is shifted by two bytes, and the fourth plaintext row is shifted by three bytes. (DR2020 in sec. 3.4 discloses structure, properties and implementation of the ShitRows function addressing recited limitations).
As per claim 7 DR2020 discloses: The encipher core of claim 5, wherein the combined SubBytes and MixColumns modules includes a first combined SubBytes and MixColumns module, a second combined SubBytes and MixColumns module, a third combined SubBytes and MixColumns module, and a fourth combined SubBytes and MixColumns module, (DR2020 in sec. 3.4.4, 4.1.2 discloses different combinations of recited transformation modules into a single logic function for optimized implementation in the AES algorithm);
wherein: the first portion of the plaintext operated on by the first combined SubBytes and MixColumns module is the fourth plaintext row; the second portion of the plaintext operated on by the first combined SubBytes and MixColumns module is the third plaintext row; the third portion of the plaintext operated on by the first combined SubBytes and MixColumns module includes the first plaintext row and the second plaintext row; (DR2020 discloses in sec. 4.1.2 rows and columns of respective data matrices transformations related to the combinations of MixColumns functions with others transformation functions addressing recited operations);
the first portion of the plaintext operated on by the second combined SubBytes and MixColumns module is the third plaintext row; the second portion of the plaintext operated on by the second combined SubBytes and MixColumns module is the second plaintext row; the third portion of the plaintext operated on by the second combined SubBytes and MixColumns module includes the first plaintext row and the fourth plaintext row; the first portion of the plaintext operated on by the third combined SubBytes and MixColumns module is the second plaintext row; the second portion of the plaintext operated on by the third combined SubBytes and MixColumns module is the first plaintext row; the third portion of the plaintext operated on by the third combined SubBytes and MixColumns module includes the third plaintext row and the fourth plaintext row; the first portion of the plaintext operated on by the fourth combined SubBytes and MixColumns module is the first plaintext row; the second portion of the plaintext operated on by the fourth combined SubBytes and MixColumns module is the fourth plaintext row; and the third portion of the plaintext operated on by the first combined SubBytes and MixColumns module includes the third plaintext row and the second plaintext row (DR2020 in sec. 3.4 discloses round transformations of respective matrices demonstrating row-by row transformations of plaintext data related to respective combinations of the transformation functions by encryption, sec. 4.1.2, or decryption, sec. 4.1.3 addressing listed details of the data transformation as examples).
As per claim 8 DR2020 discloses: A non-transitory computer readable medium having software instructions stored thereon that, when executed by a processor, cause the processor to: receive a plaintext and a round key, the plaintext being a data message to be encrypted having a plurality of bytes, the round key being an encryption key having a plurality of bytes (DR2020 discloses in sec. 2.4 a cipher key for encryption of a plaintext);
shift the bytes of the plaintext in accordance with a ShiftRows transformation conforming to requirements of an Advanced Encryption Standard; (DR2020 in sec. 3.4.2 discloses properties and application of ShiftRows() transformation according to the Advanced Encryption Standard);
populate four result array rows of a result array, wherein populating a result array row of the four result array rows includes: converting a first portion of the plaintext into a first result using a first lookup table, the first lookup table constructed by performing a byte substitution in accordance with a SubBytes transformation conforming to the requirements of an Advanced Encryption Standard, (DR2020 in sec. 4.2.1 discloses structure and implementation of look-up table, SubBytes() function, a substitution box, S-box() function of AES),
followed by a multiplication in GF(28) by three modulo x4 + 1; converting a second portion of the plaintext into a second result using a second lookup table, the second lookup table constructed by performing a byte substitution in accordance with the SubBytes transformation, followed by a multiplication in GF(28) by two modulo x4 + 1; (DR2020 in sec. 4.3.2 discloses properties and applications of Galois Field, i.e., GF(28), including addition and multiplication in GF(28) using modulo of the fixed polynomials);
and performing a bitwise even parity check, using as operands the first result, the second result, and a third portion of the plaintext to produce the result array row (DR2020 in sec. 2.2 discloses properties and implementation of the parity-check matrix for bitwise encoding operations for respective text portions);
and add the round key to the result array in accordance with an AddRoundKey transformation conforming to the requirements of the Advanced Encryption Standard to produce a ciphertext indicative of the plaintext (DR2020 in sec. 10.2.1 discloses implementation of the AddRoundKey transformation module for the data encryption addressing the recited operations),
wherein the step of populating the four result array rows of the result array using the plaintext conforms to the requirements of the Advanced Encryption Standard such that the ciphertext can be reverted to the plaintext using a decipher core conforming to the requirements of the Advanced Encryption Standard (DR2020 discloses in sec. 3 decryption within the Advanced Encryption Standard reverting the encoded data into the plaintext).
As per claims 9, 10 and 11, claims 9, 10 and 11 encompass same or similar scope as claims 2, 5 and 6, respectively. Therefore, claims 9, 10 and 11 are rejected based on the same reasons set forth above in rejecting claims 2, 5 and 6.
As per claim 12, claim 12 encompasses same or similar scope as claim 8. Therefore, claim 12 is rejected based on the same reasons set forth above in rejecting claim 8.
As per claims 13, 14 and 15, claims 13, 14 and 15 encompass same or similar scope as claims 2, 5 and 6, respectively. Therefore, claims 3, 14 and 15 are rejected based on the same reasons set forth above in rejecting claims 2, 5 and 6.
As per claim 16 DR2020 discloses: The method of claim 12, wherein the round key is a first round key of a plurality of round keys, each of the plurality of round keys together constituting a key schedule (DR2020 discloses in sec. 3.4.4 generation of an array of round keys derived from the cipher key by combined transformation AddRoundKey and XOR thus creating a key schedule disclosed by DR2020 in sec. 3.6).
As per claim 17 DR2020 discloses: The method of claim 16, wherein the steps of the method are repeated using a new round key of the plurality of round keys until each of the plurality of round keys of the key schedule has been used (DR2020 discloses in sec. 3.6 step by step creation of the key schedule by key expansion and round key selection process).
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, 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 set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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.
Claims 3 – 4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over J. Daemen, V. Rijmen, The Design of Rijndael. The Advanced Encryption Standard. 2d ed., Springer, 2020) (hereafter DR2020) and in view of Michiels et al. (US 20160267258) (hereafter Michiels).
As per claim 3 DR2020 failed to specifically disclose: implementation of the finite state machine by using the AES algorithm.
However, Michiels discloses: The encipher core of claim 1, further comprising a finite state machine having a plurality of predetermined states including: a ShiftRows state, wherein the ShiftRows subassembly is operated to shift the bytes of the plaintext in accordance with the ShiftRows transformation; a combined SubBytes and MixColumns state, wherein the combined SubBytes and MixColumns subassembly is operated to produce the result array; and an AddRoundKey state, wherein the AddRoundKey subassembly is operated to add the round key to the result array in accordance with the AddRoundKey transformation to produce the ciphertext, wherein the finite state machine is operable to transition between the plurality of predetermined states in response to detection of a trigger event. (Michiels, in para. [0028-0029] discloses the finite state machine for encryption by using a white-box implementation with the AES encryption algorithm).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify DR2020, in view of teaching of Michiels because they both disclose data encoding using the AES algorithm. The motivation to combine would be to modify DR2020 for teaching of Michiels for implementing the finite state machine with combinations of different transformation modules disclosed by DR2020 into a data transformation function in order to improve efficiency of the AES method.
As per claim 4 DR2020 as modified discloses: The encipher core of claim 3, wherein the trigger event is indicative of the completion of a transformation by one of the ShiftRows subassembly, the combined SubBytes and MixColumns subassembly, and the AddRoundKey subassembly. (Michiels, in para. [0032,0042] discloses introduction of a specified numbers into transformation functions that are indicators of completion of the transformation, i.e., event trigger).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify DR2020, in view of teaching of Michiels because they both disclose data encoding using the AES algorithm. The motivation to combine would be to modify DR2020 for teaching of Michiels for implementing the finite state machine with combinations of different transformation modules disclosed by DR2020 into a data transformation function in order to improve efficiency of the AES method.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: Alekseev US_20110231673, Durham US_11829488, Gueron US_20150067302, Kounavis US_20190229889, Mao US_20200099510, Michiels US_20150270950, Ozturk US_20080240422, Sharma US_20230208612.
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/VLADIMIR I GAVRILENKO/Examiner, Art Unit 2431