DETAILED ACTION
This action is responsive to amendment filed on May 26th, 2026.
Claims 1~20 are examined.
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
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1~20 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Double Patenting
Claims 1~20 rejected on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1~20 of U.S. Patent No. 12,166,904. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the U.S Patent mentioned above substantially teaches and/or anticipates claims 1~20 of the instant application. See the table of comparison from the previous rejection sent on 02/26/26.
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.
Claims1~20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Peterka et al. hereinafter Peterka (WO/2019161412) in view of Yamada (U.S 2024/0031176).
Regarding Claim 1,
Peterka taught a non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing one or more sequences of instructions executable by one or more processors to perform a set of steps comprising:
registering, with an authority, a digital certificate [¶30, certificate authority (CA) issue cryptographic certificates to service providers as well as end-user devices that use these certificates to establish secure communication; ¶64, manufacturer may decide to use a public certificate authority in which case the manufacturer certificate would be a sub-CA certificate signed by the public CA];
storing, accessible to the authority, information for the digital certificate [¶36, a digital certificate includes a public key combined with meta information about this key such as, but not limited to, an owner’s name, issue data, and/or expiration date; ¶112]; and
writing data, associated with the digital certificate, to a blockchain, wherein a validity of the digital certificate is able to be performed using the stored information and the written data [¶35, a transaction or entry in the distributed certification ledger (DCL) contains information that pertains to a specific digital certificate associated with and/or signed by the cryptographic key.
Peterka did not specifically teach storing, to a secure database, information for the digital certificate.
Yamada taught storing, to a secure database, information for the digital certificate [¶44, the root CA 112 public keys and the associated identity information are stored and managed in the form of a cryptographically authenticated database, which may be a chain of data blocks. The use of the cryptographically authenticated database captures changes in the key pairs such as update, replace, revoke, add, etc. with cryptographic authentication and integrity; ¶20, cryptographically authenticated database can include a collection of related and encrypted data that is stored, organized, and accessed electronically via, for example, a database management system; ¶21, one example of a cryptographically authenticated database is a cryptographically authenticated chain of data blocks].
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention was made, to combine, Yamada’s teaching of limitations with the teachings of Peterka, because the combination allows dynamic changes to the root CA by adding new data blocks to the chain, for example, representing a new certificate or revocation or an existing root certificate, thus providing flexibility and also enabling revocation of root certificates [Yamada: ¶22].
Regarding Claim 2,
Peterka taught wherein the instructions which when executed cause the one or more processors to perform the steps of: receiving, to the authority, a valid request to perform an operation with respect to the digital certificate; performing, by the authority, the operation with respect to the digital certificate; and updating the information for the digital certificate and the transaction record on the blockchain to reflect the performing of the operation [¶127, hashing and timestamps are available by design and for each transaction timestamps gets updated on the entire chain right after the closing of a block. Hence, the relying party can verify the certificate health and status of the certificate any time on the ledger system and updates occur regularly and frequently].
Regarding Claim 3,
Peterka taught wherein the instructions which when executed cause the one or more processors to perform the steps of: receiving, to the authority, a request to validate the digital certificate; verifying, by the authority, that the digital certificate is valid according to current information for the digital certificate stored both accessible to the authority and to the blockchain; and providing a response indicating that the digital certificate is valid [¶124, the trust is established between an end-user and a relying (or verifying) party via trusted third party (i.e. Certification Authority). The relying party should verify the validity by checking if a certificate has been revoked, by reviewing Certificate Revocation Lists (CRLs) e.g. using OCSP (online certificate status protocol) servers provided by the Certification Authority prior to trusting the end-user certificate. With the ledger system, just one entity provides the certificate health status (i.e. Good or Bad) and relevant information is retrieved from published information on the ledger].
Regarding Claim 4,
Peterka taught wherein the current information stored to the blockchain for the digital certificate is able to be determined by accessing the blockchain [¶62; ¶65; ¶69] or by accessing data stored to a local cache that were obtained by previously accessing the blockchain or receiving data for an update to the blockchain.
Regarding Claim 5,
Peterka taught wherein the certificate authority is provided for operation as a service subordinate to a trusted root certificate authority [¶61, gateway connects to the blockchain, looks up the device model, checks its certificate, verifies device compliance and interoperability, further looks up the manufacturer record and the root certificate also included in the blockchain].
Regarding Claim 11,
Peterka taught further comprising: verifying that the digital certificate is not identified in a bad certificate list or a revoked certificate list before verifying that the digital certificate is valid [¶122, query a CRL to establish a trust level].
Regarding Claim 12,
Peterka taught further comprising: auditing a process used by the authority to register the digital certificate by analyzing all data stored for the digital certificate to the blockchain [¶36, if a certificate is signed (aka issued), the signer vouches for this information to be correct, e.g. a digital certificate certifies the ownership of a public key by the subject named in the certificate].
Regarding Claim 13,
Peterka taught wherein the data includes identifying information for the digital certificate, authentication information for any entity involved in the registration, a result of the registration, and a time of the registration [¶36, a digital certificate includes a public key combined with meta information about this key such as, but not limited to, an owner’s name, issue data, and/or expiration date].
Regarding Claims 6~10 and 14~20, the claim is similar in scope to claim(s) 1~5 and 11~13 and therefore, rejected under the same rationale.
Conclusion
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HEE SOO KIM whose telephone number is (571)270-3229. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9AM-5PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Nicholas Taylor can be reached on (571) 272-3889. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/HEE SOO KIM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2443
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