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 .
Response to Amendment
This Office Action is in response to applicant’s communication filed March 2, 2026 in response to PTO Office Action dated December 12, 2025 The applicant’s remarks and amendment to the specification and/or claims were considered with the results that follow.
Claims 1-20have been presented for examination in this application. In response to the last Office Action, claims 3-6, 8-13, and 16-19 have been amended.
Claim Objections
Claim 13 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Regarding claim 13, the claim header should indicate “(Currently Amended)” instead of (Original). The Examiner will interpret the claim language in light of this issue.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-4, 8-10, and 13-17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Schrage (US#11,909,859).
Regarding claim 1, Schrage teaches a method for storing blocks of critical data of an electrical device in a memory that is external to the electrical device comprising: obtaining first encrypted blocks of data by encrypting the blocks of critical data using a first encryption key [c11, lines 17-21]; obtaining second encrypted blocks of data by encrypting the blocks of critical data using a second encryption key different from the first encryption key [c11, lines 20-22]; and storing the first encrypted blocks of data and the second encrypted blocks of data in the memory [c11, lines 25-26 & 36-41; the term “critical” is not defined and thus may apply to any data needed for the operation].
Regarding claim 2, Schrage teaches wherein the first encrypted blocks of data and the second encrypted blocks of data are mixed into the memory [c1, lines 10-16; the term “mixed” is not defined and may be interpreted as stored in the memory in separate blocks and locations; storage of encrypted data is placed in separate blocks relative to the ledger].
Regarding claim 3, Schrage teaches wherein, in the memory, each data comprising each first encrypted block of data is stored immediately before the corresponding second encrypted block of data [c1, lines 10-16; data may be stored according to time stamp, as well as location on the blockchain].
Regarding claim 4, Schrage teaches wherein the first encrypted blocks of data and the second encrypted blocks of data are obtained by applying Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) to the blocks of critical data [c11, lines 53-55].
Regarding claim 8, Schrage teaches wherein the electrical device comprises a processor configured for processing the blocks of critical data [c9, lines 48-54].
Regarding claim 9, Schrage teaches retrieving the blocks of critical data stored in the memory by using the method of claim 1 [see figure 1 & 2; see also c1, lines 49 – c2, lines 32].
Regarding claim 10, Schrage teaches device configured to retrieve the critical blocks of data stored in the memory by using the method of claim 1 [Fig. 1 & 14].
Regarding claim 13, Schrage teaches wherein the step of getting the first encrypted blocks of data and the second encrypted blocks of data from the memory comprises separating the first encrypted data and the second encrypted data (from the memory) [see figure 1 & 2; see also c1, lines 49 – c2, lines 32; also claim 1].
Claim 14 recites language similar to that of claim 1, and is rejected for the same reasons as claim 1.
Claim 15 recites language similar to that of claim 2, and is rejected for the same reasons as claim 2.
Claim 16 recites language similar to that of claim 3, and is rejected for the same reasons as claim 3.
Claim 17 recites language similar to that of claim 4, and is rejected for the same reasons as claim 4.
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.
Claim(s) 7 and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Schrage (US# 11,909,859) in view of Huang (US# 20210056057).
Regarding claims 7 and 20, Schrage teaches data block encryption and storage but fails to teach wherein the storage is a DRAM memory. Huang teaches data encryption and temporarily storing the encrypted data in DRAM [0049; 0149, lines 8-13]. Therefore it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the system of Schrage to include the DRAM caching of Huang because then quicker access for data decryption could be accomplished [0149].
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5, 6, 11, 12, 18, and 19 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.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed March 2, 2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Regarding Applicant’s arguments of pages 7-8 related to the prior art not teaching encrypting data with two different keys, the Examiner respectfully disagrees. Applicant has indicated that the prior art of Schrage does not teach “…the first subset of data and the second subset of data as being the same”. According to a broad and reasonable interpretation of claim 1, the claim language of claim 1 does not require all blocks of critical data to be encrypted using both the first and second encryption keys. The phrase “the blocks of critical data” as recited in lines 3 and 5 correspond to “blocks of critical data” found in the preamble, and each recitation may correspond to a subset of the totality of blocks of critical data, overlapping portions or subsets of the totality of blocks of critical data, or the same data due to the language not indicating that the encryption is directed towards all blocks of the critical data. Thus the teachings of Schrage teach the invention as claimed.
Furthermore, while Schrage indicates “at least a portion” of the data is used for each of the first and second data encryption, column 3, lines 35-36 indicates that either a portion or the entire data may be earmarked for encryption. Since claim 1 does not indicate a context of time relative to the first and second encryption, one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that the operations of Figure 2 may be repeated at different points in time to the same data and still teach the language as claimed.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Masui teaches encrypting the same data with different encryption keys for different reasons.
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 Brian R. Peugh whose telephone number is (571) 272-4199. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday from 7:30am to 3:30pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Rocio Del Mar Perez-Velez, phone number 571-270-5935, can be reached. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 703-872-9306.
Any inquiry of a general nature or relating to the status of this application or proceeding should be directed to the receptionist whose telephone number is 571-272-2100.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair-direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free).
/BRIAN R PEUGH/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2133
Prosecution Insights