DETAILED ACTION
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.
Claims 1, 9 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Szrek et al., US 2007/0213125, in view of Rantanen, US 6,685,562 and Kennedy et al., US 2023/0078187.
In Reference to Claim 1
Szrek et al. teaches a lottery ticket selling and redemption system comprising: a central system comprising a processor and a memory device that stores a plurality of instructions (Fig. 1, Par. 20-21 and Par. 61-62), which when executed by the processor, cause the central system to receive draw lottery ticket data for draw lottery tickets associated with a play of a draw lottery game (Fig. 2 and Par. 2 “lottery draw” and Par. 19, Par. 50-51 “transaction file 24.” Note that Par. 51 teaches that the transaction file can optionally be provided “as a single file transfer”); generate a digital fingerprint based on the draw lottery ticket data (Fig. 2 and Par. 7 “In an embodiment, the invention receives the transaction data from a gaming system and calculates a one-way hash of the received transaction data. The one-way hash is digitally time-stamped and stored for subsequent verification of the transactions.” See also Par. 27 and 29.); and data integrity of the draw lottery ticket data is verifiable using the digital fingerprint (Par. 7, 36, 46, 51).
Further, Szrek et al. teaches where the system can also include use of encryption to secure the draw lottery ticket data (Par. 2 and 28). However, Szrek et al. does not teach where the fingerprinted lottery data is further encrypted, or where the system is configured to employ a plurality of separate security keys to encrypt the data with an enveloping function, wherein access to the plurality of separate security keys is controlled by a plurality of separate users and access to the data is controlled by the plurality of separate security keys.
Rantanen teaches where in a lottery system hashed lottery data is the further encrypted (Abstract, Col. 4 line 64 – Col. 5 line 29 which teaches where the data is first hashed where the has acts as a “checksum” for the data and then the hash and data are further encrypted).
It would be desirable to modify the system of Szrek et al. to use both a digital signature hash of the data and encryption of both the data and the hash as taught by Rantanen in order to increase the security of the data by including the hash for “checksum”-like verification functionality and further provide additional security from unauthorized access for the hash and the lottery records themselves by further encryption.
Kennedy et al., US 2023/0078187 teaches a system for securing sensitive data where the system is configured to employ a plurality of separate security keys to encrypt the data with an enveloping function, wherein access to the plurality of separate security keys is controlled by a plurality of separate users and access to the data is controlled by the plurality of separate security keys (Fig. 7, 12 and Par. 124 “the technique 1200 includes selecting a second key management server based on the identifier. In some implementations, the second key management server is associated with a different customer than the first key management server. For example, encryption using multiple data encryption keys controlled by multiple respective customers may enable equitable sharing of data between different groups of users associated with different customers that are collaborating.” And “In this example, two key management servers that are respectively associated with the first customer and the second customer may be selected to provide data encryption keys. The recording of the conference may then be encrypted with both a first data key from the first key management server and with a second data key from the second key management server. The resulting encrypted data may be stored with encrypted copies of the keys used to encrypt the data, which have been encrypted by these respective key management servers. After the plain text versions of these keys have been deleted from the software platform, decrypting this shared data may require permission from all of the respective key management servers. For example, the recording of the conference may be sequentially encrypted with each of the multiple data encryption keys used.” See also Par. 128 “In some implementations, the data accessed by the first server may be sequentially encrypted with each of the multiple data encryption keys used. For example, the data accessed by the first server may be encrypted with the first plaintext key and then the result may be again encrypted using the second plaintext key to obtain the fully encrypted data, where two encryption keys are used. More than two encryption keys may be used to encrypt the data.”).
It would be desirable to modify the system of Szrek et al. and Rantanen to sequentially encrypt the fingerprinted lottery data with multiple keys as taught by Kennedy et al. in order to increase the security of the lottery data in storage by involving multiple parties that have to agree to provide access to the data and therefore store the data in a manner that is more resistant to insider attack such as that described in Par. 3 of Szrek et al.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing of the invention to modify the system of Szrek et al. to use both a digital signature hash of the data and encryption of both the data and the hash as taught by Rantanen and to sequentially encrypt the fingerprinted lottery data with multiple keys as taught by Kennedy et al.
In Reference to Claim 9
Szarek et al. as modified by Rantanen and Kennedy et al. teaches where each of the plurality of separate security keys are different from each other (Kennedy et al. Par. 124 and 128).
In Reference to Claim 10
Szarek et al. as modified by Rantenan, and Kennedy et al. teaches where each of the plurality of separate security keys are different from each other (Kennedy et al. Par. 124 and 128).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 11-20 are allowed.
Claims 2-8 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.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
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/CARL V LARSEN/Examiner, Art Unit 3715
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