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 .
The following is a Non-Final Office Action in response to communications received on November 25, 2024. Claims 1-15 are pending and addressed below.
Specification
For the record, Examiner acknowledges that the Specification submitted on November 25, 2024 has been accepted.
Drawings
The drawings are objected to because Figs. 3-5 all contain reference numbers that do not correspond to anything in the drawings (i.e. 14, 18, 34 and 52). 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.
Claim Objections
Claim 5 is objected to because of the following informalities: Claim 5 recites the phrase “the preprocessing module”. It is suggested this phrase be amended to “the data preprocessing module” for clarity and consistency.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 3 and 5-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 3 recites the limitation “the output from the data processing module.” There is no previously recited output specifically from the data processing module. Therefore, there is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation. Dependent claim 6 is rejected for containing the same indefinite language as parent claim 3 without further remedying the indefinite language.
Claim 5 recites the limitation “the cryptographic pipeline module”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation.
Claim 6 recites the limitation “the cryptographic pipeline module”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation.
Claim 7 recites the limitation “the cryptographic pipeline module”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation. Dependent claim 8 is rejected for containing the same indefinite language as parent claim 7 without further remedying the indefinite language.
Claim 8 recites the limitations “the finalization module” and “the finalization delay module”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for these limitations.
Claim 9 recites the limitation “the pipeline module”. There are multiple previously recited pipeline modules and it is unclear as to which particular pipeline module the limitation is referring. Also, claim 9 recites the limitation “wherein the pipeline module is configured to partially or fully perform the method according to claim 1.” The metes and bounds of this limitation is unclear as it is not known which of the method steps are intended to be performed. For examining purposes, it is assumed that the module is configured to fully perform the method according to claim 1. Dependent claims 10-13 and 15 are rejected for containing the same indefinite language as parent claim 9 without further remedying the indefinite language.
Claim 10 recites the limitation “the pipeline module”. There are multiple previously recited pipeline modules and it is unclear as to which particular pipeline module the limitation is referring.
Claim 11 recites the limitation “the pipeline module”. There are multiple previously recited pipeline modules and it is unclear as to which particular pipeline module the limitation is referring. Dependent claims 12 and 13 are rejected for containing the same indefinite language as parent claim 11 without further remedying the indefinite language.
Claim 13 is directed towards a system claim comprising at least one aerial vehicle, server and database. The claim later recites performing operations of a communication module according to claim 11. The communication module is never explicitly stated to be part of the system. It is unclear if the communication module is part of the system or not. For examining purposes, it is assumed the communication module is part of the system.
Claim 14 recites the limitation “it”. It is unclear what entity “it” is referring to.
Claim 15 recites the limitation “the pipeline module”. There are multiple previously recited pipeline modules and it is unclear as to which particular pipeline module the limitation is referring.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
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 therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 14-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter. Claims 14 and 15 are directed towards a “non-volatile computer readable data carrier or data carrier signal” (emphasis added). The data carrier signal is considered to be a signal per se. Therefore, the claims are considered to be directed to non-statutory subject matter. Applicant may overcome this rejection by, for example, removing the phrase “or data carrier signal”.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1, 2 and 4 are allowed.
Claims 3 and 5-15 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Claim 1 recites, inter alia, “feeding the input data and the UID to a pipeline module that includes a data processing module and a processing delay module; delaying outputting the UID by the processing delay module for a delay time that corresponds to an amount of processing time required by the data processing module for the single iteration of the performance part; wherein, in response to receiving the UID, the processing delay module blocks transmission of further input data to the data processing module for as long as the UID is not output from the processing delay module”.
The closest prior are of record are:
Patel et al. (U.S. Patent No. 9,754,103) which discloses a delayed timer value for an indeterminate amount of time in a pipeline execution (col. 22 lines 27-50)
Ishii (U.S. Pub. No. 2009/0037709) which discloses performing hash operations in a pipeline taking into account branching (paragraphs [0013]-[0015])
Beckwith (U.S. Patent No. 11,496,297) which discloses post-quantum cryptography using Dilithium-DSA (Abstract and col. 6 line 58 – col. 7 line 6)
While the prior art does generally disclose pipelining with branching for cryptographic operations, the prior art was not found to disclose the particularly cited limitations. Therefore, claim 1 is considered to recite allowable subject matter over the prior art. Dependent claims 2-15 are considered to recite allowable subject matter over the prior art based on their dependency.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to THADDEUS J PLECHA whose telephone number is (571)270-7506. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-4:30.
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/THADDEUS J PLECHA/Examiner, Art Unit 2438