DETAILED ACTION
This Office Action is in response to an application filed on December 10, 2024, in which claims 2 through 21 are pending, and ready for examination.
Acknowledgement is made of Applicant’s claim for benefit as a Continuation-In-Part of U.S. Application No. 17/663,124 filed on May 12, 2022, now U.S. Patent No. 12,193,329, that application claiming benefit from Provisional Application No. 63/270,924 filed on October 22, 2021.
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 .
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 2-8 and 10-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Cohen, et al., U.S. Patent No. 11,709,941 (hereinafter referred to as Cohen), in view of Mondello, et al., U.S. Pub. No. 2020/0312136 (hereinafter referred to as Mondello).
With regard to claim 2, Cohen teaches receive… a certificate that indicates an identity of [a device] and is associated with an asymmetric key pair of the [device] (Cohen, Col. 3, Lines 33-67 to Col. 5, Lines 1-6; disclosed DICE/TPM digital certificate indicates identity of device), the asymmetric key pair comprising a public key and a private key associated with the (Cohen, Col. 3, Lines 33-67 to Col. 5, Lines 1-6); and perform one or more secure communications with the [device] based at least in part on receiving the certificate (Cohen, Col. 3, Lines 33-67 to Col. 5, Lines 1-6).
Cohen does not explicitly disclose, but Mondello teaches in the same field of endeavor, an interface comprising one or more signal paths operable for communications with a memory system (Mondello, [0091]); and processing circuitry coupled with the interface and configured to cause the host system (Mondello, [0060]; [0065]; [0093]-[0094]); [a] memory system (Mondello, [0056]-[0057]) [as the device in Cohen].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine the teachings of Cohen with the teachings of Mondello. The motivation for this combination is to protect the integrity of code and data housed within the memory itself (Mondello, [0052]-[0053]).
With regard to claim 3, Cohen in view of Mondello further teaches transmit content to the memory system (Cohen, Col. 7, Lines 61-67 to Col. 8, Lines 1-32); and receive a second certificate based at least in part on the private key associated with the memory system and the content transmitted to the memory system (Cohen, Col. 7, Lines 61-67 to Col. 8, Lines 1-32).
With regard to claim 4, Cohen in view of Mondello further teaches wherein, to transmit the content to the memory system, the processing circuitry is configured to cause the host system to: transmit boot code to the memory system, wherein the second certificate is based at least in part on the boot code (Mondello, [0065]; [0079]).
With regard to claim 5, Cohen in view of Mondello further teaches transmit, to the memory system, a firmware security descriptor of the host system, wherein the second certificate is based at least in part on the firmware security descriptor (Cohen, Col. 7, Lines 61-67 to Col. 8, Lines 1-32; disclosed firmware signatures are security descriptors).
With regard to claim 6, Cohen in view of Mondello further teaches receive, from the memory system, the public key in association with the certificate (Mondello, [0044]; [0083]; [0129]-[0130]).
With regard to claim 7, Cohen in view of Mondello further teaches receive, from the memory system, the public key separate from the certificate (Mondello, [0044]; [0083]; [0129]-[0130]).
With regard to claim 8, Cohen in view of Mondello further teaches receive, from the memory system, a key that is associated with content associated with the memory system (Mondello, [0149]).
With regard to claim 10, Cohen in view of Mondello further teaches transmit, to the memory system, a request for a signed certificate, wherein the certificate comprises the signed certificate based at least in part on the request (Cohen, Col. 3, Lines 59-67 to Col. 5, Lines 1-6).
With regard to claim 11, Cohen teaches receive… a certificate that indicates an identity of the [device] and is associated with an asymmetric key pair of the [device] (Cohen, Col. 3, Lines 33-67 to Col. 5, Lines 1-6; disclosed DICE/TPM digital certificate indicates identity of device), the asymmetric key pair comprising a public key and a private key associated with (Cohen, Col. 3, Lines 33-67 to Col. 5, Lines 1-6) the [device]; and perform one or more secure communications with the [device] based at least in part on receiving the certificate (Cohen, Col. 3, Lines 33-67 to Col. 5, Lines 1-6).
Cohen does not explicitly disclose, but Mondello teaches in the same field of endeavor, a non-transitory computer-readable medium storing code comprising instructions which, when executed by processing circuitry of an electronic device, cause the electronic device (Mondello, [0060]; [0065]; [0093]-[0094]; [0201]); [a] memory system (Mondello, [0056]-[0057]) [as the device in Cohen].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine the teachings of Cohen with the teachings of Mondello. The motivation for this combination is to protect the integrity of code and data housed within the memory itself (Mondello, [0052]-[0053]).
With regard to claim 12, Cohen in view of Mondello further teaches transmit content to the memory system (Cohen, Col. 7, Lines 61-67 to Col. 8, Lines 1-32); and receive a second certificate based at least in part on the private key associated with the memory system and the content transmitted to the memory system (Cohen, Col. 7, Lines 61-67 to Col. 8, Lines 1-32).
With regard to claim 13, Cohen in view of Mondello further teaches transmit boot code to the memory system, wherein the second certificate is based at least in part on the boot code (Mondello, [0065]; [0079]).
With regard to claim 14, Cohen in view of Mondello further teaches transmit, to the memory system, a firmware security descriptor, wherein the second certificate is based at least in part on the firmware security descriptor (Cohen, Col. 7, Lines 61-67 to Col. 8, Lines 1-32).
With regard to claim 15, Cohen in view of Mondello further teaches receive, from the memory system, the public key in association with the certificate (Mondello, [0044]; [0083]; [0129]-[0130]).
With regard to claim 16, Cohen in view of Mondello further teaches receive, from the memory system, the public key separate from the certificate (Mondello, [0044]; [0083]; [0129]-[0130]).
With regard to claim 17, Cohen in view of Mondello further teaches receive, from the memory system, a key that is associated with content associated with the memory system (Mondello, [0149]).
With regard to claim 18, Cohen receiving… a certificate that indicates an identity (Cohen, Col. 3, Lines 33-67 to Col. 5, Lines 1-6; disclosed DICE/TPM digital certificate indicates identity of device) of [a device] and is associated with an asymmetric key pair of the [device] (Cohen, Col. 3, Lines 33-67 to Col. 5, Lines 1-6), the asymmetric key pair comprising a public key and a private key associated with the [device] (Cohen, Col. 3, Lines 33-67 to Col. 5, Lines 1-6); and performing one or more secure communications with the [device] based at least in part on receiving the certificate (Cohen, Col. 3, Lines 33-67 to Col. 5, Lines 1-6).
Cohen does not explicitly disclose, but Mondello teaches in the same field of endeavor, [a] memory system (Mondello, [0056]-[0057]) [as the device in Cohen].
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine the teachings of Cohen with the teachings of Mondello. The motivation for this combination is to protect the integrity of code and data housed within the memory itself (Mondello, [0052]-[0053]).
With regard to claim 19, Cohen in view of Mondello further teaches transmitting content to the memory system (Cohen, Col. 7, Lines 61-67 to Col. 8, Lines 1-32); and receiving a second certificate based at least in part on the private key associated with the memory system and the content transmitted to the memory system (Cohen, Col. 7, Lines 61-67 to Col. 8, Lines 1-32).
With regard to claim 20, Cohen in view of Mondello further teaches wherein the content transmitted to the memory system comprises boot code (Mondello, [0065]; [0079]), and wherein the second certificate is based at least in part on the boot code (Mondello, [0065]; [0079]).
With regard to claim 21, Cohen in view of Mondello further teaches wherein the content transmitted to the memory system comprises a firmware security descriptor of the host system (Cohen, Col. 7, Lines 61-67 to Col. 8, Lines 1-32), and wherein the second certificate is based at least in part on the firmware security descriptor (Cohen, Col. 7, Lines 61-67 to Col. 8, Lines 1-32; disclosed firmware signatures are security descriptors).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 9 is 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: See PTO-892.
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/J. BRANT MURPHY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2435
June 26, 2026
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