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 .
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.
This action is in response to the correspondence filed 12/16/2024.
Claims 1-20 are presented for examination.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement.
As to claims 1, 16 and 20, the claims contain subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention. The claim state, “responsive to determine the media-capture device has been initialized, program instructions to evaluate existing cryptographic credentials”. However, the specification does not appear to include evaluation of existing cryptographic credentials responsive to determining the media capture device has been initialized. The specification (paragraphs 64 and 120) and FIG. 3A include a determination of whether it is a first time that the capture system has been invoked; while FIG. 3A includes a yes or no branch to 306 and 342, respectively, paragraphs 64 and 120 each state a determination that the controlled capture subsystem has not been initialized (paragraph 64, “is the first time”; paragraph 120, “has not been initialized” but immediately followed by “e.g., that this is not the first time”). The Examiner notes that this possibly could be a typographical error in paragraph 120 where “has not been initialized” should read “has been initialized” and will examine the claims as “has been initialized”. Appropriate correction is required.
As to claims 2-15 and 17-19, claims 2-15 and 17-19 do not cure the deficiency of claims 1 and 16, respectively, and are rejected under 35 USC § 112 for their dependency upon claims 1 and 16.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 1, 11, 12, 16 and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 10277400 B1 to Griffin et al. (hereinafter Griffin) (Applicant’s IDS) in view of US 20060036864 A1 to Parulski et al. (hereinafter Parulski).
As to claims 1 and 16, Griffin teaches a media-capture device, comprising: one or more sensors (FIG. 3, biometric sensor circuit); a hardware processor (FIG. 3 and Col 13, lines 36-55 and Col 21, lines 17-56, circuits of the device which may include one or more processors executing instructions); and a non-transitory machine-readable storage medium encoded with program instructions executable by the hardware processor (Col 21, lines 17-56, memory storing the instructions that are executed by the processor(s)), the program instructions comprising: program instructions to initiate acquisition of one or more sensor data samples representing analog phenomena captured by the one or more sensors (Col 7, lines 19-28, process initiated when the user places finger on biometric sensor to be scanned).
Griffin does not explicitly teach program instructions to determine whether the media-capture device has been initialized; and responsive to determine the media-capture device has been initialized, program instructions to evaluate existing cryptographic credentials for enabling capture operations in either online or offline mode based on real-time operating conditions.
However, Parulski teaches program instructions to determine whether the media-capture device has been initialized (FIG. 2A, paragraph 18, a check is made by the processor 18 to see if this is the first time the digital camera 10 has used this firmware, wherein when it is determined that it is not the first time is read as has been initialized); and responsive to determine the media-capture device has been initialized, program instructions to evaluate existing cryptographic credentials for enabling capture operations in either online or offline mode based on real-time operating conditions (FIG. 2B, paragraph 18, reads the private key from the Flash memory 26; without elements further limiting the bounds of “evaluate existing cryptographic credentials” or “online or offline mode”, this recitation meets the limitations of the claim).
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 teachings of Griffin to include the method of determining whether the device has been initialized and evaluating the cryptographic credentials as taught by Parulski in order to ensure that the credentials are present for creating the digital signature, thus optimizing the efficiency of the capture and signing process (paragraph 18).
As to claim 11, Parulski teaches program instructions to cryptographically seal captured media files in an online capture mode (paragraph 18, create a digital signature of the compressed image and metadata hash value).
As to claim 12, Griffin teaches program instructions to generate a to-be-signed data structure comprising at least one of: one or more encoded sensor data samples (Col 7, lines 29-36, generated token of the biometric data), or one or more cryptographic hashes of the one or more encoded sensor data samples; and program instructions to generate a cryptographic hash of the to-be-signed data structure (Fig. 2, Hash of token; Col 7, lines 49-50, generated hash).
As to claim 20, Griffin teaches a computer system comprising: a media-capture device having one or more sensors (FIG. 3, biometric sensor circuit), a registration authority server (Col 2, lines 33-36, biometric service provider), a certification authority server (FIG. 1, time stamp authority computing system 106), one or more computer processors (FIG. 3 and Col 13, lines 36-55 and Col 21, lines 17-56, circuits of the device which may include one or more processors executing instructions), one or more computer readable storage media having computer readable program instructions stored on the one or more computer readable storage media for execution by at least one of the one or more computer processors (Col 21, lines 17-56, memory storing the instructions that are executed by the processor(s)), wherein the one or more processors execute program instructions to: initiate acquisition of one or more sensor data samples representing analog phenomena captured by the one or more sensors (Col 7, lines 19-28, process initiated when the user places finger on biometric sensor to be scanned).
Griffin does not explicitly teach determine whether the media-capture device has been initialized; and responsive to determine the media-capture device has been initialized, evaluate existing cryptographic credentials for enabling capture operations in either online or offline mode based on real-time operating conditions.
However, Parulski teaches determine whether the media-capture device has been initialized (FIG. 2A, paragraph 18, a check is made by the processor 18 to see if this is the first time the digital camera 10 has used this firmware, wherein when it is determined that it is not the first time is read as has been initialized); and responsive to determine the media-capture device has been initialized, evaluate existing cryptographic credentials for enabling capture operations in either online or offline mode based on real-time operating conditions (FIG. 2B, paragraph 18, reads the private key from the Flash memory 26; without elements further limiting the bounds of “evaluate existing cryptographic credentials” or “online or offline mode”, this recitation meets the limitations of the claim).
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 teachings of Griffin to include the method of determining whether the device has been initialized and evaluating the cryptographic credentials as taught by Parulski in order to ensure that the credentials are present for creating the digital signature, thus optimizing the efficiency of the capture and signing process (paragraph 18).
Relevant Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
US 20060218404 A1 to Ogura (Applicant’s IDS) teaches a document management system including a scanning device for reading necessary documents, such as contract documents and approval documents, that are required to be maintained, and generating scanned document data; a plurality of primary time-stamping servers for issuing time stamps with varying degrees of reliability, each server adding a time stamp to the scanned document data generated; a server selector for selecting a specific primary time-stamping server from the plurality of primary time-stamping servers according to the degree of importance of the scanned document data; and a document management server for receiving and storing the scanned document data with a time stamp given by the selected primary time-stamping server. The scanning device is configured to use one of the plurality of primary time-stamping servers to add a time stamp to scanned document data.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2, 13-15 and 17 would be allowable if rewritten to overcome the rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), 1st paragraph, set forth in this Office action and to include all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Dependent claims 2 and 17 are allowable over the prior art of record, including Griffin and Parulski and the references cited by the Examiner and the Applicant’s IDS, taken individually or in combination, because the prior art of record fails to particularly disclose, fairly suggest or render obvious responsive to determining that the server configured to perform time-stamping is reachable, preparing the device for capture in online mode, in view of the other limitations of their respective independent claims 1 and 16, as to claims 2 and 17;
Dependent claim 13 is allowable over the prior art of record, including Griffin and Parulski and the references cited by the Examiner and the Applicant’s IDS, taken individually or in combination, because the prior art of record fails to particularly disclose, fairly suggest or render obvious responsive to determining that a server configured to perform time-stamping reachable, program instructions to generate a time-stamping request that includes a cryptographic hash of the to-be-signed data structure; transmit the time-stamping request to the server configured to perform time-stamping that includes a cryptographic has of the to-be-signed data structure; receive a signed time-stamp from a time-stamping server; generate a digital signature data structure over a to-be-signed data structure using a private key of a short-validity cryptographic key pair and including a received signed time-stamp in the digital signature data structure; and configure the digital signature data structure to include one or more sensor encoded or unencoded data samples, the to-be-signed data structure, and the digital signature data structure, in view of the other limitations of claim 1 and intervening claims 11 and 12, as to claim 13;
Dependent claim 14 is allowable over the prior art of record, including Griffin and Parulski and the references cited by the Examiner and the Applicant’s IDS, taken individually or in combination, because the prior art of record fails to particularly disclose, fairly suggest or render obvious responsive to receiving the signed certificate signing request, program instructions to determine whether attributes of the signed certificate signing request for the long-validity key pair passed validation; and responsive to determining the attributes of the signed certificate signing request for the long-validity key pair passed validation, program instructions to issue a signed certificate for a long-validity public key of the long-validity key pair by composing a corresponding cryptographic certificate for the long-validity public key, in view of the other limitations of the claim and claim 1, as to claim 14;
Dependent claim 15 is allowable over the prior art of record, including Griffin and Parulski and the references cited by the Examiner and the Applicant’s IDS, taken individually or in combination, because the prior art of record fails to particularly disclose, fairly suggest or render obvious responsive to receiving the signed certificate signing request, program instructions to determine whether attributes of the signed certificate signing request for a short-validity key pair passed validation; and responsive to determining the attributes of the signed certificate signing request for a long-validity key pair passed validation, program instructions to issue a signed certificate for a short -validity public key of the short-validity key pair by composing a corresponding cryptographic certificate for the short -validity public key, in view of the other limitations of the claim and claim 1, as to claim 15.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MALCOLM CRIBBS whose telephone number is (571)270-1566. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 930a-330p; 430p-630p.
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MALCOLM . CRIBBS
Examiner
Art Unit 2497
/MALCOLM CRIBBS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2497
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