DETAILED ACTION
Claims 21-40 are pending in this 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 .
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 21-23, 27-30 and 34-37 and 40 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Norton (US PGPUB No. 2016/0359633) in view of Witt et al. (US Patent No. 6,144,739) [hereinafter “Witt”].
As per claim 21, Norton teaches a computer-implemented method for providing a sealed asset, the method comprising: generating asset data associated with an asset of an entity (Abstract, generating tokens and transactions associated with parties); digitally signing the asset data associated with the asset via a private key of an asymmetric key pair to generate signed asset data (Abstract, signing digital tokens and transactions using public/private key pair); transmitting the signed asset data to a signed asset registry, wherein the signed asset registry is accessible to one or more verifiers to enable verification of the signed asset data based at least in part on a public key of the asymmetric key pair ([0007], sent and stored at registries that can verify the token or the transaction)
Norton does not explicitly teach transmitting seal data to a seal data registry; and providing the one or more verifiers with access to the sealed asset comprising the asset data, and the seal data within the seal data registry, enabling verification of the sealed asset by the one or more verifiers. Witt teaches transmitting seal data to a seal data registry (Col. 6, lines 4-15, coordinator registers all crypto seals for digital objects); and providing the one or more verifiers with access to the sealed asset comprising the asset data (Abstract, digital objects protected using crypto seals) (Examiner Note: the signed asset data is taught by Norton), and the seal data within the seal data registry, enabling verification of the sealed asset by the one or more verifiers (Abstract and Col. 6, lines 15-25, access to crypto seal data is provided to challenge the authenticity of the data object).
At the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine Norton with the teachings of Witt, transmitting seal data to a seal data registry; and providing the one or more verifiers with access to the sealed asset comprising the asset data, and the seal data within the seal data registry, enabling verification of the sealed asset by the one or more verifiers, to ensure data integrity and source identity when storing encrypted data.
As per claim 22, the combination of Norton and Witt teaches the computer-implemented method of claim 21, wherein: the signed asset data (Norton; Abstract, signed tokens or transactions – interpreted to be types of asset) comprises digital information requiring verification using the seal data (Witt; Col. 3, lines 35-40, verification of crypto seal made by coordinator using a challenge mechanism); and the seal data comprises an identifier providing evidence of authenticity of the signed asset data (Witt; Col. 6, lines 15-20, crypto-seal ID used to prove authenticity of digital object and its communications).
As per claim 23, the combination of Norton and Witt teaches the computer-implemented method of claim 21, further comprising obtaining the asymmetric key from the entity, wherein the asymmetric key pair comprises the public key corresponding to the private key (Norton; [0018], obtaining the public key corresponding to the private key of an party through a registry or other means).
As per claim 27, the combination of Norton and Witt teaches the computer-implemented method of claim 21, wherein: the seal data registry comprises entity certification data corresponding to the entity (Witt; Abstract, cryptographic hash for the digital object associated with the crypto-seal); the asymmetric key pair is specific to the entity (Col. 5, lines 10-25, public and private key pairs are specific to particular objects associated with crypto-seal); and the seal data comprises the public key of the asymmetric key pair specific to the entity (Witt; Col. 6, lines 10-15, pubic key is part of the crypt-seal data).
As per claim 28, the substance of the claimed invention is identical or substantially similar to that of claim 21. Accordingly, this claim is rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 29, the substance of the claimed invention is identical or substantially similar to that of claim 22. Accordingly, this claim is rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 30, the substance of the claimed invention is identical or substantially similar to that of claim 23. Accordingly, this claim is rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 34, the substance of the claimed invention is identical or substantially similar to that of claim 27. Accordingly, this claim is rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 35, the substance of the claimed invention is identical or substantially similar to that of claim 21. Accordingly, this claim is rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 36, the substance of the claimed invention is identical or substantially similar to that of claim 22. Accordingly, this claim is rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 37, the substance of the claimed invention is identical or substantially similar to that of claim 23. Accordingly, this claim is rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 40, the substance of the claimed invention is identical or substantially similar to that of claim 27. Accordingly, this claim is rejected under the same rationale.
Claims 24-26, 31-33 and 38-39 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Norton and Witt in further view of Campbell et al. (CA-2386484-A1) [hereinafter “Campbell”].
As per claim 24, the combination of Norton and Witt teaches the computer-implemented method of claim 21.
The combination of Norton and Witt does not explicitly teach generating the seal data based on a second asymmetric key pair comprising a seal public key and a seal private key, the seal data comprising a unique identifier corresponding to the seal public key; and digitally signing the seal data and the unique identifier using the seal private key. Campbell teaches generating the seal data based on a second asymmetric key pair comprising a seal public key and a seal private key (Page 31, lines 12-15, digitally signing sealed data using a public/private key pair), the seal data comprising a unique identifier corresponding to the seal public key (Page 31, lines 3-8, identifier value along with other data that is sealed using a public/private key pair); and digitally signing the seal data and the unique identifier using the seal private key (Page 31, lines 12-15, signing using private key including the identifier value see Page 31 lines 3-8).
At the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine Norton and Witt with the teachings of Campbell, generating the seal data based on a second asymmetric key pair comprising a seal public key and a seal private key, the seal data comprising a unique identifier corresponding to the seal public key; and digitally signing the seal data and the unique identifier using the seal private key, to ensure data integrity and source identity when storing encrypted data.
As per claim 25, the combination of Norton, Witt and Campbell teaches the computer-implemented method of claim 24, wherein the seal data registry is configured to be searchable based at least in part on at least a portion of the unique identifier or the seal public key (Witt; Abstract, crypto-seal ID and location in a registry).
As per claim 26, the combination of Norton and Witt teaches the computer-implemented method of claim 21.
The combination of Norton and Witt does not explicitly teach wherein the seal data comprises information indicating what the seal is used for, how the seal is used, a time range the seal data is valid, or a combination thereof. Campbell teaches wherein the seal data comprises information indicating what the seal is used for (Page 31, lines 1-10, seal is a hash including branding data which indicates the company and entity the seal is used for), how the seal is used (Examiner Note: this is an optional feature that may overcome the current rejection if included as a required feature), a time range the seal data is valid (Examiner Note: this is an optional feature that may overcome the current rejection if included as a required feature), or a combination thereof (Examiner Note: this is an optional feature that may overcome the current rejection if included as a required feature).
At the time of filing, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to combine Norton and Witt with the teachings of Campbell, wherein the seal data comprises information indicating what the seal is used for, how the seal is used, a time range the seal data is valid, or a combination thereof, enabling verification of the sealed asset by the one or more verifiers, to ensure data integrity and source identity when storing encrypted data.
As per claim 31, the substance of the claimed invention is identical or substantially similar to that of claim 24. Accordingly, this claim is rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 32, the substance of the claimed invention is identical or substantially similar to that of claim 25. Accordingly, this claim is rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 33, the substance of the claimed invention is identical or substantially similar to that of claim 26. Accordingly, this claim is rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 38, the substance of the claimed invention is identical or substantially similar to that of claim 24. Accordingly, this claim is rejected under the same rationale.
As per claim 39, the substance of the claimed invention is identical or substantially similar to that of claim 26. Accordingly, this claim is rejected under the same rationale.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Kishore (US PGPUB No. 2004/0049445), Gasparini et al. (US PGPUB No. 2005/0268100), Norton (US PGPUB No. 2017/0272245), Sheffield et al. (US Patent No. 10,721,224), Krishnamoorthy et al. ("Meta-Sealing: A Revolutionizing Integrity Assurance Protocol for Transparent, Tamper-Proof, and Trustworthy AI System," arXiv:2411.00069, October 31, 2024), Chow et al. ("Forgery and tamper-proof identification document," 1993 Proceedings of IEEE International Carnahan Conference on Security Technology, Ottawa, ON, Canada, 1993, pp. 11-14, doi: 10.1109/CCST.1993.386835), Bo et al. ("Electronic Seal Based on Hash Function and Digital Watermark," 2009 International Conference on Computer and Communications Security, Hong Kong, China, 2009, pp. 28-31, doi: 10.1109/ICCCS.2009.41) and Abdullah et al. ("Framework for software tampering detection in embedded systems," 2015 International Conference on Electrical Engineering and Informatics (ICEEI), Denpasar, Indonesia, 2015, pp. 259-264, doi: 10.1109/ICEEI.2015.7352507) all disclose various aspects of the claimed invention including signing asset data and storing in a registry along with seal data for verification purposes.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to PETER C SHAW whose telephone number is (571)270-7179. The examiner can normally be reached Max Flex.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Carl Colin can be reached at 571-272-3862. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/PETER C SHAW/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2493 June 23, 2026
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