Detailed Action
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
This is the initial office action that has been issued in response to patent application, 19/027,513, filed on 01/17/2025. Claims 1-15 are currently pending and have been considered below. Claim 1, 11 and 15 are independent claim. Claim 1 has been cancelled.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS's) submitted on 01/17/2025, 5/27/2025 and 06/03/2026 are in compliance with provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Priority
This application is a CON of PCT/KR2024/018663 filed on 11/22/2024. The application claims the foreign priority of KOREA, REPUBLIC OF 10-2023-0185817 filed on 12/19/2023.
Drawings
The drawings filed on 01/17/2025 are accepted by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 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.
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 of this title, 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.
Claim 1-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang (US Patent Application No 2020/0351156 A1) in view of Smith (US Patent Application Publication No 2022/0191702 A1).
Regarding Claim 1, Zhang discloses
an electronic apparatus comprising:
a communication device (Zhang, Fig-1);
at least one memory storing key information; and at least one processor configured to (Zhang, Fig-1):
perform a registration procedure of the electronic apparatus by using onboarding information acquired by the electronic apparatus (Zhang, ¶[0022], the new device configures on its own to join the existing network using obtained necessary configuration information),
check other electronic apparatuses to determine at least one electronic apparatus of the other electronic apparatuses having the key information (Zhang, ¶[0016], the user may send a command to the existing device through the management application to start wireless scanning and to collect information of any available new device. ¶[0028]- ¶[0033]), and
control the communication device to transmit the onboarding information acquired by the electronic apparatus to an electronic apparatus of the at least one electronic apparatus determined to have the key information and that has yet to be onboarded (Zhang, ¶[0041]- [0042], Fig-4, the SSID is the name of wireless network. The first 4 bytes are used for unique prefix. ¶[0049], during the next device onboarding, the encoder encodes the configuration information into one or more service set identifiers (SSID) with a predetermined format).
Zhang does not explicitly teach the following limitation that Smith teaches:
key information (Smith, ¶[0059]-¶[0060], onboarding tool provisions a secure discovery key. Enhanced privacy identifier (EPID) discovery key)
Zhang in view of Smith are analogous art because they are from the “same field of endeavor” and are from the same “problem solving area”. Namely, they pertain to the field of “network connection techniques applied within internet of things (IOT) devices”. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the invention of Zhang in view of Smith to include the idea of communicating with multi-framework devices for establishing a secure session (Smith, ¶[0017]).
Regarding Claim 2, Zhang in view of Smith discloses the electronic apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein
the key information includes a random value (Smith, ¶[0051], this prohibition of use by other networks may be established by selecting unique values from a large namespace such as a UUID (e.g. , as defined by RFC4122) or a hash of a random number (e.g. , a as generated by hardware implementations such as Intel Digital Random Number Generator (DRNG)), and
the at least one processor is configured to:
generate at least one of a service set identifier (SSID) or a password based on the random value (Zhang, ¶[0035]- ¶[0037], if the new device has captured all the broadcast SSIDs), and
establish connection with another electronic apparatus by using at least one of the generated SSID or password (Zhang, ¶[0035], ¶[0049], each SSID may include a prefix and a sequence information section. The prefix is designed to identify the predetermined format of SSIDs for special configuration use and the sequence information section is designed to assemble the received information. The SSID may further include an encrypted section for ensure data security during communication. In addition, the SSID may further include a checksum for verifying the integrity of the received information).
Regarding Claim 3, Zhang in view of Smith discloses the electronic apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein
the communication device is operable in an access point (AP) mode or a station mode (Zhang, ¶[0012], software enabled access point (softAP) mode and station access mode), and
the at least one processor is configured to:
control the communication device to operate in the AP mode and the station mode alternately (Zhang, ¶[0013], the new device to be onboarded is set to softAP mode by default. During onboarding process, the user can change the mobile computing devices' settings to actively scan and connect to the new device's wireless AP, then can transmit all necessary configuration information to the new device through a proprietary protocol. After obtaining valid configuration information, the new device switches to STA mode).
Regarding Claim 4, Zhang in view of Smith discloses the electronic apparatus as claimed in claim 3, wherein the at [east one processor is configured to:
acquire the onboarding information from another electronic apparatus having a communication device operating in the station mode or a user terminal device while the communication device of the electronic apparatus is operating in the AP mode (Zhang, ¶[0013], the new device to be onboarded is set to softAP mode by default. During onboarding process, the user can change the mobile computing devices' settings to actively scan and connect to the new device's wireless AP, then can transmit all necessary configuration information to the new device through a proprietary protocol. After obtaining valid configuration information, the new device switches to STA mode), and
transmit the acquired onboarding information to the electronic apparatus of the at least one electronic apparatus determined to have the key information and that has yet to be onboarded, while a communication device of the at least one electronic apparatus determined to have the key information and that has yet to be onboarded is operating in the station mode and the communication device of the electronic apparatus is operating in the AP mode (Zhang, ¶[0013], the new device to be onboarded is set to softAP mode by default. During onboarding process, the user can change the mobile computing devices' settings to actively scan and connect to the new device's wireless AP, then can transmit all necessary configuration information to the new device through a proprietary protocol. After obtaining valid configuration information, the new device switches to STA mode).
Regarding Claim 5, Zhang in view of Smith discloses the electronic apparatus as claimed in claim 3, wherein the at least one processor is configured to:
acquire the onboarding information from another electronic apparatus having the key information and having a communication device operating in the AP mode while the communication device of the electronic apparatus is operating in the station mode (Zhang, ¶[0013], the new device to be onboarded is set to softAP mode by default. During onboarding process, the user can change the mobile computing devices' settings to actively scan and connect to the new device's wireless AP, then can transmit all necessary configuration information to the new device through a proprietary protocol. After obtaining valid configuration information, the new device switches to STA mode), and
transmit the acquired onboarding information to the electronic apparatus of the at least one electronic apparatus determined to have the key information and that has yet to be onboarded, while the communication device of the electronic apparatus is operated in the station mode and a communication device of the electronic apparatus of the at least one electronic apparatus determined to have the key information and that has yet to be onboarded is operating in the AP mode (Zhang, ¶[0013], the new device to be onboarded is set to softAP mode by default. During onboarding process, the user can change the mobile computing devices' settings to actively scan and connect to the new device's wireless AP, then can transmit all necessary configuration information to the new device through a proprietary protocol. After obtaining valid configuration information, the new device switches to STA mode).
Regarding Claim 6, Zhang in view of Smith discloses the electronic apparatus as claimed in claim 3, wherein
the at least one memory stores period information and sequence information (Zhang, ¶[0035], each SSID stays with the AP interface for limited time. ¶[0043], ¶[0049], each SSID may include a prefix and a sequence information), and
the at least one processor is configured to control the communication device to:
operate in the AP mode at a time point corresponding to the period information and the sequence information (Zhang, ¶[0013], the new device to be onboarded is set to softAP mode by default. During onboarding process, the user can change the mobile computing devices' settings to actively scan and connect to the new device's wireless AP, then can transmit all necessary configuration information to the new device through a proprietary protocol. After obtaining valid configuration information, the new device switches to STA mode), and
operate in the station mode at remaining time points (Zhang, ¶[0013], the new device to be onboarded is set to softAP mode by default. During onboarding process, the user can change the mobile computing devices' settings to actively scan and connect to the new device's wireless AP, then can transmit all necessary configuration information to the new device through a proprietary protocol. After obtaining valid configuration information, the new device switches to STA mode).
Regarding Claim 7, Zhang in view of Smith discloses the electronic apparatus as claimed in claim 6, wherein the at least one processor is configured to:
check whether sharing of the onboarding information is completed based on the sequence information (Zhang, ¶[0035], each SSID stays with the AP interface for limited time. ¶[0043], ¶[0049], each SSID may include a prefix and a sequence information), and
control the communication device of the electronic apparatus to operate in the station mode and establish connection to an access point based on the onboarding information when the check of whether sharing of the onboarding information is completed indicates that the sharing of the onboarding information is completed (Zhang, ¶[0035], ¶[0049], each SSID may include a prefix and a sequence information section. The prefix is designed to identify the predetermined format of SSIDs for special configuration use and the sequence information section is designed to assemble the received information. The SSID may further include an encrypted section for ensure data security during communication. In addition, the SSID may further include a checksum for verifying the integrity of the received information).
Regarding Claim 8, Zhang in view of Smith discloses the electronic apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein
the onboarding information includes AP connection information including a service set identifier (SSID) of an access point, security setting information of the access point, and password information corresponding to the security setting information (Zhang, ¶[0035]- ¶[0037], if the new device has captured all the broadcast SSIDs), and
the at least one processor is configured to: establish connection with the access point based on the AP connection information (Zhang, ¶[0035], ¶[0049], each SSID may include a prefix and a sequence information section. The prefix is designed to identify the predetermined format of SSIDs for special configuration use and the sequence information section is designed to assemble the received information. The SSID may further include an encrypted section for ensure data security during communication. In addition, the SSID may further include a checksum for verifying the integrity of the received information).
Regarding Claim 9, Zhang in view of Smith discloses the electronic apparatus as claimed in claim 8, wherein
the onboarding information further includes user account information (Zhang, ¶[0044], a typical configuration information required by an IOT network generally includes: a Wi - Fi network name, a password, a security and/or encryption mode, a cloud account name and password and the new device name), and
the at least one processor is configured to:
perform the registration procedure of the electronic apparatus on an external server by using the user account information after the electronic apparatus establishes connection with the access point (Zhang, ¶[0022], the new device configures on its own to join the existing network using obtained necessary configuration information).
Regarding Claim 10, Zhang in view of Smith discloses the electronic apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the key information includes at least one of a key value generated based on an address where the electronic apparatus is installed, shared SSID information, or shared password information (Zhang, ¶[0016], the existing device broadcast a designed service set identifiers (SSIDs) that may include encoded configuration information specifically for the existing network. The new device may use configuration information to join the existing network).
Regarding Claim 11, Zhang discloses a method for controlling an electronic apparatus, the method comprising, by the electronic apparatus:
acquiring onboarding information (Zhang, ¶[0023], Fig-3, the new device is ready for onboarding);
performing a registration procedure of the electronic apparatus by using the acquired onboarding information (Zhang, ¶[0022], the new device configures on its own to join the existing network using obtained necessary configuration information);
checking other electronic apparatuses to determine at least one electronic apparatus of the other electronic apparatuses having the key information (Zhang, ¶[0016], the user may send a command to the existing device through the management application to start wireless scanning and to collect information of any available new device. ¶[0028]- ¶[0033]); and
transmitting the acquired onboarding information to an electronic apparatus of the at least one electronic apparatus determined to have the key information and that has yet to be onboarded (Zhang, ¶[0041]- [0042], Fig-4, the SSID is the name of wireless network. The first 4 bytes are used for unique prefix. ¶[0049], during the next device onboarding, the encoder encodes the configuration information into one or more service set identifiers (SSID) with a predetermined format).
Zhang does not explicitly teach the following limitation that Smith teaches:
storing key information in the electronic apparatus (Smith, ¶[0059]-¶[0060], onboarding tool provisions a secure discovery key. Enhanced privacy identifier (EPID) discovery key)
Zhang in view of Smith are analogous art because they are from the “same field of endeavor” and are from the same “problem solving area”. Namely, they pertain to the field of “network connection techniques applied within internet of things (IOT) devices”. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the invention of Zhang in view of Smith to include the idea of communicating with multi-framework devices for establishing a secure session (Smith, ¶[0017]).
Regarding Claim 12, Zhang in view of Smith discloses the method as claimed inclaim11, wherein
the key information includes a random value, and the method further comprising, by the electronic apparatus (Smith, ¶[0051], this prohibition of use by other networks may be established by selecting unique values from a large namespace such as a UUID (e.g. , as defined by RFC4122) or a hash of a random number (e.g. , a as generated by hardware implementations such as Intel Digital Random Number Generator (DRNG)):
generating at least one of a service set identifier (SSID) or a password based on the random value (Zhang, ¶[0035]- ¶[0037], if the new device has captured all the broadcast SSIDs), and
establishing connection with another electronic apparatus by using at least one of the generated SSID or password (Zhang, ¶[0035], ¶[0049], each SSID may include a prefix and a sequence information section. The prefix is designed to identify the predetermined format of SSIDs for special configuration use and the sequence information section is designed to assemble the received information. The SSID may further include an encrypted section for ensure data security during communication. In addition, the SSID may further include a checksum for verifying the integrity of the received information).
Regarding Claim 13, Zhang in view of Smith discloses the method as claimed in claim 11, further comprising, alternately changing a communication mode of the electronic apparatus to an access point (AP) mode and a station mode (Zhang, ¶[0013], the new device to be onboarded is set to softAP mode by default. During onboarding process, the user can change the mobile computing devices' settings to actively scan and connect to the new device's wireless AP, then can transmit all necessary configuration information to the new device through a proprietary protocol. After obtaining valid configuration information, the new device switches to STA mode).
Regarding Claim 14, Zhang in view of Smith discloses the method as claimed in claim 11, wherein in the acquiring of the onboarding information, the onboarding information is acquired from another electronic apparatus while a communication mode of the another electronic apparatus is a station mode or a user terminal device and a communication mode of the electronic apparatus is an access point (AP) mode (Zhang, ¶[0013], the new device to be onboarded is set to softAP mode by default. During onboarding process, the user can change the mobile computing devices' settings to actively scan and connect to the new device's wireless AP, then can transmit all necessary configuration information to the new device through a proprietary protocol. After obtaining valid configuration information, the new device switches to STA mode), and
in the transmitting of the acquired onboarding information,
the onboarding information is transmitted to the electronic apparatus determined to have the key information and that has yet to be onboarded, while the communication mode of the electronic apparatus determined to have the key information and that has yet to be onboarded is the station mode and the communication mode of the electronic apparatus is the AP mode (Zhang, ¶[0013], the new device to be onboarded is set to softAP mode by default. During onboarding process, the user can change the mobile computing devices' settings to actively scan and connect to the new device's wireless AP, then can transmit all necessary configuration information to the new device through a proprietary protocol. After obtaining valid configuration information, the new device switches to STA mode).
Regarding Claim 15, Zhang discloses a non-transitory computer-readable recording medium which stores a program for executing a method for controlling an electronic apparatus, wherein the method includes, by the electronic apparatus:
acquiring onboarding information (Zhang, ¶[0023], Fig-3, the new device is ready for onboarding);
performing a registration procedure of the electronic apparatus by using the acquired onboarding information (Zhang, ¶[0022], the new device configures on its own to join the existing network using obtained necessary configuration information);
checking other electronic apparatuses to determine at least one electronic apparatus of the other electronic apparatuses having the key information (Zhang, ¶[0016], the user may send a command to the existing device through the management application to start wireless scanning and to collect information of any available new device. ¶[0028]- ¶[0033]); and
transmitting the acquired onboarding information to an electronic apparatus of the at least one electronic apparatus determined to have the key information and that has yet to be onboarded (Zhang, ¶[0041]- [0042], Fig-4, the SSID is the name of wireless network. The first 4 bytes are used for unique prefix. ¶[0049], during the next device onboarding, the encoder encodes the configuration information into one or more service set identifiers (SSID) with a predetermined format).
Zhang does not explicitly teach the following limitation that Smith teaches:
storing key information in the electronic apparatus (Smith, ¶[0059]-¶[0060], onboarding tool provisions a secure discovery key. Enhanced privacy identifier (EPID) discovery key).
Zhang in view of Smith are analogous art because they are from the “same field of endeavor” and are from the same “problem solving area”. Namely, they pertain to the field of “network connection techniques applied within internet of things (IOT) devices”. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify the invention of Zhang in view of Smith to include the idea of communicating with multi-framework devices for establishing a secure session (Smith, ¶[0017]).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure (see PTO-Form 892).
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/WASIKA NIPA/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2433
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