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 .
Claims 1-16 as received on 2/7/25 were examined.
Information Disclosure Statement
The IDS received on 2/7/25 was considered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1, 7, and 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Arora et al (CN 116208359A).
Note that the page and paragraph citations to Arora are made with respect to the English machine translation of the reference provided with this Office action. Figure citations are made with respect to the original ‘359 reference with explanation corresponding to the translated reference.
Claims 1 and 16:
As per claim 1, Arora discloses:
a plurality of devices configured to transmit data or signals (p4, last paragraph and p8, paragraph 2; SoC 100 can be incorporated into the various systems discussed in the cited portion, including vehicles of various types. This means that the SoC is connected to a plurality of devices the send and receive data/signals for processing); and
a chip system comprising a security processor, the security processor being configured to run a firewall program to build a firewall module embedded into the chip system, and the firewall module intercepting the data or signals transmitted by the plurality of devices according to a predetermined rule (p4, paragraphs 3-5; p5, 8th paragraph, and p8, claim 1; SoC 100 has one or more processors and implements a firewall which enforces access control rules on various data traffic).
The rejection of claim 1 applies, mutatis mutandis, to claim 16. Note that as per p8, paragraph 2 of Arora the system of claim 1 can be implemented/equipped in one or more vehicles, thus helping to drive/operate the vehicle.
Claim 7:
Arora further discloses wherein the firewall module is further configured to:
detect whether a data transmission request signal from one of the plurality of devices is legal; allow, in response to determining that the data transmission request signal is legal, the one of the plurality of devices to send data corresponding to the data transmission request signal; and record, in response to determining that the data transmission request signal is illegal, that the one of the plurality of devices has a transmission anomaly, thereby obtaining a device that is recorded as having the transmission anomaly (p4, paragraphs 3-5 and p7, paragraphs 5-7; Checking if data/signal sent are anomalous/legal and blocking them if the are/illegal).
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.
Claim(s) 2-5, 8, 11, and 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Arora et al (CN 116208359A).
Claim 2:
As per claim 2, Arora discloses wherein the chip system further comprises an application processor (p4, paragraph 7-9), and being configured to run an application program of the driver assistance system to cause the plurality of devices to transmit data or signals (p4, paragraphs 3-9).
Arora does not explicitly disclose the application processor being started after the firewall module is built. However, official notice is taken that the limitation was well known in the art before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention. Before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Arora’s invention in accordance with the limitations further recited in claim 2. With respect to when the firewall module is built and the application processor being started, one of ordinary skill in the art, having common sense, would realize that there are only three possibilities—that the application processor is stared after the firewall module is built, before the firewall module is built, or at the same time the application processor is built. Thus the rationale for why one of ordinary skill in the in the art would have found it obvious to have the application processor be started after the firewall module is built is that it is obvious to try—choosing from a finite number of identified, predictable solutions, with a reasonable expectation of success (see KSR Int'l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398 (2007)) to see when it would be best to start the application processor with respect to when the firewall module is built.
Claim 3:
Arora further discloses a plurality of memory areas respectively used by the plurality of devices when transmitting the data (p4, paragraph 3; p5, paragraph 8; and p6, paragraphs 8-11);
wherein the security processor is configured to enable or disable access of the application processor to part of the plurality of memory areas of the driver assistance system (p4, paragraph 3).
Claim 4:
Arora further discloses wherein the security processor comprises a plurality of security control registers respectively configured to set firewall modules with different predetermined rules for different devices (p4, paragraph 5).
Arora does not explicitly disclose the plurality of security control registers being accessible only by the security processor. However, official notice is taken that the limitation was well known in the art before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention. Before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Arora’s invention in accordance with the limitations further recited in claim 4. One of ordinary skill in the art would have done so because limiting access to the security control register would allow for greater firewall security.
Claim 5:
Arora further discloses wherein the security processor is integrated with a one time programmable (OTP) memory, the OTP memory storing configuration information of the firewall module in an unmodifiable manner (p3, paragraph 10; and p4, paragraph 6).
Arora does not explicitly disclose the OTP memory being accessible only by the security processor. However, official notice is taken that the limitation was well known in the art before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention. Before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Arora’s invention in accordance with the limitations further recited in claim 5. One of ordinary skill in the art would have done so because limiting access to the OTP and other secure areas would allow for greater firewall security.
Claim 8:
Arora does not explicitly disclose wherein the firewall module is further configured to: detect data transmission request signals from different devices in the plurality of devices according to predetermined priorities.
However, official notice is taken that the limitation was well known in the art before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention. Before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Arora’s invention in accordance with the limitations further recited in claim 8. One of ordinary skill in the art would have done so because use of prioritized data transmission would allow for better network resource management in a manner that would allow a user and computer system to be more productive.
Claim 11:
Arora does not explicitly disclose wherein the firewall module is further configured to: reduce a priority of the device that is recorded as having the transmission anomaly or set a communication permission thereof to permanently disabled.
However, official notice is taken that the limitation was well known in the art before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention. Before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Arora’s invention in accordance with the limitations further recited in claim 11. One of ordinary skill in the art would have done so because permanently disabling transmission anomalies and their sources would prevent the spread of an attack by an compromised source.
Claim 15:
Arora does not explicitly disclose wherein the firewall module is further configured to record and analyze a running log of the driver assistance system during transmission of the data or signals.
However, official notice is taken that the limitation was well known in the art before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention. Before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Arora’s invention in accordance with the limitations further recited in claim 15. One of ordinary skill in the art would have done so because use of recorded logs in a firewall system as recited in claim 14 would allow for better system analysis by an administrator after an error or attack on the firewall.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6, 9-10, and 12-14 are 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
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/PONNOREAY PICH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2495
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