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 .
This communication is in response to the application filed on 05/27/2025. Claims 1-20 are currently pending.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 05/27/2025 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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- 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over an NPL “Dynamic Authentication Protocol Using Self-Powered Timers for Passive Internet of Things” to Afifi et al. (hereinafter Afifi) in view of WO 2017189590 to SCHMIDT ANDREAS (hereinafter SCHMIDT).
NOTE: Both references are submitted by the applicant in the IDS provided on 05/27/2025.
Regarding claim 1, Afifi discloses a method of wireless security communication (Algorithm 1, pp 2931, left column) applied to a first node (tag T, pp 2931, left column first paragraph “The tag T and the reader R are assumed to share the private key K…”) of an ambient internet-of-things (AIoT) network (ambient IoT and passive IoT mean the same thing, pp 2934, right column, second paragraph, VII. Conclusion, “In this paper, we introduced a novel dynamic authentication protocol for passive IoT systems…”) the method comprising:
generating, by the first node, a physical layer shared security key (tag computes Ai and send to reader, Ai is the physical layer shared security key, pp 2931 left column first paragraph “…At any authentication instance ti, the authentication session is initiated when the tag is in the reader’s range. R sends a request to T as an interrogating signal for identification information. T responds or broadcasts to R its identification IDT and the authentication value
Ai = h(K,Vi) ……(2)
where Vi is the v-bits timer value and Ai is a bits. T then sends Ai to R for authentication”) based on information that is not derived from the wireless channel reciprocity (tag computes Ai based on timer value, pp 2931, left column, first paragraph “…T responds or broadcasts to R its identification IDT and the authentication value
Ai = h(K,Vi) ……(2)
where Vi is the v-bits timer value and Ai is a bits”); and
exchanging by the first node, a message using the physical layer shared security key with the second node (tag broadcast Ai, pp 2931 left column, first paragraph “T responds or broadcasts to R its identification IDT and the authentication value
Ai = h(K,Vi) ……(2)
where Vi is the v-bits timer value and Ai is a bits”).
However, Afifi does not explicitly disclose the following limitation:
generating the key based on wireless channel reciprocity of communication between the first node and a second node of the AIoT network and additional information
SCHMIDT discloses generating the key (¶0040, “In step 210, the base station sends the reconciled list L to the device 222. At this point, the device 222 and base station 224 have exchanged information regarding the location of excursions that are found in both sequences and (¾. However, the device 222 and base station 224 have not exchanged information indicating whether each of those excursions is an excursion of ones or an excursion of zeros. Nevertheless, due to Lorentz reciprocity, device 222 and base station 224 are expected to have the same information as to whether each excursion is an excursion of ones or of zeros. (The probability of agreement may be increased if desired by, for example, increasing the value of the parameter m.) In steps 211a and 211b, device 222 and base station 224 use this shared information as the basis for generating a shared key k.”) based on wireless channel reciprocity of communication between the first node and a second node of the AIoT network (¶0032, “…In step 201, the device 222 and base station 224 exchange probe data over the PHY channel and obtain respective bit sequences representing measurements of the PHY channel. For example, the device 222 may obtain the bit sequence (Xj), i = 1, ... , N, and the base station 224 may obtain the bit sequence (¾, i = Ι, .,. , Ν. In some embodiments, these bit sequences are generated as follows. A series of measurements of the channel between device D and base station BS is taken by those devices. The measurements of the channel are low-pass filtered such that the mean of the channel measurements is approximately zero. A thresholding function is applied to each of the measurements such that a measurement is assigned a bit value of "1" if it is above a threshold, a bit value of "0" if it is below a negative threshold, and is otherwise undefined….”, wherein Xj is generated based on channel conditions) and additional information (¶0033, “In step 202, the device 222 selects a sequence L of numbers that are indices in the range 1, ... , N. Each number in the sequence L identifies a position in the sequence (¾). The sequence L operates as a key derivation seed in that both the device 222 and the base station 224 use at least a portion of J, together with the respective channel measurements they have obtained, to generate a key…”, wherein parameter L along with channel dependent parameter Xj are used to the key), (¶0007, “…The receiving device then generates a key for communication between the receiving device and the authenticating device based at least in part on (i) the measured channel conditions and (ii) at least a selected portion of the key derivation seed. The selected portion of the key derivation seed may be selected by a method comprising reconciling the received key derivation seed with a locally- generated key derivation seed.”)
Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention to modify the method of Afifi to include generating the key based on wireless channel reciprocity of communication between the first node and a second node of the AIoT network and additional information as disclosed by SCHMIDT and be motivated in doing so in order to merge the parameters in key derivation and setup a secure physical layer communication between two nodes-SCHMIDT ¶0032-¶0040 and ¶0005-¶0006 in parts.
Regarding claim 10, Afifi discloses a first node (tag T, pp 2931 left column, first paragraph “The tag T and the reader R are assumed to share the private key K”) of an ambient internet-of-things (AIoT) network (ambient IoT and passive IoT mean the same thing, pp 2934, right column, second paragraph, VII. Conclusion, “In this paper, we introduced a novel dynamic authentication protocol for passive IoT systems…”) configured to:
generate a physical layer shared security key (tag computes Ai and send to reader, Ai is the physical layer shared security key, pp 2931 left column first paragraph “…At any authentication instance ti, the authentication session is initiated when the tag is in the reader’s range. R sends a request to T as an interrogating signal for identification information. T responds or broadcasts to R its identification IDT and the authentication value
Ai = h(K,Vi) ……(2)
where Vi is the v-bits timer value and Ai is a bits. T then sends Ai to R for authentication”) based on information that is not derived from the wireless channel reciprocity (tag computes Ai based on timer value, pp 2931, left column, first paragraph “…T responds or broadcasts to R its identification IDT and the authentication value
Ai = h(K,Vi) ……(2)
where Vi is the v-bits timer value and Ai is a bits”); and
exchange a message using the physical layer shared security key with the second node (tag broadcast Ai, pp 2931 left column, first paragraph “T responds or broadcasts to R its identification IDT and the authentication value
Ai = h(K,Vi) ……(2)
where Vi is the v-bits timer value and Ai is a bits”).
However, Afifi does not explicitly disclose the following limitation:
comprising at least one processor configured to:
generate the key based on wireless channel reciprocity of communication between the first node and a second node of the AIoT network and additional information
SCHMIDT discloses comprising at least one processor (¶0064, “…As used herein, a module includes hardware (e.g., one or more processors, one or more microprocessors, one or more microcontrollers, one or more microchips, one or more application-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), one or more field programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), one or more memory devices) deemed suitable by those of skill in the relevant art for a given implementation. …”) configured to:
generate the key (¶0040, “In step 210, the base station sends the reconciled list L to the device 222. At this point, the device 222 and base station 224 have exchanged information regarding the location of excursions that are found in both sequences and (¾. However, the device 222 and base station 224 have not exchanged information indicating whether each of those excursions is an excursion of ones or an excursion of zeros. Nevertheless, due to Lorentz reciprocity, device 222 and base station 224 are expected to have the same information as to whether each excursion is an excursion of ones or of zeros. (The probability of agreement may be increased if desired by, for example, increasing the value of the parameter m.) In steps 211a and 211b, device 222 and base station 224 use this shared information as the basis for generating a shared key k.”) based on wireless channel reciprocity of communication between the first node and a second node of the AIoT network (¶0032, “…In step 201, the device 222 and base station 224 exchange probe data over the PHY channel and obtain respective bit sequences representing measurements of the PHY channel. For example, the device 222 may obtain the bit sequence (Xj), i = 1, ... , N, and the base station 224 may obtain the bit sequence (¾, i = Ι, .,. , Ν. In some embodiments, these bit sequences are generated as follows. A series of measurements of the channel between device D and base station BS is taken by those devices. The measurements of the channel are low-pass filtered such that the mean of the channel measurements is approximately zero. A thresholding function is applied to each of the measurements such that a measurement is assigned a bit value of "1" if it is above a threshold, a bit value of "0" if it is below a negative threshold, and is otherwise undefined….”, wherein Xj is generated based on channel conditions) and additional information (¶0033, “In step 202, the device 222 selects a sequence L of numbers that are indices in the range 1, ... , N. Each number in the sequence L identifies a position in the sequence (¾). The sequence L operates as a key derivation seed in that both the device 222 and the base station 224 use at least a portion of J, together with the respective channel measurements they have obtained, to generate a key…”, wherein parameter L along with channel dependent parameter Xj are used to the key), (¶0007, “…The receiving device then generates a key for communication between the receiving device and the authenticating device based at least in part on (i) the measured channel conditions and (ii) at least a selected portion of the key derivation seed. The selected portion of the key derivation seed may be selected by a method comprising reconciling the received key derivation seed with a locally- generated key derivation seed.”)
Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention to modify the invention of Afifi to include generate the key based on wireless channel reciprocity of communication between the first node and a second node of the AIoT network and additional information as disclosed by SCHMIDT and be motivated in doing so in order to merge the parameters in key derivation and setup a secure physical layer communication between two nodes-SCHMIDT ¶0032-¶0040 and ¶0005-¶0006 in parts.
Regarding claim 19, Afifi discloses A non-transitory computer readable storage medium for storing a computer program that, when executed by a computer, causes the computer to perform the following:
generating a physical layer shared security key (tag computes Ai and send to reader, Ai is the physical layer shared security key, pp 2931 left column first paragraph “…At any authentication instance ti, the authentication session is initiated when the tag is in the reader’s range. R sends a request to T as an interrogating signal for identification information. T responds or broadcasts to R its identification IDT and the authentication value
Ai = h(K,Vi) ……(2)
where Vi is the v-bits timer value and Ai is a bits. T then sends Ai to R for authentication”) based on information that is not derived from the wireless channel reciprocity (tag computes Ai based on timer value, pp 2931, left column, first paragraph “…T responds or broadcasts to R its identification IDT and the authentication value
Ai = h(K,Vi) ……(2)
where Vi is the v-bits timer value and Ai is a bits”); and
exchanging a message using the physical layer shared security key with the second node (tag broadcast Ai, pp 2931 left column, first paragraph “T responds or broadcasts to R its identification IDT and the authentication value
Ai = h(K,Vi) ……(2)
where Vi is the v-bits timer value and Ai is a bits”).
However, Afifi does not explicitly disclose the following limitation:
A non-transitory computer readable storage medium for storing a computer program that, when executed by a computer, causes the computer to perform the following:
generating the key based on wireless channel reciprocity of communication between the first node and a second node of the AIoT network and additional information
SCHMIDT discloses non-transitory computer readable storage medium for storing a computer program that, when executed by a computer, causes the computer to perform the following (¶0064, “… Each described module may also include instructions executable for carrying out the one or more functions described as being carried out by the respective module, and it is noted that those instructions could take the form of or include hardware (i.e., hardwired) instructions, firmware instructions, software instructions, and/or the like, and may be stored in any suitable non-transitory computer- readable medium or media, such as commonly referred to as RAM, ROM, etc.”) :
generating the key (¶0040, “In step 210, the base station sends the reconciled list L to the device 222. At this point, the device 222 and base station 224 have exchanged information regarding the location of excursions that are found in both sequences and (¾. However, the device 222 and base station 224 have not exchanged information indicating whether each of those excursions is an excursion of ones or an excursion of zeros. Nevertheless, due to Lorentz reciprocity, device 222 and base station 224 are expected to have the same information as to whether each excursion is an excursion of ones or of zeros. (The probability of agreement may be increased if desired by, for example, increasing the value of the parameter m.) In steps 211a and 211b, device 222 and base station 224 use this shared information as the basis for generating a shared key k.”) based on wireless channel reciprocity of communication between the first node and a second node of the AIoT network (¶0032, “…In step 201, the device 222 and base station 224 exchange probe data over the PHY channel and obtain respective bit sequences representing measurements of the PHY channel. For example, the device 222 may obtain the bit sequence (Xj), i = 1, ... , N, and the base station 224 may obtain the bit sequence (¾, i = Ι, .,. , Ν. In some embodiments, these bit sequences are generated as follows. A series of measurements of the channel between device D and base station BS is taken by those devices. The measurements of the channel are low-pass filtered such that the mean of the channel measurements is approximately zero. A thresholding function is applied to each of the measurements such that a measurement is assigned a bit value of "1" if it is above a threshold, a bit value of "0" if it is below a negative threshold, and is otherwise undefined….”, wherein Xj is generated based on channel conditions) and additional information (¶0033, “In step 202, the device 222 selects a sequence L of numbers that are indices in the range 1, ... , N. Each number in the sequence L identifies a position in the sequence (¾). The sequence L operates as a key derivation seed in that both the device 222 and the base station 224 use at least a portion of J, together with the respective channel measurements they have obtained, to generate a key…”, wherein parameter L along with channel dependent parameter Xj are used to the key), (¶0007, “…The receiving device then generates a key for communication between the receiving device and the authenticating device based at least in part on (i) the measured channel conditions and (ii) at least a selected portion of the key derivation seed. The selected portion of the key derivation seed may be selected by a method comprising reconciling the received key derivation seed with a locally- generated key derivation seed.”).
Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention to modify the invention of Afifi to include generate the key based on wireless channel reciprocity of communication between the first node and a second node of the AIoT network and additional information as disclosed by SCHMIDT and be motivated in doing so in order to merge the parameters in key derivation and setup a secure physical layer communication between two nodes-SCHMIDT ¶0032-¶0040 and ¶0005-¶0006 in parts.
Regarding claims 2 and 11, Afifi in view of SCHMIDT discloses the method of claim 1and the first node of claim 10 respectively.
Afifi further discloses wherein the first node is an AIoT device (tag T, pp 2929, left column, first paragraph, “B. System and Adversarial Model 1) System Model: The system usually consists of three components: 1) a tag T; 2) a reader R; and 3) a back-end server S.AtagT is basically a chip that has small storage, limited computation resources, and constrained communication capabilities. It requires power to perform different operations, such as hash computations. Passive tags are battery-less devices operated by energy harvested from the reader. Since they have very limited power resources, these tags are assumed to receive and transmit data within a very short range…”), and the second node is either a user equipment or a base station (reader R, pp 2929, left column, first paragraph, “…A reader R is a powerful device which is authorized by the back-end server to authenticate a group of tags through a set of communication sessions…”).
Regarding claims 3 and 12, Afifi in view of SCHMIDT discloses the method of claim 1 and the first node of claim 10 respectively.
SCHMIDT further discloses wherein the first node is either a user equipment or a base station (¶0020, “Systems and methods are presented herein to achieve joint entity AKA between an authenticating device and a receiving device (e.g. a base station or other access points) using properties of the PHY layer. An exemplary PHY AKA procedure includes an authenticating device, a base station ("BS"), and an authentication center ("AC"). The base station is a receiving device with which the authenticating device is attempting to establish a secure communication channel and from which the requesting device is seeking authentication. The authentication center supports the BS in authentication and key establishment.”), and the second node is an AIoT device (¶0052, “Examples of the devices and deployments which can benefit from the presented method include ultra-low-power devices in M2M communication and the Internet of Things (IoT). Mobile devices, such as cargo transponders and non-mobile devices such as thermostats, industrial sensors, etc., are equally fit targets for the technology.”).
Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention to modify the method and the first node of Afifi and SCHMIDT to include wherein the first node is either a user equipment or a base and the second node is an AIoT device as disclosed by SCHMIDT and be motivated in doing so in order to improve energy efficiency, extend communication range, and lower device costs as ambient devices do not need heavy power.
Regarding claims 4 and 13, Afifi in view of SCHMIDT discloses the method of claim 1 and the first node of claim 10 respectively.
SCHMIDT further discloses wherein characteristics of the wireless channel reciprocity comprise at least one of signal strength, channel impulse response and channel state information (¶0032, “…In step 201, the device 222 and base station 224 exchange probe data over the PHY channel and obtain respective bit sequences representing measurements of the PHY channel. For example, the device 222 may obtain the bit sequence (Xj), i = 1, ... , N, and the base station 224 may obtain the bit sequence (¾, i = Ι, .,. , Ν.…”, wherein exchanging probe data (pilot signals) to measure physical channel properties like amplitude and phase yields channel state information).
Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention to modify the method and the first node of Afifi and SCHMIDT to include wherein characteristics of the wireless channel reciprocity comprise channel state information as disclosed by SCHMIDT and be motivated in doing so in order to enable rapid physical layer key generation for enhanced security-SCHMIDT ¶0063 in parts.
Regarding claims 5, 14, and 20 Afifi in view of SCHMIDT discloses the method of
claim 1, the first node of claim 10, and the non-transitory readable storage medium of claim 19 respectively.
Afifi further discloses wherein the additional information comprises at least one of
additional nonce, system time, counter, device identifier and serial number (timer, pp 2930, right column, last paragraph “B. Single Timer Model In the case of single timer model, only one timer is on-board of the tag...”), (pp 2929, right column, third paragraph IV. PROPOSED AUTHENTICATION PROTOCOL “In this section, we introduce our authentication protocol. The proposed protocol relies mainly on the existence of one or a set of M on-chip self-powered timers. In particular, the protocol exploits a synchronized phenomenon that naturally happens to the designed self-powered timer located on-board of the operating tag. This designed timer provides the proposed protocol with the desirable dynamic authentication together with the ability of resynchronization with the dedicated reader at any time instance during the tag’s lifetime”), (identification IDT, pp 2931 left column, first paragraph “T responds or broadcasts to R its identification IDT and the authentication value
Ai = h(K,Vi) ……(2)
where Vi is the v-bits timer value and Ai is a bits”).
Regarding claims 6 and 15, Afifi in view of SCHMIDT discloses the method of claim 1 and the first node of claim 10 respectively.
SCHMIDT further discloses wherein characteristics of the wireless channel reciprocity and the additional information are input to a randomization process (initial seed L is randomized via a challenge-response protocol and applied to Xi and Yi , ¶0034-¶0036, “The numerical sequence L is a random sequence of numbers in {1, ... , N} but the numbers in the sequence are not necessarily independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.). In an exemplary embodiment, in step 203a, a selection function σ is applied to the sequence L to obtain the challenge value c = <r(L) . The function σ may be public and may for instance include binary encoding of L, such as taking the bit parity of each of the numbers in the list. The function σ may include bit permutation. Thus, the function σ is selected so as to extract additional entropy from the sequence L and to approximate a desired distribution (such as i.i.d.). In some embodiments, the challenge value c is not derived from the numerical sequence L… In step 203b, the device 222 applies a challenge-response function F to the challenge value c to create a response value r, where r = F(c) = F(a(L)). In some embodiments, the challenge-response function F is a physically unclonable function… In step 203c, the device 222 obfuscates the key derivation seed, sequence L in this embodiment, by applying the response value r as a one-time-pad (OTP) to L to generate obfuscated key derivation seed L. In some embodiments, a bitwise XOR function is used by device 222 such that L = L 0 r. The length of the OTP may be adjusted to the length of L, for instance by repeating the sequence r and pruning.”) in order to generate the physical layer shared security key (¶0040, “In step 210, the base station sends the reconciled list L to the device 222. At this point, the device 222 and base station 224 have exchanged information regarding the location of excursions that are found in both sequences and (¾. However, the device 222 and base station 224 have not exchanged information indicating whether each of those excursions is an excursion of ones or an excursion of zeros. Nevertheless, due to Lorentz reciprocity, device 222 and base station 224 are expected to have the same information as to whether each excursion is an excursion of ones or of zeros. (The probability of agreement may be increased if desired by, for example, increasing the value of the parameter m.) In steps 211a and 211b, device 222 and base station 224 use this shared information as the basis for generating a shared key k.”).
Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention to modify the method and first node of Afifi and SCHMIDT to include wherein characteristics of the wireless channel reciprocity and the additional information are input to a randomization process in order to generate the physical layer shared security key as disclosed by SCHMIDT and be motivated in doing so in order make the physical layer security key very strong and location-specific.
Regarding claims 7 and 16, Afifi in view of SCHMIDT discloses the method of claim 1 and the first node of claim 10 respectively.
Afifi further discloses wherein the physical layer shared security key is for use as a key stream (page 2933, left column, paragraphs 1-2, “To be able to do this analysis, we first need to set on two key characteristics of the protocol. One is the secret shared between the tag T and the reader R. The other one is the transmitted messages at each communication session between the tag and the reader. In the proposed protocol, the secret is the private key K. The transmitted messages are basically the tag identification IDT and the authentication value Ai. In any authentication attempt at time instance ti, while the tag sends the value of the same hash function in (2), both of the hash function arguments K and Vi are secure. More specifically, K is a private key that is never exposed to the adversary in clear-text and is computationally infeasible to derive. Vi is dynamically and continuously updated with the fresh r-bits output from the self-powered timers leading to an unpredictable authentication value.”, wherein combining a shared secret key and tag identification to generate continuous, unpredicted, and dynamically updated authentication values form a key stream).
Regarding claims 8 and 17, Afifi in view of SCHMIDT discloses the method of claim 1 and the first node of claim 10 respectively.
SCHMIDT further discloses wherein the physical layer shared security key is used as a one-time pad (OTP) (¶0036, “In step 203c, the device 222 obfuscates the key derivation seed, sequence L in this embodiment, by applying the response value r as a one-time-pad (OTP) to L to generate obfuscated key derivation seed L. In some embodiments, a bitwise XOR function is used by device 222 such that L = L 0 r. The length of the OTP may be adjusted to the length of L, for instance by repeating the sequence r and pruning.”).
Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention to modify the method and the first node of Afifi and SCHMIDT to include wherein the physical layer shared security key is used as a one-time pad (OTP) as disclosed by SCHMIDT and be motivated in doing so in order to provide a mathematically proven uncrackable secrecy, which make it impossible for eavesdropper with infinite computing power to decode the ciphertext.
Regarding claim 9, Afifi in view of SCHMIDT discloses the method of claim 8.
SCHMIDT further discloses wherein before the exchanging a message using the physical layer shared security key with the second node, the method further comprises: performing, by the first node, an exclusive-or (XOR) operation on a clear message or information to be protected by using the OTP to form a ciphertext (¶0036, “ In step 203c, the device 222 obfuscates the key derivation seed, sequence L in this embodiment, by applying the response value r as a one-time-pad (OTP) to L to generate obfuscated key derivation seed L. In some embodiments, a bitwise XOR function is used by device 222 such that L = L 0 r. The length of the OTP may be adjusted to the length of L, for instance by repeating the sequence r and pruning.”), (¶0042, “… note that the information sent from the device 222 to the base station 224 is secret, since it is obfuscated by an OTP operation, and thus Eve can also not use the correct L to authenticate”), (¶0046, “In step 308, the base station applies OTP obfuscation on L by applying r. For example, the base station may apply a bitwise XOR operation to generate L = L 0 r. In step 309, the base station transmits the obfuscated list L and the challenge value c to the device 222…”).
Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention to modify the method of Afifi and SCHMIDT to include performing, by the first node, an exclusive-or (XOR) operation on a clear message or information to be protected by using the OTP to form a ciphertext as disclosed by SCHMIDT and be motivated in doing so in order to make the information sent between devices and a base station secret by OTP obfuscation operation.
Regarding claim 18, Afifi in view of SCHMIDT discloses the first node of claim 17.
SCHMIDT further discloses: perform an exclusive-or (XOR) operation on a clear message or information to be protected by using the OTP to form a ciphertext (¶0036, “In step 203c, the device 222 obfuscates the key derivation seed, sequence L in this embodiment, by applying the response value r as a one-time-pad (OTP) to L to generate obfuscated key derivation seed L. In some embodiments, a bitwise XOR function is used by device 222 such that L = L 0 r. The length of the OTP may be adjusted to the length of L, for instance by repeating the sequence r and pruning.”), (¶0046, “In step 308, the base station applies OTP obfuscation on L by applying r. For example, the base station may apply a bitwise XOR operation to generate L = L 0 r. In step 309, the base station transmits the obfuscated list L and the challenge value c to the device 222…”).
Thus, one of ordinary skill in the art would have found it obvious before the effective filing date of applicant’s claimed invention to modify the first node of Afifi and SCHMIDT to include perform an exclusive-or (XOR) operation on a clear message or information to be protected by using the OTP to form a ciphertext as disclosed by SCHMIDT and be motivated in doing so in order to make the information sent between devices and a base station secret by OTP obfuscation operation.
Conclusion
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/MUDASIRU K OLAEGBE/Examiner, Art Unit 2495
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