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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This is a reply to the application filed on 5/30/2025, in which, claims 1-15, 17, 20-22 are pending. Claims 1 and 17 are independent.
When making claim amendments, the applicant is encouraged to consider the references in their entireties, including those portions that have not been cited by the examiner and their equivalents as they may most broadly and appropriately apply to any particular anticipated claim amendments.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Drawings
The drawings filed on 5/30/2025 are accepted.
Specification
The disclosure filed on 5/30/2025 is accepted.
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 (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.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 4-10, 17, 22 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Amoretti, Michele, et al. "A scalable and secure publish/subscribe-based framework for industrial IoT." IEEE Transactions on Industrial Informatics 17.6 (2020): 3815-3825 (hereinafter ‘Amoretti’) in view of Ramachandran GS, Wright KL, Zheng L, Navaney P, Naveed M, Krishnamachari B, Dhaliwal J. Trinity: A byzantine fault-tolerant distributed publish-subscribe system with immutable blockchain-based persistence. In2019 IEEE International Conference on Blockchain and Cryptocurrency (ICBC) 2019 May 14 (pp. 227-235). IEEE (hereinafter ‘Gowri’).
As regards claim 1, Amoretti discloses: A method for communicating a message on an Internet of Things (IoT) network comprising multiple handling modules, the method comprising: (Amoretti: Abstract, Table 1, Figs. 1-3, i.e., IOT communication framework based on multiple subscribers, publishers, brokers)
performing by each of the multiple handling modules: subscribing to messages from a publisher device; (Amoretti: Figs. 3-4, page 4-5, i.e., receivers/subscribers subscribing to data publishers from machines)
receiving a message from the publisher device; (Amoretti: Figs. 3-4, page 4-5, i.e., the communication framework processing messages and the sequence of subscribing/publishing message processing)
processing the message from the publisher device to generate a processed message; (Amoretti: Figs. 3-4, page 4-5, i.e., the brokers process the messages in a standard format)
signing the processed message using a private key stored on the handling module to generate a signed message; (Amoretti: Figs. 5-6, page 5-7, i.e., messages are signed using a secret keys of public-private key scheme)
sending the signed message to other handling modules of the multiple handling modules; (Amoretti: Fig. 2, page 4-5, messages are sent/received to brokers)
subscribing to messages from the other handling modules; (Amoretti: Figs. 3-5, page 4-5, i.e., the communication framework processing messages and the sequence of subscribing/publishing message processing)
receiving multiple signed messages from the other handling modules, each of the multiple signed messages comprising multiple respective signatures; (Amoretti: Figs. 5-6, page 5-7, i.e., messages are signed using a secret keys of public-private key scheme and sent/received by the brokers)
wherein receiving and sending messages between the publisher device, the subscriber device and the other handling modules comprises sending and receiving messages to and from multiple message brokers. (Amoretti: Figs. 5-6, page 5-7, i.e., messages are signed using a secret keys of public-private key scheme and sent/received by the brokers)
However, Amoretti does not but in analogous art, Gowri teaches: determining a consensus upon receiving a majority number of the multiple signed messages from the other handling modules having corresponding payloads; (Gowri, Abstract, page 1, implementing BFT consensus protocol for a publish-subscribe framework for IOT infrastucture; System Model and Architecture, Figs. 2-4, pages 3-5, i.e., performing consensus when less than 1/3 are corrupt wherein the consensus is performed on the subscription as well as on the publishers and the messages are verified based on digital signatures)
in response to determining the consensus, generating a consensus message containing the multiple respective signatures of the handling modules; and (Gowri, System Model and Architecture, Figs. 2-4, pages 3-5, i.e., consensus is generated based on digital signatures of the publishers/subscribers broker nodes)
sending the consensus message to a subscriber device. (Gowri, System Model and Architecture, Figs. 2-4, pages 3-5, i.e., consensus is generated based on digital signatures of the publishers/subscribers broker nodes and sent to the publishers/subscribers clients)
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Amoretti to include a consensus protocol in the publish-subscribe framework of Amoretti wherein consensus nodes perform consensus based on a majority of non-faulty clients as taught by Gowri with the motivation to prevent tempering of data shared in an IOT platform Gowri, Abstract, page 1)
Claim 17 recites substantially the same features recited in claim above and is rejected based on rationale discussed in the rejection.
As regards claim 2, Amoretti et al combination teaches the method of claim 1, wherein receiving and sending messages to and from the multiple message brokers comprises using a messaging protocol, the messaging protocol being one of: Messaging Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT) protocol; (Amoretti, Abstract, page 1, i.e., MQTT) Advanced Message Queuing Protocol (AMQP); Constrained Application Protocol (CoAP); or Data Distribution Service (DDS).
As regards claim 4, Amoretti et al combination teaches the method of any one of the preceding claims claim 1, wherein the method further comprises determining a set of rules, wherein each message comprises a message topic; and (Amoretti: page 4, rules for processing of messages associated publication/subscriptions of specific topics) each rule in the set defines: an input topic and an output topic; and (Amoretti: page 4, rules for input data, how to process it to provide an output) a processing logic function, wherein applying the processing logic function to an input value associated with the input topic determines an output value associated with the output topic. (Amoretti: page 4, applying rules for processing of messages associated publication/subscriptions of specific topics)
As regards claim 5, Amoretti et al combination teaches the method of claim 4, wherein the output topic of a rule in the set is the input topic to another rule in the set. (Amoretti: page 4, rules collecting topics that get aggregated for another broker for providing output publishing)
As regards claim 6, Amoretti et al combination teaches the method of claim 4, wherein, performing by each one of the multiple handling modules, processing the message comprises: determining a rule in the set to apply to the message by associating the message topic of the message with the input topic of one of the rules in the set; (Amoretti: page 4, applying rules for processing of messages associated publication/subscriptions of specific topics) wherein the input value associated with the input topic corresponds to a payload of the message; (Amoretti: page 4, applying rules for processing of messages associated publication/subscriptions of specific topics) applying the rule to the message by applying the respective processing logic function to the input value to determine the output value associated with the output topic, the processed message thereby comprising the output topic and the output value. (Amoretti: page 4, applying rules for processing of messages associated publication/subscriptions of specific topics)
As regards claim 7, Amoretti et al combination teaches the method of claim 4, wherein the set of rules comprises a consensus rule and generating the consensus message comprises processing the message by applying the consensus rule; (Gowri, System Model and Architecture, Figs. 2-4, pages 3-5, i.e., consensus rule is performed on the subscription topics as well as on the publishers topics and the messages are verified based on digital signatures) wherein the output topic of the consensus rule is different from the input topic of any other rule in the set and the consensus message comprises the output topic of the consensus rule. (Gowri, System Model and Architecture, Figs. 2-4, pages 3-5, i.e., consensus rule is performed on the subscription topics as well as on the publishers topics and the messages are verified based on digital signatures to specifically forward the correct topic to the specific subscribers)
As regards claim 8, Amoretti et al combination teaches the method of claim 4, wherein each rule in the set defines a validity check function and processing the message or the signed message comprises validating the message by applying the validity check function to the message. (Amoretti: Figs. 5-6, page 5-7, i.e., messages are signed using a secret keys of public-private key scheme and sent/received by the brokers. See also, Gowri, System Model and Architecture, Figs. 2-4, pages 3-5, i.e., consensus rule is performed on the subscription topics as well as on the publishers topics and the messages are verified based on digital signatures)
As regards claim 9, Amoretti et al combination teaches the method of claim 7, wherein, if the message topic of the signed message corresponds to the input topic of a rule in the set and the rule is different from the consensus rule, the method further comprises, performing by each one of the multiple handling modules: processing the signed message by applying the rule to the signed message to generate an output message; (Gowri, System Model and Architecture, Figs. 2-4, pages 3-5, i.e., consensus rule is performed on the subscription topics as well as on the publishers topics and the messages are verified based on digital signatures) wherein applying the rule comprises applying the respective processing logic function to a payload of the signed message to determine an output value and the output message comprises the output value and the output topic of the rule. (Gowri, System Model and Architecture, Figs. 2-4, pages 3-5, i.e., consensus rule is performed on the subscription topics as well as on the publishers topics and the messages are verified based on digital signatures)
As regards claim 10, Amoretti et al combination teaches the method of claim 9, wherein, performing by each one of the multiple handling modules, signing the processed message or the output message comprises adding a timestamp to the message, the timestamp being indicative of a time that the message is signed by the handling module. (Amoretti: Figs. 5-6, page 5-7, i.e., brokers adding the timestamp)
As regards claim 22, Amoretti et al combination teaches the computer system of claim 17, wherein the subscriber device is configured to verify each signature on the consensus message using a public key of each handler module. (Gowri, System Model and Architecture, Figs. 2-4, pages 3-5, i.e., consensus is generated based on digital signatures of the publishers/subscribers broker nodes and sent to the publishers/subscribers clients)
Claim(s) 3, 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Amoretti, in view of Gowri in view of US 20210319894 A1) (hereinafter ‘Sobol’).
As regards claim 3, Amoretti et al combination teaches the method of claim 1, wherein processing the message comprises receiving multiple copies of the message from the multiple message brokers and storing each message. (Amoretti: Figs. 5-6, page 5-7, i.e., messages are signed using a secret keys of public-private key scheme and sent/received by the brokers)
However, Amoretti does not but in analogous art, Sobol (US 20210319894 A1) teaches: in a one-dimensional data buffer at a data location within the buffer, wherein the data location is associated with one of the multiple message brokers. (Sobol: Figs. 3C-3G ¶148, ¶172-¶173, i.e., the MQTT protocol uses single or multidimensional buffers to store data from publishers to subscribers)
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to modify Amoretti et al to include MQTT protocol’s use of single or multi-dimensional buffers as taught by Sobol with the motivation to organize data (Sobol: Figs. 3C-3G ¶148, ¶172-¶173)
Claim 20 recites substantially the same features recited in claim above and is rejected based on rationale discussed in the rejection.
Claim Objections
Claim 11 is objected. Claim recites allowable subject matter: “wherein, upon receiving the multiple signed messages from the multiple message brokers, processing the signed message comprises storing each message in a two-dimensional data buffer at a data location within the buffer, wherein a first dimension is indicative of the multiple message brokers and a second dimension is indicative of the multiple handling modules; and the data location is associated with one of the multiple message brokers and one of the multiple handling modules” not taught by prior art taken alone or in combination. Claim would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the respective base claims and any intervening claims.
Claim 21 is objected. Claim recites allowable subject matter: “wherein each handling module comprises a second memory configured to store each message received from the multiple message brokers in a two-dimensional data buffer at a data location within the buffer, wherein a first dimension is indicative of the multiple message brokers and a second dimension is indicative of the multiple handling modules; and the data location is associated with one of the multiple message brokers and one of the multiple handling modules” not taught by prior art taken alone or in combination. Claim would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the respective base claims and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
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/SYED A ZAIDI/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2432