DETAILED ACTION
Claims 15-28 are presented on 06/11/2025 for examination on merits. Claims 1-14 are canceled by preliminary amendment.
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 .
Examiner's Instructions for filing Response to this Office Action
When the Applicant submits amendments regarding to the claims in response the Office Action, the Examiner would appreciate Applicant if a clean copy of the claims is provided to facilitate the prosecution which otherwise requires extra time for editing the marked-up claims from OCR.
Please submit two sets of claims:
Set #1 as in a typical filing which includes indicators for the status of claim and all marked amendments to the claims; and
Set #2 as an appendix to the Arguments/Remarks for a clean version of the claims which has all the markups removed for entry by the Examiner.
Claim Objections
Claims 15-16 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 15 recites a long wherein clause at the end of the claim deficiently, unorganized, and with grammatical errors.
The wherein clause is reproduced and marked as follows:
“wherein it is the case that the first and second plain text parts [[is]][are] obtained by the decrypting from the first cipher text part, the second cipher text part, the associated data block and the implicit novelty bit sequence, wherein the second plain text part is obtained by the at least one decryption function from the first and second cipher text parts as first and second parameters (The Examiner’s note: the description of first and second parameters is incomplete) and the first plain text part separately [obtained] therefrom by the at least one decryption function from the second plain text part, the associated data block, and the implicit novelty bit sequence, concatenated in the sequence used in the encrypting (The Examiner’s note: what elements are concatenated in the sequence are missing), as the first parameter, and the first cipher text part, as second parameter (The Examiner’s note: incomplete descriptions of the first and second parameters here), according to which (The Examiner’s note: what’s according to is unclear here)
the plain text is obtained from the first and second plain text parts by an inversion of the reversible decomposition function (The Examiner’s note: this sentence is fine).
Claim 16 recites the following limitations which are similar to the last wherein clause of claim 16. The limitations are reproduced in the following:
the first cipher text part is obtained by the first encryption function from the second plain text part, the associated data block, and the implicit novelty bit sequence, concatenated in any order, as the first parameter and the first plain text part as the second parameter,
the second cipher text part is obtained by the second encryption function from the first cipher text part and the second plain text part, as the first and second parameters,
the decrypting belonging to the encrypting of the cipher text parts contained in the cipher text message is performed using the implicit novelty bit sequence and returns the plain text,
the plain text parts are obtained by the decryption function from the first cipher text part, the second cipher text part, the associated data block, and the implicit novelty bit sequence,
the second plain text part is obtained by the second decryption function from the cipher text parts as the first and second parameters,
the first plain text part is obtained by the first decryption function from the second plain text part, the associated data block, and the implicit novelty bit sequence concatenated in the sequence used in the encrypting, as the first parameter, and the first cipher text part as the second parameter. For the same reasons as discussed in claim 15, claim 16 is deficient.
Claim 16 recites duplicate limitations for “the at least one decryption function includes two decryption functions, which are first and second decryption functions.” It appears to be a typographical error.
Appropriate correction is required.
Examiner’s Note - 35 USC § 101
The Examiner has considered the recitation “providing a reversible decomposition function” in the base claim 15 as a mathematical formula based on the specification among other things. As intoxicated in the 2019 PEG that the claim must recite a mathematical formula for the entire claim to qualify an abstract idea or judicial exceptions. Furthermore, the claims do not have any recitation of a mental process or certain methods of human activity. It is also noted that the specification at page 6, third paragraph, states that an improved encryption method is achieved with high level of security. Page 12 also describes several advantages of the invention. As such, the claims are patent eligible.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(B) CONCLUSION—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 15-28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention.
The rejection(s) under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) is/are determined by the following reasons:
Claim 15 recites two instances of “fixed key material” without referencing to each other. As such, the recitations are unclear or lacking sufficient antecedent basis in the claim.
Claim 16 further recites two instances of “fixed key material” without linking other instances in claims. Therefore, the recitations are unclear or lacking sufficient antecedent basis in the claim.
Claim 15 recites “the case” in the clause “wherein it is the case that the first and second plain text parts obtained …” The recitation lacks sufficient antecedent basis in the claim. It is noted that Applicant is advised not to use wordings like “in a case” or “for example” in the claim.
Additionally, claim 15 fails to clearly point out what are the first and second parameters in the claim, as the first and second parameters are differently described in the claim.
Additionally, claim 16 also describes the first and second parameters unclearly, as the first and second parameters may be the first cipher text part and the second plain text part for the second encryption function, or may be the second plain text part, the associated data block, and the implicit novelty bit sequence, concatenated in any order for the first encryption function.
Claim 24 recites “the decryption function” without sufficient antecedent basis in the claim.
Claims 16-28 are also rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, because they depend from the rejected base claim 15.
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 set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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.
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.
Claims 15-27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Samid (US 20210281407 A1) in view of Webster (US 12160501 B2).
As per claim 15, Samid teaches a method for encrypting a plain text to be encrypted contained in a plain text message, wherein the plain text message consists of the plain text to be encrypted and an associated data block not to be encrypted, and an associated method for decrypting first and second cipher text parts contained in a cipher text message, wherein the cipher text message consists of the first and second cipher text parts and the non-encrypted associated data block, wherein the decrypting of each of the first and second cipher text parts involves an implicit novelty bit sequence serving as an additional source of novelty (Note that this part is preamble, not all elements are given patentable weight) (Samid, par. 0031-0036; block encryption for encrypting a fixed size block of plaintext, B…with a key, K to a corresponding ciphertext C; par. 0051 and 0061: be decrypted using the size preserving cipher in order to regenerate the plaintext version P.sub.1 of this block; par. 0013-0015: adding a continuation signal bit as a trailer bit; The continuation bit will be revealed as 1, indicating that there is another U block in the package), the method comprising:
providing a reversible decomposition function that allocates a decomposition of the reversible decomposition function to the plain text to be encrypted in first and second plain text parts (Samid, par. 0052-0056: the original plainmessage M is scanned … to identify sensitive sections S.sub.1, S.sub.2, . . . S.sub.t, which means a decomposition function is provided; Samid’s decomposition function is reversible, because Samid discloses that the ciphertext [can] be reverse transposed by the intended recipient … M will be rebuilt …by the reconstructed message M.sub.r for r=1, 2, . . . n (which for r=1 we have M.sub.r=M.sub.l); see par. 0109 and 0162-0166);
providing at least one encryption function implicitly equipped with fixed key material, wherein the at least one encryption function encrypts the plain text to be encrypted with the at least one encryption function by including a variable input bit sequence (Samid, par. 0018-0020 and 0036-0038: the operation of unary encryption; A block cipher is a size preserving cipher, where a plaintext block B.sub.i, i=1, 2, . . . is encrypted …including bit sequence; see par. 0111-0114; Samid discloses that Mixed Unary Cryptography may operate [by] sharing a size-preserving key, K.sub.sp for the size-preserving cryptography and a unary key, K.sub.u for the unary cryptography);
providing at least one decryption function, belonging to the at least one encryption function, implicitly equipped with fixed key material, which decrypts a cipher text generated with the encryption function by including the variable input bit sequence (Samid, par. 0051: The recipient will parcel the incoming mixed unary ciphertext … then decrypt through the reverse unarization the first u.sub.j bit to recreate e.sub.j bits from the size preserving original encryption; see also par. 0015: decrypt it using the base cipher (key K.sub.b), and generate P.sub.sp the corresponding plaintext; Samid encryption inputs depend from the size of sensitive information, and thus variable; par. 0052-0055, for example, the high sensitivity parts are “garlic”, “ginger” and “1:3”); par. 0013);
encrypting the plain text to be encrypted contained in the plain text message by including the implicit novelty bit sequence and suppling the first and second cipher text parts (Samid, par. 0063-0068: identifying parts deserving extra security [in] the mixed-Unary encryption as the first text part to be encrypted; par. 0013: the secret message M, for example, contains four substrings are so marked S1, S2, S3, and S4, encrypted with the base cipher, using K.sub.b to generate the corresponding ciphertext C.sub.sp, which is mapped to the first cipher text part. and the four-U section concatenated by U1, U2, U3 and U4 is the second cipher text part. Samid’s sequence is an implicit novelty bit sequence wherein a continuation signal bit is added as a trailer bit, equivalent to the implicit novelty bit; par. 0013-0019 and 0096-0097);
obtaining the first cipher text part using the at least one encryption function from the second plain text part, the associated data block, and the implicit novelty bit sequence, [concatenated in any sequence], as a first parameter and the first plain text part as a second parameter (Samid, par. 0045-0048: apply the size-preserving block cipher over their message M and generate the corresponding ciphertext C comprised of the per block encrypted blocks; C.sub.1, C.sub.2, . . . C.sub.W. Note that the continuation signal is included in the encryption to form the implicit novelty bit sequence);
obtaining the second cipher text part, by the at least one encryption function, from the first cipher text part as the first parameter and the second plain text part as the second parameter (Samid, par. 0050-0053: the non-unarized section of the ciphertext is the second cipher text part, which is non-sensitive information; Samid discloses a block cipher is a size preserving cipher, where a plaintext block B.sub.i, i=1, 2, . . . is encrypted to same size ciphertext C.sub.i. In general the bits of the ciphertext are interlocked; par. 0036. For example, the four-U section concatenated by U1, U2, U3 and U4 is the second cipher text part, encrypted by using key K.sub.a; par. 0013. The first and second parameters are continuation signal/bit; see par. 0013 and 0054); and
performing the decrypting belonging to the encrypting of the first and second cipher text parts contained in the cipher text message the implicit novelty bit sequence and returning the plain text (Samid, par. 0051 and 0061-0062: The recipient of C.sub.mu will parcel the incoming ciphertext u bits at a time, will decrypt each u bits successively into S*.sub.i, S*.sub.2, . . . S*.sub.t then read on each S*.sub.i for i=1, 2, . . . t the value of g.sub.i and the continuation signal. This will continue until the continuation signal will indicate that the final sensitive section was handled. This will indicate to the recipient that the remaining bits in C.sub.mu are encrypted with the size preserving encryption, and decrypt them accordingly. Once decrypted the recipient will put into the decrypted stream the decrypted sensitive sections S.sub.1, S.sub.2, . . . each at the right position g.sub.1, g.sub.2, . . . respectively and by order. When done the original message M is recreated at the recipient end. Note that in the decrypting phase, the continuation signal bit is used for the implicit novelty bit sequence to recreate the first and second cipher text parts, which are decrypted using the symmetrical keys),
wherein it is the case that (note that the Examiner broadly interpreted the limitations hereinafter as the deficiency of the text exists) the first and second plain text parts [[is]] are obtained by the decrypting from the first cipher text part, the second cipher text part, the associated data block and the implicit novelty bit sequence (Samid, par. 0051: The recipient will parcel the incoming mixed unary ciphertext … then decrypt through the reverse unarization the first u.sub.j bit to recreate e.sub.j bits from the size preserving original encryption; see also par. 0015: decrypt it using the base cipher (key K.sub.b), and generate P.sub.sp the corresponding plaintext; regarding the implicit novelty bit sequence, Samid uses a continuation signal bit for labeling the encrypted data parts and recreating the data parts; par. 0013-0019 and 0096-0097), wherein the second plain text part is obtained by the at least one decryption function from the first and second cipher text parts as first and second parameters and the first plain text part separately therefrom by the at least one decryption function from the second plain text part, the associated data block, and the implicit novelty bit sequence, concatenated in the sequence used in the encrypting, as the first parameter, and the first cipher text part, as second parameter (Samid, par. 0015 and 0060-0062: The recipient of C.sub.mu will parcel the incoming ciphertext u bits at a time, … decrypt each u bits successively into S*.sub.i, S*.sub.2, . . . S*.sub.t, [including] the remaining bits in C.sub.mu which are encrypted with the size preserving encryption, and decrypt them accordingly. Note that Samid uses the continuation signal bit for creating implicit novelty bit sequence by concatenating the parts and recreating the plain text at decryption; par. 0015, 0051, and 0061), according to which,
the plain text is obtained from the first and second plain text parts by an inversion of the reversible decomposition function (Samid, FIG. 3 shows the first and second plain text parts are concatenated by inversion at t1-t4; see also par. 0061: Once decrypted the recipient will put into the decrypted stream the decrypted sensitive sections S.sub.1, S.sub.2, . . . each at the right position g.sub.1, g.sub.2, . . . respectively and by order, which is the inverse order of encryption shown at the bottom illustration of Ready Ciphertext in FIG. 2, and further explained in par. 0013 and 0051-0054).
While Samid uses continuation signal bit to label the order of sensitive text parts to be encrypted, Samid does not explicitly disclose the feature of text part concatenation being in any order in the step of obtaining the first cipher text part. This aspect of the claim is identified as a difference.
In a related art, Webster teaches:
obtaining cipher text parts …concatenated in any sequence (Webster col. 3, lines 27-50: Webster for encryption/decryption, generating a sequence of blocks, the concatenation unit 110 may concatenate the data vector to the random sequence 101).
Webster and Samid are analogous art to the claimed invention, because they are in the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention, or reasonably pertinent to the problem faced by the inventor, which may be in a different field. Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to combine them and to modify Samid’s system with Webster’s teachings of “randomness” of the concatenated sequence of data blocks. For this combination, the motivation would have been to improve the flexibility of data transmission of the block cipher as the order of data blocks are not required with Webster’s random sequencing.
As per claim 16, the references as combined above teach the method of claim 15, wherein
the at least one encryption function includes two encryption functions, which are first and second encryption functions (Samid, par. 0013-0015: The concatenated string will then be encrypted with the base cipher, using K.sub.b (i.e., the key for the first encryption function) to generate the corresponding ciphertext C.sub.sp. For the second encryption function, Samid discloses that the extracted four high-sensitivity sections S1, S2, S3 and S4 will be prepared for size-enlargement encryption ..using key K.sub.a to [encrypt] their corresponding ciphertexts U1, U2, U3 and U4 respectively),
the at least one decryption function includes two decryption functions, which are first and second decryption functions (Note: this is a redundant limitation, which is the same as the one above),
the first and the second encryption functions are each implicitly provided with fixed key materia (Samid, par. 0013 and 0116: sharing the base cipher key K.sub.b and the text-augmentation (enlargement) key, K.sub.a; note that a size-preserving key is shared as a fixed key)l, which encrypts the plain text to be encrypted with a respective one of the first and second encryption functions by including the variable input bit sequence (Samid, the sensitive parts S1, S2, S3, and S4, and the non-sensitive parts U1, U2, U3 and U4 (i.e., the second cipher text part, after parts concatenation (which forms a variable input bit sequence), are encrypted with the base cipher key K.sub.a and the size-enlargement encryption key K.sub.b; par. 0013 and 0098-0099),
the first and the second decryption function belonging to the respective first and second encryption function are implicitly equipped with fixed key material (Samid, par. 0013 and 0116: sharing the base cipher key K.sub.b and the text-augmentation (enlargement) key, K.sub.a; note that a size-preserving key is shared as a fixed key), which decrypt the cipher text generated with the respective encryption function by including the variable input bit sequence (Samid, par. 0051 and 0061-0062: put into the decrypted stream the decrypted sensitive sections S.sub.1, S.sub.2, . . . each at the right position g.sub.1, g.sub.2, . . . respectively and by order. When done the original message M is recreated at the recipient end),
the encrypting of the plain text to be encrypted contained in the plain text message is performed by including the implicit novelty bit sequence and providing two cipher text parts (Samid, par. 0013-0019: continuation signal. Samid’s sequence is an implicit novelty bit sequence wherein a continuation signal bit is added as a trailer bit, equivalent to the implicit novelty bit; 0096-0097. The two cipher text parts are S1, S2, S3, and S4, encrypted with the base cipher and U1, U2, U3 and U4 encrypted by the size-enlarging encryption key, for example. See par. 0011-0013),
the first cipher text part is obtained by the first encryption function from the second plain text part, the associated data block, and the implicit novelty bit sequence, concatenated [in any order], as the first parameter and the first plain text part as the second parameter (Samid, par. 13: the parts of M corresponding to high sensitivity text are marked. Four substrings are so marked S1, S2, S3, and S4. They are of different sizes and their bit locations in M are respectively t1, t2, t3, and t4, encrypted by a size-enlargement encryption key. In Samid, the extracted four high-sensitivity sections S1, S2, S3 and S4 are prepared as the first parameter, U1, U2, U3 and U4 as the second parameter, t1, t2, t3 and t4 as associated data, and the continuation signal bit as the implicit novelty bit),
the second cipher text part is obtained by the second encryption function from the first cipher text part and the second plain text part, as the first and second parameters (Samid, par. 0036. For example, the four-U section concatenated by U1, U2, U3 and U4 is the second cipher text part, encrypted by using key K.sub.a; par. 0013. The first and second parameters are continuation signal/bit; see par. 0013 and 0054),
the decrypting belonging to the encrypting of the cipher text parts contained in the cipher text message is performed using the implicit novelty bit sequence and returns the plain text (Samid’s sequence is an implicit novelty bit sequence. In Samid, a continuation signal bit is added as a trailer bit, equivalent to the implicit novelty bit; par. 0013-0019 and 0096-0097. The continuation signal bit is use to recreated the deciphered plain text; par. 0051 and 0061-0062),
the plain text parts are obtained by the decryption function from the first cipher text part, the second cipher text part, the associated data block, and the implicit novelty bit sequence (Samid, par. 0051: The recipient will parcel the incoming mixed unary ciphertext … then decrypt through the reverse unarization the first u.sub.j bit to recreate e.sub.j bits from the size preserving original encryption; see also par. 0015: decrypt it using the base cipher (key K.sub.b), and generate P.sub.sp the corresponding plaintext; regarding the implicit novelty bit sequence, Samid uses a continuation signal bit for labeling the encrypted data parts and recreating the data parts; par. 0013-0019 and 0096-0097),
the second plain text part is obtained by the second decryption function from the cipher text parts as the first and second parameters (Samid, par. 0051: in the incoming mixed unary ciphertext … decrypted through the reverse unarization the first u.sub.j bit to recreate e.sub.j bits from the size preserving original encryption; Samid uses a continuation signal bit for labeling the encrypted data parts and recreating the data parts; par. 0013-0019 and 0096-0097),
the first plain text part is obtained by the first decryption function from the second plain text part, the associated data block, and the implicit novelty bit sequence concatenated in the sequence used in the encrypting, as the first parameter, and the first cipher text part as the second parameter (Samid, par. 0015 and 0060-0062: The recipient of C.sub.mu will parcel the incoming ciphertext u bits at a time, … decrypt each u bits successively into S*.sub.i, S*.sub.2, . . . S*.sub.t, [including] the remaining bits in C.sub.mu which are encrypted with the size preserving encryption, and decrypt them accordingly. Note that Samid uses the continuation signal bit for creating implicit novelty bit sequence by concatenating the parts and recreating the plain text at decryption; par. 0015, 0051, and 0061).
For the same rational, In the above combination, Webster teaches:
obtaining cipher text parts …concatenated in any sequence (Webster col. 3, lines 27-50: Webster for encryption/decryption, generating a sequence of blocks, the concatenation unit 110 may concatenate the data vector to the random sequence 101).
As per claim 17, the references as combined above teach the method of claim 15, wherein the associated data block or the implicit novelty bit sequence is specified as empty (Samid, par. 0015: the continuation bit reads ‘0’ meaning empty, indicating that the remaining string is the size-preserving part, the end of S4).
As per claim 18, the references as combined above teach the method of claim 15, wherein the reversible decomposition function is a non-conventional decomposition function (Samid, par. 0052-0056: the identifoed sensitive sections S.sub.1, S.sub.2, . . . S.sub.t, are provided as the sensitive information is recognized, therefore, it is a non-conventional decomposition function; see also par. 0109 and 0162-0166).
As per claim 19, the references as combined above teach the method of claim 15, wherein the at least one encryption function is a novelty-preserving encryption function (Note: The Examiner interprets the novelty-preserving encryption function as a size-preserving encryption function) (Samid, par. 0041-0043: the size-preserving encrypted version of each block of plaintext; par. 0043-0047: apply the size-preserving block cipher over their message M and generate the corresponding ciphertext C comprised of the per block encrypted blocks; C.sub.1, C.sub.2, . . . C.sub.W.).
As per claim 20, the references as combined above teach the method of claim 15, wherein the reversible decomposition function is defined once and implemented in the encrypting and the decrypting ((Samid, par. 0052-0056: the original plainmessage M is scanned … to identify sensitive sections S.sub.1, S.sub.2, . . . S.sub.t, which means a decomposition function is provided; Samid’s decomposition function works with a continuation flag bit, which is defined once at encryption and then used again at decryption for recreating the plaintext. See par. 0054 and 0061).
As per claim 21, the references as combined above teach the method of claim 15, wherein the reversible decomposition function for one or more consecutive entities of two communication partners with encryption and decryption is agreed between the communication partners (Samid, par. 0045-0050: The transmitter then will first apply the size-preserving block cipher over their message M and generate the corresponding ciphertext C comprised of the per block encrypted blocks; C.sub.1, C.sub.2, . . . C.sub.W.; par. 0051-0052: The recipient will parcel the incoming mixed unary ciphertext such that it will cut off the next (u.sub.j+b−e.sub.j) bits from the stream, then decrypt through the reverse unarization the first u.sub.j bit to recreate e.sub.j bits from the size preserving original encryption, then concatenate to these e.sub.j bits the remaining (b−e.sub.j) bits in the block, and thereby reconstruct C.sub.i for i=1, 2 . . . w (of each block). Once C.sub.i is reconstructed, it will be decrypted using the size preserving cipher in order to regenerate the plaintext version P.sub.1 of this block. As such, the transmitter and recipient agree on the data parts and decomposition function during encryption and decryption).
As per claim 22, the references as combined above teach the method of claim 15, wherein the reversible decomposition function is set as a set of decomposition functions and is implemented in the encrypting and the decrypting (Samid, par. 0211-0213: The Mixed Unary operation in the content-driven mode is a method to combine two ciphers A and B to encrypt a plaintext to a corresponding ciphertext where selected parts of the plaintext will be encrypted with cipher A which offers augmented security through generating a ciphertext larger than the corresponding plaintext, and where the remaining parts of the plaintext will be encrypted with a “base” cipher B. Samid decomposes the original text into sensitive and non-sensitive parts for generating a ciphertext of similar size to the corresponding plaintext; then the transmitter will encrypt each of these sections using the augmented-ciphertext cipher A to their corresponding ciphertext sections C.sub.1, C.sub.2, . . . C.sub.n, At the recipient side, the ciphertext is decomposed P*.sub.i to the leftmost h bits indicating t.sub.i, P.sub.i, and the trailer bit; if the trailer bit is 1, then the recipient increments i.fwdarw.i+1 and repeats the extraction of c bits from what is left from C.sub.m; for i=n the trailer bit is found to be zero, indicating to the recipient that all the n sections were removed from C.sub.m and the leftover from C.sub.m, is C.sub.l, which then the recipients decrypts using K.sub.b).
As per claim 23, the references as combined above teach the method of claim 22, wherein individual decomposition functions in the set of decomposition functions are numbered consecutively for identification (Samid, par. 0212-0215: ciphertext sections are numbered as: C.sub.1, C.sub.2, . . . C.sub.n,, next the transmitter transmits C.sub.m to the intended recipient; the intended recipient will remove the c leftmost bits from C.sub.m, namely C.sub.i for i=1, then decrypt it to the corresponding P*.sub.i using K.sub.a:P*.sub.i=α.sup.−1(C.sub.i,K.sub.a) . . . for i=1.Math.2, . . . n where α.sup.−1 is the decryption operation of cipher A; see also par. 0013-0015 and 0052-0056: for the numbered data parts S.sub.1, S.sub.2, . . . S.sub.t, and U1, U2, U3 and U4 is as the second cipher text part).
As per claim 24, the references as combined above teach the method of claim 23, wherein a number of the decryption function used for encryption and required for decryption is integrated into the plain text to be encrypted (Samid, par. 0052-0054 and 0061: the continuation signal is used for encryption and required for decryption in Samid. The continuation signal is integrated into Samid’s mixed unary cryptographic data process).
As per claim 25, the references as combined above teach the method of claim 24, wherein the number is arranged at a previously set position within the plain text or within one or both of the first and second plain text parts (Samid, par. 0211: the bit position t.sub.i on M of each selected plaintext message; see also FIG. 3 where t.sub.i on M is used for decryption).
As per claim 26, the references as combined above teach the method of claim 24, wherein the plain text is extended by an indication bit, which indicates whether or not the number of the reversible decomposition function is contained in the plain text or one of the first and second plain text parts (Samid, FIG. 3: four substrings are so marked S1, S2, S3, and S4, encrypted with the base cipher, using K.sub.b to generate the corresponding ciphertext C.sub.sp, which is mapped to the first cipher text part. and the four-U section concatenated by U1, U2, U3 and U4 is the second cipher text part. Samid uses a continuation flag for a set of numbered data parts in his reversible decomposition function; par. 0013-0019 and 0096-0097).
As per claim 27, the references as combined above teach the method of claim of claim 26, wherein the indication bit is arranged at a previously defined position within the plain text or within one or both first and second plain text parts (Samid, par. 0063-0068: S1, S2, S3, and S4, U1, U2, U3 and U4, wherein the continuation flag bits function as the indication bit is arranged at a previously defined position within the plain text parts; see also par. 0013-0019 and 0096-0097).
Claim 28 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Samid and Webster, as applied to claim 15, and further in view of Kalach (US 20220109559 A1).
As per claim 28, the references of Samid and Webster as combined above teach the method of claim 24, but do not explicitly disclose using a standard decomposition function if the number does not exist. This aspect of the claim is identified as a further difference.
In a related art, Kalach teaches:
wherein the method uses a standard decomposition function if the number does not exist (Kalach, par. 0064-0065: [when] encrypting a message, a number, which may be arbitrary, exists and may be used for a process that ensures unicity. In this case, AES-based cipher modes are used; Otherwise, meaning the number does not exist, other block cipher technologies are used including, for example, Triple Data Encryption Algorithm (3DES), which uses a standard decomposition function).
Kalach is analogous art to the claimed invention in the same field of endeavor as the claimed invention, or reasonably pertinent to the problem faced by the inventor, which may be in a different field. Thus, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify the Samid-Webster system with Kalach’s teachings of using Triple Data Encryption Algorithm (3DES) or a standard decomposition if the number for block size does not exist. For this combination, the motivation would have been to improve application of block cipher techniques with a default option for using standard algorithm.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure as the prior art additionally discloses certain parts of the claim features (See “PTO-892 Notice of Reference Cited”).
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/Don G Zhao/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2493 02/12/2026