Ex Parte Grobman

Patent Trial and Appeal Board

Sep 26, 2017

14125391 (P.T.A.B. Sep. 26, 2017)

United States Patent and Trademark Office
UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCE
United States Patent and Trademark Office
Address: COMMISSIONER FOR PATENTS
P.O.Box 1450
Alexandria, Virginia 22313-1450
www.uspto.gov
APPLICATION NO. FILING DATE FIRST NAMED INVENTOR ATTORNEY DOCKET NO. CONFIRMATION NO.
14/125,391 12/11/2013 Steven L. Grobman P55417US (920-0344US) 3365
13205 7590 09/28/2017
Rlank Rome. T T P - MoAfee
EXAMINER
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NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
09/28/2017 ELECTRONIC
Please find below and/or attached an Office communication concerning this application or proceeding.
The time period for reply, if any, is set in the attached communication.
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hou stonpatents @ blankrome .com
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
Ex parte STEVEN L. GROBMAN
Appeal 2017-006515
Application 14/125,3911
Technology Center 2400
Before MARC S. HOFF, ERIC S. FRAHM, and JUSTIN BUSCH,
Administrative Patent Judges.
HOFF, Administrative Patent Judge.
DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134 from a final rejection of
claims 26—50.2 We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We affirm.
Appellant’s invention is a system to reduce opportunities for
tampering with aggregated data that is processed in a peer-to-peer chain.
Each device passes predecessor aggregated data to a trusted environment in
that device, which obtains local data for that device and aggregates it with
the predecessor aggregated data. Optionally, the system can identify when a
1 The real party in interest is McAfee, Inc. App Br. 3.
2 Claims 1—25 have been cancelled. Id. at 12.
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Application 14/125,391
device has previously processed the aggregated data. The aggregated data
may be digitally signed or encrypted to enhance the tamper resistance of the
data payload. See Abstract.
Claim 26 is exemplary of the claims on appeal:
26. A non-transitory computer-readable medium, on
which are stored instructions comprising instructions that, when
executed, cause a programmable device to:
receive a first collection of data from a predecessor
programmable device, the first collection of data comprising a
chain of trusted aggregations of data;
generate a second collection of data, corresponding to the
first collection of data;
aggregate the first collection of data with the second
collection of data in a trusted environment of the programmable
device, producing a third collection of data; and
send the third collection of data to a successor
programmable device,
wherein the third collection of data comprises a chain of
trusted aggregations of data from predecessor programmable
devices and the programmable device.
The Examiner relies upon the following prior art in rejecting the
claims on appeal:
Claims 26—50 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Schmidt and Kamvar.
Throughout this decision, we make reference to the Appeal Brief
(“App. Br.,” filed Mar. 28, 2016), the Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed Mar.
10, 2017), and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed Feb. 22, 2017) for
their respective details.
Kamvar
Schmidt
US 7,805,518 B1
US 2013/019838 A1
Sept. 28, 2010
Aug. 1,2013
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Application 14/125,391
ISSUES
1. Does Schmidt teach away from combination with Kamvar?
2. Does Kamvar disclose or suggest a chain of trusted aggregations of
data from predecessor programmable devices and the programmable device?
Principles of Law
To teach away, the prior art must “criticize, discredit, or otherwise
discourage the solution claimed.” Mere disclosure of alternative
embodiments is not a teaching away. In re Fulton, 391 F.3d 1195, 1201
(Fed. Cir. 2004).
Our reviewing court has held that “[a] reference may be said to teach
away when a person of ordinary skill, upon reading the reference, would be
discouraged from following the path set out in the reference, or would be led
in a direction divergent from the path that was taken by the applicant.” In re
Gurley, 27 F.3d 551, 553 (Fed. Cir. 1994); Para-Ordnance Mfg. v. SGS
Importers Inti, 73 F.3d 1085, 1090 (Fed. Cir. 1995).
ANALYSIS
Teaching Away
Appellant argues that Schmidt “expressly teaches away from using
chains such as are recited by claim 26.” App. Br. 8. Appellant alleges that
Schmidt identifies efficiency problems with a linear chain of aggregations,
and that Schmidt characterizes the information provided by a linear chain of
aggregations as of “limited value.” Id. at 9; Schmidt || 111, 114. Appellant
contends that a linear chain of trust is problematic in a virtual machine
context, and that a tree-formed stored measurement log (SML) is more
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Application 14/125,391
useful than a linear SML. App. Br. 9; Schmidt || 116, 156. Appellant
argues that Schmidt teaches disadvantages of linear validation relative to
tree validation. App. Br. 10; Schmidt |170.
We find Appellant’s argument to be unpersuasive. We have reviewed
the cited sections of Schmidt, and we do not agree that the disclosures
therein satisfy the legal standard for teaching away. To teach away, the prior
art must “criticize, discredit, or otherwise discourage the solution claimed.”
Mere disclosure of alternative embodiments is not a teaching away. Fulton,
391 F.3d at 1201.
Schmidt paragraph 111 merely introduces the concept of tree-based
verification, and does not specifically describe any efficiency problem with
linearly chained verification. Schmidt paragraph 114 states only that
verification data “created by linearly chaining extend operations, may be of
limited value for remote diagnostics.” Schmidt 1114 (emphasis added).
Schmidt paragraph 116 does not appear to be germane to the claimed
invention, which does not recite virtualization or virtual machines. Schmidt
paragraph 156 fails to affirmatively criticize linearly chained verification,
stating only that “diagnostic validation may not be possible, and failed
components may not be distinguished from good ones.” Schmidt 1156
(emphases added). Last, Schmidt paragraph 170 states only that linear
validation “may be impossible if the recalculation of the final PCR fails,”
and that tree validation “may be more efficient.” Schmidt 1170 (emphases
added).
We find that the cited paragraphs of Schmidt express supposed
advantages of tree-based verification, and only conditionally express
problems associated with linearly chained validation. As such, we find that
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Application 14/125,391
Schmidt’s disclosures fail to criticize, discredit, or otherwise discourage the
solution claimed, and do not lead the skilled artisan in a direction divergent
from the path taken by the Appellant. See Fulton, 391 F.3d at 1201; Gurley,
27 F.3d at 553.
Kamvar
Appellant argues that Kamvar does not disclose that “the third
collection of data comprises a chain of trusted aggregations of data from
predecessor programmable devices and the programmable device,” because
Kamvar “recites a technique in which a node in a peer-to-peer network
collects information from all of its mother nodes and passes information to
all of the daughter nodes.” App. Br. 10.
We are not persuaded by Appellant’s argument concerning Kamvar,
for two reasons. Kamvar discloses several nodes 202, each having an
unspecified number of “mother” nodes and an unspecified number of
“daughter” nodes. Kamvar, Fig. 2, col. 11,11. 35—col. 12,11. 4. First, in the
scenario under which Kamvar collects information from one mother node
and passes information to one daughter node, Kamvar operates identically to
Appellant’s disclosed invention. Second, even if one assumes a plurality of
mother nodes and a plurality of daughter nodes, Kamvar still discloses “a
chain of trusted aggregations of data from predecessor programmable
devices and the programmable device,” as claimed. App. Br. 12, Claims
App’x. Appellant has not provided a definition of “chain” that would
exclude the application of Kamvar against the claimed invention under the
broadest reasonable interpretation of the term.
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We find that the Examiner did not err in combining Schmidt and
Kamvar to obtain the invention under appeal. We sustain the Examiner’s
§ 103(a) rejection of claims 26—50.
CONCLUSIONS
1. Schmidt does not teach away from combination with Kamvar.
2. Kamvar discloses a chain of trusted aggregations of data from
predecessor programmable devices and the programmable device.
ORDER
The Examiner’s decision to reject claims 26—50 is affirmed.
No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv). See 37
C.F.R. §41.50(f).
AFFIRMED
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