14618598 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 29, 2018)

Ex Parte Nair et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardJan 29, 2018

14618598 (P.T.A.B. Jan. 29, 2018)

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. 14/618,598 02/10/2015 Raj Nair P43772-US2 6856 27045 7590 01/31/2018 F.RTrSSON TNC EXAMINER 6300 LEGACY DRIVE COHEN, HARVEY I M/SEVR 1-C-ll PLANO, TX 75024 ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2439 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 01/31/2018 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. Notice of the Office communication was sent electronically on above-indicated "Notification Date" to the following e-mail address(es): michelle. sanderson @ eric sson .com pam. ewing @ ericsson. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte RAJ NAIR, KEVIN J. MA, and MIKHAIL MIKHAILOV Appeal 2017-007400 Application 14/618,5981 Technology Center 2400 Before ST. JOHN COURTENAY III, MARC S. HOFF, and JOHN D. HAMANN, Administrative Patent Judges. HAMANN, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants file this appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final rejection of claims 1—20. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. 1 According to Appellants, the real party in interest is Ericsson AB. App. Br. 1. Appeal 2017-007400 Application 14/618,598 THE CLAIMED INVENTION Appellants’ claimed invention “relates to digital rights management in a network environment,” including being “directed to a user device and method used on the user device to securely provide the content keys that are used to encrypt streaming content.” Spec. 11. Claim 1 is illustrative of the subject matter of the appeal and is reproduced below. 1. A method operating at a user device for securing streaming content decryption, the method comprising: receiving at the user device a manifest for requested content, the manifest providing a Content Encryption Key (CEK) that is encrypted using a first public Key Encryption Key (KEK), a corresponding first private KEK being stored in secure storage on the user device; decrypting, inside a secure processing zone on the user device, the CEK using the first private KEK to create a decrypted content key; decrypting, inside the secure processing zone, requested content using the decrypted content key to form decrypted content; and providing the decrypted content to a decoder on the mobile user device. (Contested limitation emphasized). REJECTIONS ON APPEAL (1) The Examiner rejected claims 1, 12, and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Swaminathan (US 2013/0163758 Al; published June 27, 2013) and Mangalore (US 2014/0095890 Al; published Apr. 3, 2014). (2) The Examiner rejected claims 2, 3, 6, 8—11, 13, 15, and 17—19 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of 2 Appeal 2017-007400 Application 14/618,598 Swaminathan, Mangalore, and Kozuka (US 2013/0145481 Al; published June 6, 2013). (3) The Examiner rejected claim 4 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Swaminathan, Mangalore, Kozuka, andNakano (US 2007/0256141 Al; published Nov. 1, 2007). (4) The Examiner rejected claim 5 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Swaminathan, Mangalore, Kozuka, and Pedlow (US 2006/0274898 Al; published Dec. 7, 2006). (5) The Examiner rejected claims 7 and 14 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Swaminathan, Mangalore, Kozuka, and Muijen (US 2008/0065548 Al; published Mar. 13, 2008). (6) The Examiner rejected claim 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being unpatentable over the combination of Swaminathan, Mangalore, Kozuka, and Devadas (US 2006/0210082 Al; published Sept. 21, 2006). ISSUE The dispositive issue for this appeal is whether the combination of Swaminathan and Mangalore teaches or suggests “a corresponding first private KEK being stored in secure storage on the user device.” ANALYSIS We find Appellants’ arguments discussed herein persuasive. Appellants argue that the combination of Swaminathan and Mangalore fails to teach or suggest that the private key, which corresponds to the public key used to encrypt the content key, is stored on the user device, as recited in independent claims 1, 12, and 20. App. Br. 5—8; Reply 3 Appeal 2017-007400 Application 14/618,598 Br. 1—5. More specifically, Appellants argue that the Examiner incorrectly finds that Swaminathan teaches that the private key is stored on the user device, and in fact, Swaminathan teaches instead that the private key is stored at the HTTPS service, which is “hosted on a remote trusted service (and not on the user device as Examiner states),” for use in decrypting the content key. Reply Br. 4 (citing Swaminathan 155). We agree with Appellants that the portions of Swaminathan that the Examiner cites (see Ans. 4 citing H 41, 55) for teaching or suggesting the disputed limitation do not support the Examiner’s findings. Rather, Swaminathan teaches or suggests that the relevant private key is located on a remote server which hosts a content streaming service. Swaminathan 1 55. Swaminathan teaches using the private key (which corresponds to the public key used for encrypting the content key) at the remote server — not at the user device. Id.', see also id. H 7, 41. Swaminathan also teaches that the decrypted content key is returned from the remote server to the user device (i.e., “to the OS on the device that hosts the application” invoking the streaming service). Id. 1 55. There is no teaching or suggestion that the private key also is sent to the user device, nor any reasoning provided by the Examiner as to why it would be. Id.', see also Ans. 4. We also note that Swaminathan’s teaching relating to storing a key on the user device relates to the content key and not a private key. Swaminathan 141. Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner’s first-stated § 103 rejection of independent claims 1,12, and 20, that each recite the contested limitation using similar language having commensurate scope. Regarding the remaining § 103 rejections 2—6, on this record, the Examiner has not shown how the additionally cited secondary references 4 Appeal 2017-007400 Application 14/618,598 overcome the aforementioned deficiencies of the base combination of Swaminathan and Mangalore, as discussed above regarding the first-stated rejection of the independent claims. Therefore, we also do not sustain the Examiner’s § 103 rejection 2 of claims 2, 3, 6, 8—11, 13, 15, and 17—19; rejection 3 of claim 4; rejection 4 of claim 5; rejection 5 of claims 7 and 14; and rejection 6 of claim 16, as these remaining rejected claims each depend directly or indirectly from one of the independent claims. DECISION We reverse the Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1—20. REVERSED 5