Ex Parte Xu et al

Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences

Nov 30, 2009

09754813 (B.P.A.I. Nov. 30, 2009)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE BOARD OF PATENT APPEALS
AND INTERFERENCES
____________

Ex parte JING MIN XU, ZHONG TIAN,
and LEO Y. LIU
____________

Appeal 2008-006166
Application 09/754,813
Technology Center 2100
____________

Decided: November 30, 2009
____________

Before LEE E. BARRETT, HOWARD B. BLANKENSHIP, and
JAMES R. HUGHES, Administrative Patent Judges.

BLANKENSHIP, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL
STATEMENT OF THE CASE
This is an appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s final
rejection of claims 1-15 and 17-21, which are all the claims remaining in the
application. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b).
We reverse, and enter a new ground of rejection against claims 1-10.
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Representative Claim
1. A system comprising:
a plurality of certificate authorities (CAs) in which each CA
maintains and distributes digital certificates revoked by itself in the
form of a certificate revocation list (CRL), and different CAs may use
different CRL distribution mechanisms;
multiple CRL retrieval agents configured to periodically
retrieve CRLs at time intervals from different CAs using a plurality of
CRL retrieval agents based on the CRL distribution mechanisms of
CAs;
a plurality of CRL databases for storing the consolidated CRLs
from the multiple CRL retrieval agents and/or the replications of
CRLs, the CRL databases storing at least one individually identifiable
revoked digital certificate; and
a CRL access user interface for providing a uniform set of
Application Program Interfaces for users accessing the CRLs in the
CRL database, said system enabling consolidation and access of the
certificate revocation lists (CRLs) from the plurality of certificate
authorities (CAs).

Prior Art
Curry 6,128,740 Oct. 3, 2000
Strellis 6,304,882 B1 Oct. 16, 2001
Ng 6,411,956 B1 Jun. 25, 2002
Kocher 6,442,689 B1 Aug. 27, 2002
Ginter 6,658,568 B1 Dec. 2, 2003

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Vesna Hassler, X.500 and LDAP Security: a Comparative Overview,
IEEE Network, Vol. 13, No. 6, pp. 54-64 (Nov/Dec. 1999) (“Hassler”).

B. Kaliski, Privacy Enhancement for Internet Electronic Mail: Part
IV: Key Certification and Related Services, RFC 1424, pp. 1-8 (Feb. 1993)
(“Kaliski”).

Examiner’s Rejections
Claims 1, 4, 6, 7, 10, 11, 13-15, and 17-21 stand rejected under 35
U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over Kocher, Curry, and Ng.
Claims 2, 8, and 12 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Kocher, Curry, Ng, and Ginter.
Claim 3 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Kocher, Curry, Ng, and Hassler.
Claim 5 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Kocher, Curry, Ng, and Kaliski.
Claim 9 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over Kocher, Curry, Ng, Ginter, and Strellis.

DISCUSSION
The Standing Rejections
Appellants argue independent claims 1, 11, and 18 in response to the
§ 103(a) rejections. Appellants submit that each claim on appeal contains,
or incorporates by limitation, a feature that is not found in the applied prior
art.
At the outset, we note that claim 1, as drafted, is indefinite. We set
forth a new ground of rejection under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph,
infra. For the sole purpose of comparing the claimed subject matter with the
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prior art, and our review of the prior art rejections, we presume that claim 1
requires multiple CRL (certificate revocation list) retrieval agents configured
to periodically retrieve CRLs at time intervals from different CAs
(certificate authorities) based on the CRL distribution mechanisms of CAs.
Method claim 11 (first recited step) sets forth a limitation similar to that
which we presume in claim 1, as does method claim 18 (first recited step).
In the rejection of claim 1, the Examiner finds that Curry discloses
multiple CRL retrieval agents configured to periodically retrieve CRLs at
time intervals from different CAs using a plurality of CRL retrieval agents
based on the CRL distribution mechanisms of CAs, referring to text at
columns 2, 5, and 6 of the reference. Ans. 4.
Curry at column 2, lines 26 through 41 discusses (with respect to the
background of the invention) certification authority servers (managers) that
collect their own revoked certificates and queue them to be published, on a
periodic basis, with other existing revoked certificates. The reference, at
column 5, lines 23 through 27, describes aspects of the Curry invention,
whereby an on-demand publishing/queue “determinator” 34 (Fig. 2) receives
revocation request data from a software application or a security officer.
Curry at column 6, lines 33 through 38 refers to caching of CRL data on a
client or network node, whereby the client or node periodically accesses a
CRL repository 16 (Fig. 2).
The seemingly relevant portion of the noted teachings of Curry relates
to periodic updating of client caches with CRL data. Yet, the Examiner
appears to refer to the certification authorities or managers as synonymous
with the claimed “multiple retrieval agents.” See Ans. 12 (“utilizing
certification authorities or managers (i.e., multiple retrieval agents) . . . .”).
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On the next page of the Answer, the Examiner appears to shift position and
indicates that Curry’s client or network nodes correspond to the claimed
multiple retrieval agents. See id. at 13 (“the client or network node (i.e.,
CRL retrieval agents based on the CRL distribution mechanisms)
periodically accesses the CRL retrieval repository 16 . . . .”).
In any event, whether the “multiple retrieval agents” are deemed to be
taught by the certification authorities or managers, or taught by the clients or
network nodes that periodically access a repository to retrieve CRL data, we
agree with Appellants that the Examiner has not shown that the references
teach multiple CRL retrieval agents configured to periodically retrieve CRLs
at time intervals from different CAs based on the CRL distribution
mechanisms of CAs. As we have noted, the more relevant teaching in Curry
appears to be the clients or network nodes that maintain local caches based
on periodic retrieval of CRL data from a CA 12 (Fig. 2) that has been placed
in a CRL repository 16. However, absent a convincing explanation from the
Examiner, we are left to speculate how Curry might be deemed to teach the
features attributed to the reference by the instant rejection.
The Examiner bears the initial burden of establishing a prima facie
case of obviousness. In re Oetiker, 977 F.2d 1443, 1445 (Fed. Cir. 1992).
In a rejection on obviousness grounds, there must be some articulated
reasoning with some rational underpinning to support the legal conclusion of
obviousness. In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 2006). We are
unable to sustain the § 103(a) rejection of claim 1.
The rejection of claim 11 (and claim 18) alleges that Kocher teaches
creating a plurality of CRL retrieval agents, but that Curry teaches
periodically retrieving CRLs at time intervals from different CAs using a
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plurality of CRL retrieval agents based on the CRL distribution mechanisms
of CAs. Ans. 6-8. The referenced portion of Curry, for the rejection of
claims 11 and 18, appears to relate to the certification authorities or
managers that we have discussed, and appears to have nothing to with
retrieval agents that periodically retrieve CRLs at time intervals from
different CAs based on the CRL distribution mechanisms of CAs.
Because all of the standing rejections rely on the apparent deficiencies
of Curry as applied against the claimed subject matter, we cannot sustain the
§ 103(a) rejection of any claim on appeal.

New Ground of Rejection -- 35 U.S.C. § 112, Second Paragraph
We reject claims 1-10 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second paragraph, as
being indefinite.
Claims 2 through 10 depend from base claim 1. Claim 1 recites
“multiple CRL retrieval agents configured to periodically retrieve CRLs at
time intervals from different CAs using a plurality of CRL retrieval agents
based on the CRL distribution mechanisms of CAs” (emphasis added).
For our review of the § 103(a) rejections, we interpreted claim 1 as if
the “using a plurality of CRL retrieval agents” was not present in the claim,
consistent with corresponding recitations in claim 11 and claim 18. In
Appellants’ invention, however, multiple CRL retrieval agents do not use a
plurality of CRL retrieval agents to periodically retrieve CRLs at time
intervals from different CAs (see, e.g., App. Br. 3, Summary of Claimed
Subject Matter and the referenced disclosure in the Specification).1 That is,

1 The second occurrence of “retrieval agents” was introduced into claim 1 by
an amendment submitted May 3, 2004.
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in Appellants’ invention the agents periodically retrieve CRLs from different
CAs, rather than a plurality of CRL retrieval agents being used by multiple
CRL retrieval agents to retrieve CRLs.
We thus consider instant claim 1 to be misdescriptive of Appellants’
invention, and thus indefinite under § 112, second paragraph. Moreover,
even without consideration of Appellants’ disclosed invention, the recitation
of both “multiple CRL retrieval agents” and “a plurality of CRL retrieval
agents” would leave one unable to determine whether a particular agent
might make up part of the “multiple” and/or part of the “plurality.” We
therefore reject claims 1 through 10 under 35 U.S.C. § 112, second
paragraph.

DECISION
The Examiner’s rejections of claims 1-15 and 17-21 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 103(a) are reversed.
In a new ground of rejection, we reject claims 1-10 under 35 U.S.C.
§ 112, second paragraph, as being indefinite.
This decision contains a new ground of rejection pursuant to 37
C.F.R. § 41.50(b) (2009). 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(b) provides “[a] new ground of
rejection pursuant to this paragraph shall not be considered final for judicial
review.”
37 C.F.R. § 41.50(b) also provides that the appellant, WITHIN TWO
MONTHS FROM THE DATE OF THE DECISION, must exercise one of
the following two options with respect to the new ground of rejection to
avoid termination of the appeal as to the rejected claims:
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(1) Reopen prosecution. Submit an appropriate amendment of
the claims so rejected or new evidence relating to the claims so
rejected, or both, and have the matter reconsidered by the examiner, in
which event the proceeding will be remanded to the examiner. . . .

(2) Request rehearing. Request that the proceeding be reheard
under § 41.52 by the Board upon the same record. . . .

No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a). See 37 C.F.R.
§ 41.50(f).

REVERSED-- 37 C.F.R. § 41.50(b)

msc

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