Ex Parte YupDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardMay 27, 201511716916 (P.T.A.B. May. 27, 2015) Copy Citation 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. 11/716,916 03/12/2007 Nhu-Ha Yup 2551-0070 9386 42624 7590 05/27/2015 DAVIDSON BERQUIST JACKSON & GOWDEY LLP 8300 Greensboro Dr, Suite 500 McLean, VA 22102 EXAMINER RASHID, HARUNUR ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2497 MAIL DATE DELIVERY MODE 05/27/2015 PAPER 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. PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte NHU-HA YUP ____________ Appeal 2013-001221 Application 11/716,916 Technology Center 2400 ____________ Before JOSEPH L. DIXON, JAMES R. HUGHES, and ERIC S. FRAHM, Administrative Patent Judges. FRAHM, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellant appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from the Examiner’s rejections of claims 1–20. App. Br. 2. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We reverse. Appeal 2013-001221 Application 11/716,916 2 REJECTIONS The Examiner rejected claims 1–7, 11–18, and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated by D. McGrew, J. Viega, “The Galois/Counter Mode of Operation (GCM),” Submission to NIST Modes of Operation Process, January 2004 (herein “Galois”). Final Rej. 3–9. The Examiner rejected claim 8 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Galois and “Advanced Encryption Standard (AES),” Federal Information Processing Standards Publication 197 (issued by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)), November 26, 2001. Id. at 9–10. The Examiner rejected claim 9 under § 103(a) as unpatentable over Galois and U.S. Pub. No. 2007/0081668 A1 to McGrew (pub’d Apr. 12, 2007). Id. at 10. The Examiner rejected claim 10 under § 103(a) over Galois and U.S. Pub. No. 2006/0034456 A1 to McGough (pub’d Feb. 16, 2006). Id. at 10– 11. The Examiner rejected claim 19 under § 103(a) over Galois and U.S. Pub. No. 2008/0130889 A1 to Qi (pub’d June 5, 2008). Id. at 11. ANALYSIS The Examiner rejects claims 1–20 over Galois; which is applied, for some claims, in further combination with additional references. See supra, “Rejections” section. In view of the following Reply Brief argument concerning Galois, we reverse the Examiner’s decision rejecting of claims 1–20. Appeal 2013-001221 Application 11/716,916 3 The Examiner’s interpretation of the Figures on page 6 of Galois, Figure 4 of the present application and is respectfully not correct. The Examiner states that EK on these Figures is the hash key (“that hash key (EK) . . . is the same hash key (EK) as the one displayed in applicant’s FIG. 4, and this hash key (EK) . . . ,” Examiner’s Answer, p. 4; emphasis added), and this is his sole basis for showing re-use of the hash key for authentication of subsequent packets. However, EK is not the hash key. EK is “encryption using the key K.” The Figure 4 of the present application and the Figure on p. 6 of Galois show a drawing of one packet flow, and therefore the similarity between those particular figures. The hash key, on the other hand, is H (see present application p. 11, for example). Reuse of the hash key does not change the flow; rather it saves time to calculate H. This misinterpretation of the EK for the hash key negates the Examiner’s entire argument throughout the Examiner’s [A]nswer (see Examiner’s Answer, p. 4 and 6) with respect to re-use of the hash key for subsequent data packets. Without it, the Examiner apparently alleges no purported re-use of the hash key for subsequent packets. Reply Br. 3 (emphases removed). We agree with the above argument insofar that, in each rejection, Galois’ singular secret key K is cited as teaching the claimed inventions’ (i) cipher key and (ii) hash key computed from the cipher key. Final Rej. 3–4; Ans. 4, 6. More particularly, in addressing the claimed inventions’ receipt of the cipher key and computation of the hash key (e.g., steps (a) and (b) of claim 1), the Final Office Action’s “grounds of rejection” section cites Galois’ secret key K and hash key H as respectively teaching the claimed inventions’ cipher key and hash key. Final Act. 3–4 (“(a) receiving . . . a cipher key ([Galois] pg. 4, section 2.2, key K); (b) computing . . . a hash key using the received cipher key prior . . . (pg. 5, Hash Key H=E(K, 0128)”). Then, in addressing the claimed inventions’ authentication process (e.g., Appeal 2013-001221 Application 11/716,916 4 steps (f) through (i) of claim 1), the Answer’s “response to arguments” section cites Galois’ encryption EK “using the secret key K” (Galois Fig. 1) as teaching the claimed inventions’ reuse of the computed hash key. Ans. 4 (“hash key EK . . . is reused in subsequent packets”), 6 (twice reiterating the “hash key EK” finding). Thus, in each rejection, Galois’ singular secret key K is unreasonably found to constitute each of two different keys; namely, the claimed inventions’ (i) cipher key and (ii) hash key computed from the cipher key. Accordingly, the rejections of claims 1–20 are not sustained. DECISION The Examiner’s decision rejecting claims 1–20 is reversed. REVERSED dw Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation