Ex Parte Glew et alDownload PDFPatent Trial and Appeal BoardMay 29, 201310039961 (P.T.A.B. May. 29, 2013) Copy Citation UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________ Ex parte ANDREW F. GLEW, JAMES A. SUTTON, LAWRENCE O. SMITH, DAVID W. GRAWROCK, GILBERT NEIGER, and MICHAEL A. KOZUCH ____________ Appeal 2011-000163 Application 10/039,961 Technology Center 2400 ____________ Before JOSEPH F. RUGGIERO, SCOTT R. BOALICK, and BARBARA A. PARVIS, Administrative Patent Judges. PARVIS, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appellants seek review under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) of a final rejection of claims 1, 2, 4-6, 8, 9, 12-18, 22, and 23. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We AFFIRM. Appeal 2011-000163 Application 10/039,961 2 BACKGROUND Appellants’ disclosed invention relates to techniques for launching execution of authenticated code (AC) modules that may be used for various operations such as establishing and/or maintaining a trusted computing environment. Spec. ¶ [0014]. Independent claim 1 is illustrative and is reproduced below: 1. A processor comprising memory; decode logic to receive a launch instruction; and one or more execution units to execute the launch instruction by loading an authenticated code module into the memory, locking the memory, retrieving a key, authenticating the authenticated code module stored in the memory using the key, and initiate execution of the authenticated code module stored in the memory. EVIDENCE CONSIDERED The prior art relied upon by the Examiner in rejecting the claims on appeal is: England US 6,651,171 B1 Nov. 18, 2003 Okada US 6,704,872 B1 Mar. 9, 2004 Abgrall US 2003/0037237 A1 Feb. 20, 2003 REJECTION Claims 1, 2, 4-6, 8, 9, 12-14, 16-18, 22, and 23 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over England and Okada. Ans. 3-5. Claim 15 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being unpatentable over England, Okada, and Abgrall. Ans. 5-6. Appeal 2011-000163 Application 10/039,961 3 ISSUE Appellants argue that combining Okada and England would do nothing to help Okada prevent the illegal execution of a program or to help England hide the execution of curtained code from the normal operation of a system and, therefore, there is no motivation to combine Okada and England. App. Br. 9. Appellants further specify that in the resulting combination, a program will still be accessible for execution, legally or illegally. App. Br. 9. These arguments present us with the following issue: did the Examiner improperly combine England and Okada? ANALYSIS We have reviewed the Examiner’s rejection in light of Appellants’ arguments in the Appeal Brief presented in response to the Final Office Action and the Reply Brief presented in response to the Examiner’s Answer. We disagree with Appellants’ conclusions and highlight and address specific findings and arguments for emphasis as follows. We are not persuaded by Appellants’ argument that one of ordinary skill in the art would not be motivated to combine Okada and England because combining Okada and England would do nothing to help achieve exemplary objectives disclosed by these references (App. Br. 9). It is not necessary that the two references serve the same purpose to establish that the references can be combined. We agree with the Examiner that one of ordinary skill in the art would recognize that modifying England in accordance with the disclosure of Okada gives the added benefit of preventing the illegal execution of a program, which increases the security of the system (Ans. 6-7). Appeal 2011-000163 Application 10/039,961 4 We also are not persuaded by Appellants’ more specific arguments on page 9 of the Appeal Brief. First, Appellants do not present convincing objective evidence to demonstrate that a program will still be accessible for execution, legally or illegally in the resulting combination of Okada and England (App. Br. 9). Additionally, Appellants have not sufficiently explained how a program would be accessible for execution illegally in a combined system (App. Br. 9). Contrary to Appellants’ arguments, modifying England’s disclosure of locking memory and executing an authentication and key-exchange protocol with Okada’s disclosure of receiving, decoding and executing an authentication instruction is no more than a predictable use of familiar prior art elements according to their established functions, therefore rendering the recited invention obvious. See KSR Int’l Co. v. Teleflex, Inc., 550 U.S. 398, 417 (2007). Additionally, the Examiner has articulated how the claimed features are met by the reference teachings and has provided a reason with rational underpinning as to why one of ordinary skill in the art would combine the disclosure of Okada into the system of England (Ans. 6-7). Thus, we are not persuaded that the Examiner improperly combined England and Okada. For the first time in the Reply Brief, Appellants argue that the combination of references would not result in a processor that decodes and executes a launch instruction in accordance with the requirements of the claimed invention. Reply Br. 1-2. However, Appellants’ argument simply recites limitations and summarily alleges that they are not found in the cited prior art. Appellants have not provided sufficient explanation or analysis to persuade us that the Examiner erred. Additionally, we find this argument to Appeal 2011-000163 Application 10/039,961 5 be untimely. Ex parte Borden, 93 USPQ2d 1473, 1475 (BPAI 2010) (informative). Based on the record before us, we conclude that the Examiner did not err in rejecting claim 1 as being unpatentable under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) over England and Okada. Therefore, we sustain the 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) rejection of claim 1 and of claims 2, 4-6, 8, 9, 12-18, 22, and 23, not separately argued (App. Br. 10). DECISION We affirm the Examiner’s rejection of claims 1, 2, 4-6, 8, 9, 12-18, 22, and 23 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). 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. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv). AFFIRMED msc Copy with citationCopy as parenthetical citation