Ex Parte Mao et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardNov 26, 2012

10415449 (P.T.A.B. Nov. 26, 2012)

UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE ____________________ BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD ____________________ Ex parte WENBO MAO and LIQUN CHEN ____________________ Appeal 2010-010753 Application 10/415,449 Technology Center 3600 ____________________ Before: JOSEPH A. FISCHETTI, MEREDITH C. PETRAVICK, and MICHAEL W. KIM, Administrative Patent Judges. PETRAVICK, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2010-010753 Application 10/415,449 2 STATEMENT OF CASE Wenbo Mao and Liqun Chen (Appellants) seek our review under 35 U.S.C. § 134 of the final rejection of claims 1, 2, 4, and 6-28. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). SUMMARY OF DECISION We AFFIRM-IN-PART.1 THE INVENTION This invention is directed to metering in a data processing system (Specification 1:4-6). Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the subject matter on appeal. 1. A method of metering activity of a data processing system, comprising: generating a measure of the activity of the data processing system; generating in the data processing system metering evidence using an integer which has only two prime factors, wherein the metering evidence depends on the measure; and keeping the prime factors as a secret that is unknown to the data processing system, wherein the metering evidence can be verified as corresponding to the measure through use of the prime factors. 1 Our decision will make reference to the Appellants’ Appeal Brief (“App. Br.,” filed Feb. 18, 2010) and Reply Brief (“Reply Br.,” filed Jul. 13, 2010), and the Examiner’s Answer (“Ans.,” mailed May 13, 2010). Appeal 2010-010753 Application 10/415,449 3 THE REJECTIONS The Examiner relies upon the following as evidence of unpatentability: Naor and Pinkas, Secure accounting and auditing on the Web, Computer Networks and ISDN Systems, vol. 30, issues 1-7, Proceedings of the Seventh International World Wide Web Conference, 541-550 (1998), Pages 541-550 (found at: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6TYT-3WRC342- 16/2/1bb0843769c10b8bc4b5b05e0e415914) (hereafter “Naor”). Mao, Verifiable Partial Sharing of Integer Factors, SAC'98, LNCS 1556, 94-105 (1999) (found at: http://www.springerlink.com/content/ral97g6lm6c0xgyt/fulltext.pdf) (hereafter “Mao”). The following rejection is before us for review: Claims 1, 2, 4, and 6-28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Naor and Mao. ISSUES The first issue is whether Naor and Mao disclose generating both a measure and evidence. The second issue is whether Naor and Mao disclose evidence generating using an integer having two prime factors. The third issue is whether Naor and Mao disclose the evidence can be verified as corresponding to the measure through the prime factors. Appeal 2010-010753 Application 10/415,449 4 The fourth issue is whether Naor and Mao disclose an iterative process that uses the result of one iteration as an input to a next iteration. FINDINGS OF FACT We find that the following enumerated findings of fact (FF) are supported by at least a preponderance of the evidence. Ethicon, Inc. v. Quigg, 849 F.2d 1422, 1427 (Fed. Cir. 1988) (explaining the general evidentiary standard for proceedings before the Office). 1. Naor discloses its server “is required to provide a different proof for every 1000 visits by presenting different values P(0, Hi) of the polynomial at different locations (Hi is a random challenge picked by the audit agency and the location (0, Hi) is used for proving the 1000 visits ....)” (§ 4.5). 2. Naor discloses generating a measure of data processing system activity by counting the number of doctors who visit a site, the number of requests for content, or the number of users who have used coupons. (§ 2.3). 3. Naor discloses generating metering evidence that can be verified, stating, “[a]fter serving k clients in day t, S can interpolate this polynomial and calculate P(O, St). This is the proof for serving k clients in day t. The audit agency can verify this value by evaluating the polynomial P ...” that correlates to the measured activity. (§ 4.2, Proof generation, p. 547). 4. Naor discloses measurement methods using secret values to have protection from malicious clients. (§ 4.1). Appeal 2010-010753 Application 10/415,449 5 5. Mao discloses using public key techniques utilizing an integer having two prime factors, such as in an RSA algorithm, for encoding secret information. (§ 3, first para.). ANALYSIS The rejection of claims 1, 2, 4, and 6-28 under §103(a) as being unpatentable over Naor and Mao. Claims 1, 6-12, and 15-18 We are not persuaded by Appellants’ argument that Naor and Mao do not disclose generating both a measure and evidence. App. Br. 6, Reply Br. 4-5, 5-6. Naor discloses generating measures of user visits (FF 2) and generating evidence depending on the measure (FF 3), which meet the “generating” requirements. We are not persuaded of error by Appellants’ argument that Naor and Mao do not disclose evidence generating using an integer having two prime factors because Mao is unrelated to measure or metering evidence. App. Br. 6, Reply Br. 6. Naor discloses encrypting secret measuring information to protect from malicious clients (FF 4), and Rao discloses a particular encrypting technique utilizing two prime factors (FF 5), which meets the requirement of “using an integer which has only two prime factors, wherein the metering evidence depends on the measure.” Both Naor and Rao pertain to common problems related to securing evidence to protect from malicious clients (FF 4, 5), and their combination is therefore reasonable. We are not persuaded of error by Appellants’ arguments that Naor and Mao fail to disclose “verifying evidence using factors of an integer” and “verifying that evidence corresponds to a measure.” App. Br. 6, Reply Br. 5, Appeal 2010-010753 Application 10/415,449 6 6-7. The arguments fail at the outset because they argue limitations not present in the claim, which only require that the “evidence can be verified as corresponding to the measure through the prime factors.” Nonetheless, Naor discloses that the polynomial used for encoding the measured values can be used to verify the measured number of clients in a day, meeting the claim requirement. FF 3. For these reasons, we affirm the rejection of claim 1 under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), as well as dependent claims 6-12 and 15-18 that were not separately argued. App. Br. 8. Claims 2, 4, 19, and 20 Dependent claim 2 includes a limitation requiring iteratively evaluating the result of a mathematical function using the integer as an input to the function, and using a result of one iteration of the function as an input to a next iteration of the function. We are persuaded of error by Appellants’ argument that the combination of Naor and Mao does not disclose an iterative process as claimed. Ans. 8, Reply Br. 7. The Examiner directs us to Naor §§ 2.1, 4.2, 4.5, and 4.6, and Mao §§ 3.4 and 4.1. Ans. 7. However, we do not find disclosed any iterative process that uses the result of one iteration as an input to a next iteration. In particular, § 4.5 of Naor provides measures of user visits on intervals of 1000 or more visits, but starts over for the next iteration, thus not using the result of one interval as an input to the next interval. FF 1. For this reason, we reverse the rejection of claim 2, and dependent claims 4, 19, and 20, under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a). Appeal 2010-010753 Application 10/415,449 7 Claims 13, 14, and 21-28 Independent claims 13, 14, 21, 24, 27, and 28 each include a limitation substantively identical to that of claim 2, above. The rejection of these claims under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a), as well as dependent claims 22, 23, 25, and 26, are reversed for the same reasons set forth above with respect to claim 2. DECISION The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 1, 6-12, and 15-18 is affirmed. The decision of the Examiner to reject claims 2, 4, 13, 14, and 19-28 is reversed. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(1)(iv). AFFIRMED-IN-PART mls