Ex Parte Scott-Nash et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardAug 29, 2017

13537329 (P.T.A.B. Aug. 29, 2017)

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. 13/537,329 06/29/2012 Mark Scott-Nash ITL.2797US (P44447) 6009 47795 7590 08/31/2017 TROP, PRUNER & HU, P.C. 1616 S. VOSS RD., SUITE 750 HOUSTON, TX 77057-2631 EXAMINER ZOUBAIR, NOURA ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2434 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 08/31/2017 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): tphpto@tphm.com Inteldocs_docketing @ cpaglobal.com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte MARK SCOTT-NASH, ALBERTO MUNOZ, SIMON JOHNSON, and ASHER ALTMAN1 Appeal 2017-005111 Application 13/537,329 Technology Center 2400 Before JEAN R. HOMERE, ERIC B. CHEN, and IRVIN E. BRANCH, Administrative Patent Judges. BRANCH, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellants appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a rejection of claims 1—12 and 14—22, which constitute all the claims pending in this appeal. Claim 13 has been canceled. Final Act. 2. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. 1 Appellants identify the real party in interest as Intel Corporation. App. Br. 3. Appeal 2017-005111 Application 13/537,329 CLAIMED SUBJECT MATTER The claims are directed to “providing a supervisor to manage a lifecycle of a virtual trusted platform module.” Spec. 1 53; Abstract. Claim 1, reproduced below, is illustrative of the claimed subject matter: 1. A method comprising: on a physical platform, providing a supervisor to manage a lifecycle of a virtual trusted platform module; containing the virtual trusted platform module in a secure enclave, wherein containing the virtual trusted platform module in the secure enclave comprises: executing machine executable instructions to provide the virtual trusted platform module; confining execution of the instructions to a container of a memory, wherein confining execution of the instructions comprises managing the container using microcode of a processor of the physical platform; providing cryptographic protection of content moved to and from the container; and using the supervisor to sign a certificate provided by the virtual trusted platform module for an attestation identity key used by the virtual trusted platform module. REFEREENCE AND REJECTIONS Claims 1—12, 14—18, and 20—22 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 102(b) as anticipated by Bade (US 2008/0235804 Al; published Sept. 25, 2008) and claim 19 stands rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as obvious over Bade. Ans. 2—22. 2 Appeal 2017-005111 Application 13/537,329 ANALYSIS Claims 1, 14, and 15 Appellants argue the Examiner erred in rejecting claim 1 because Bade does not disclose “confining execution of the instructions to a container of a memory [which] comprises managing the container using microcode” when the terms are properly construed. Reply Br. 1—2. See App. Br. 9. The Examiner finds “container” reads on Bade’s DOM 0 (ref. no. 606 in Fig. 6) which manages “all virtual TPM functionality” (155 (“which forces all virtual TPM functionality into domain 0”)). Ans. 23—24 (“container recited in the claim [maps] to the first domain or supervisor domain where the first instance of the trusted platform module (TPM) is created and which corresponds to ... DOM-O 606” in Fig. 6). The Examiner also finds Bade discloses “the invention is implemented in software, which includes but is not limited to firmware, resident software, microcode, etc.” See id. 24—25; Bade 193 (emphasis added). Appellants do not persuasively rebut these findings. See generally Reply Br. 1—2. Specifically, Appellants’ arguments that “it is entirely unclear what is considered to be the ‘container’ of a memory” and “the Examiner’s Answer appears to rely (Examiner’s Answer, p. 24) on paragraph number [0093] of Bade for its disclosure of firmware” (id.) overlook the Examiner’s express findings and the disclosure of Bade referred to infra. Appellants argue claim l’s “providing cryptographic protection of content moved to and from the container” on the basis that “[t]he evisceration of the expressly-recited language to merely require encrypting or decrypting data moved to and from memory is wholly improper.” Reply 3 Appeal 2017-005111 Application 13/537,329 Br. 2. See App. Br. 9. This argument is unpersuasive because the Examiner does not “merely” map the limitation to “encrypting or decrypting data moved to and from memory.” Rather, the Examiner finds Bade describes providing cryptographic protection for content moved to and from PCRs which are registers inside the container. Ans. 25—26 (citing 139). Appellants misstate the Examiner’s findings. See Reply Br. 2. Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 1 and of claims 14 and 15, argued on the same basis. See App. Br. 10. The Remaining Claims With respect to claim 10, we adopt the Examiner’s findings and decision that claim 10 is anticipated by Bade (Final Act. 12—13) and the Examiner’s response (Ans. 26—27) to Appellants’ arguments (App. Br. 10— 11), which Appellants do not persuasively rebut (see Reply Br. 3). Specifically, we are unpersuaded by Appellants’ naked assertion that the Examiner erred because claim 10’s “page cache” cannot read on Bade’s PCRs. Id. We sustain the Examiner’s rejection of claim 10. Because Appellants argue claims 11 and 22 on the same basis as claims 1 and 15, we sustain the rejection of claims 11 and 22. We also sustain the rejection of claim 19, which Appellants argue on the same basis as claim 15. We also sustain the rejections of claims 2—9, 12, 16—18, 20, and 21, which Appellants do not argue separately. DECISION We affirm the Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1—12 and 14—22. 4 Appeal 2017-005111 Application 13/537,329 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)(l)(iv). AFFIRMED 5