Ex Parte van Roermund et al

Patent Trial and Appeal BoardMay 19, 2017

13754729 (P.T.A.B. May. 19, 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. 13/754,729 01/30/2013 Timo van Roermund 81422618US03 5053 65913 7590 05/23/2017 Intellectual Property and Licensing NXPB.V. 411 East Plumeria Drive, MS41 SAN JOSE, CA 95134 EXAMINER REZA, MOHAMMAD W ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER 2436 NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE 05/23/2017 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): ip. department .u s @ nxp. com PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07) UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD Ex parte NXP B.V. Appeal 2017-000950 Application 13/754,729 Technology Center 2400 Before CARL W. WHITEHEAD JR., JON M. JURGOVAN, and AARON W. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judges. MOORE, Administrative Patent Judge. DECISION ON APPEAL Appeal 2017-000950 Application 13/754,729 STATEMENT OF THE CASE Appellant1 appeals under 35 U.S.C. § 134(a) from a Final Rejection of claims 1 and 3—18, which are all of the pending claims. We have jurisdiction under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). We affirm. THE INVENTION The application is directed to “a configuration method for configuring host devices in a control system.” (Spec. 1:7—8.) Claim 1, reproduced below, exemplifies the subject matter on appeal: 1. A configuration method for configuring a host device in a control system, in particular a building control system, wherein an authorized configuration device, which is authorized to exchange confidential configuration data with a radio frequency identification tag coupled to the host device, exchanges said confidential configuration data with said radio frequency identification tag, wherein, after the confidential configuration data have been exchanged and a corresponding configuration operation has been performed, access to the confidential configuration data by an unauthorized configuration device, which is not authorized to exchange said confidential configuration data with said radio frequency identification tag, is precluded by locking said radio frequency identification tag, wherein said locking occurs by encrypting the confidential configuration data, wherein the confidential configuration data enable the host device to join a network and/ or pair with other devices. 1 The named inventors are Timo Van Roermund, Ewout Brandsma, Maarten Christiaan Pennings, and Aly Aamer Syed. 2 Appeal 2017-000950 Application 13/754,729 THE REFERENCES AND THE REJECTION Claims 1 and 3—18 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as unpatentable over Culbert (US 2007/0054616 Al; March 8, 2007), Soleimani et al. (US 2008/0001724 Al; January 3, 2008), and Cam Winget et al. (US 2008/0204248 Al; August 28, 2008). (See Final Act. ^U10.) APPELLANT’S CONTENTIONS Appellant argues the rejections are in error because (a) “[njone of the references teaches ‘wherein said locking occurs by encrypting the confidential configuration data’” and (b) the “Examiner is applying hindsight bias in arguing that a person having ordinary skill in the art would apply all three in exactly the method as described in the claims.” (See App. Br. 7, 10.) ANALYSIS Appellant claims a configuration method in which, after confidential configuration data has been exchanged and a configuration operation performed, unauthorized access to the configuration data is precluded by “locking” a radio frequency identification tag, where the locking “occurs by encrypting the confidential configuration data.” The Specification discloses that “locking the RFID tag 102 may be implemented by encrypting the confidential configuration data and overwriting the confidential configuration data in the RFID tag 102 by the encrypted version of the same parameters.” (Spec. 1 8:27—30.) The Examiner finds “Soleimani discloses access to . . . confidential configuration data by an unauthorized configuration device ... is precluded 3 Appeal 2017-000950 Application 13/754,729 by locking [a] radio frequency identification tag.” (Final Act. 5.) The Examiner further finds that Cam Winget describes how locking may be performed “by encrypting the message/data exchanged during configuration requests/responses.” {Id. at 6; see, e.g., Cam Winget | 80 (“The information in the tag will be protected with the ciphersuite specified during configuration mode. A ciphersuite may either provide authentication and encryption or just authentication only.”).) Appellant’s argument that “[n]one of the references teaches ‘wherein said locking occurs by encrypting the confidential configuration data’” is not persuasive because the Examiner finds that Cam Winget teaches locking by encryption, that finding is supported, as shown above, and Appellant fails to explain why the finding is not correct. A bare assertion that “no locking is occurring” is not sufficient to show error. Appellant’s “hindsight” argument is unpersuasive because it fails to address the Examiner’s stated reasons to combine (see Final Act. 6) and we find the combination identified by the Examiner adequately supported by an articulated reasoning with a rational underpinning. See In re Kahn, 441 F.3d 977, 988 (Fed. Cir. 2006). Because Appellant has not shown Examiner error, we sustain the Section 103(a) rejections of claims 1 and 3—18. 4 Appeal 2017-000950 Application 13/754,729 DECISION The rejections of claims 1 and 3—18 are affirmed. No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a)(l)(iv). AFFIRMED 5