Khazan, Roger I. et al.

Patent Trials and Appeals Board

Jan 21, 2020

13937884 - (D) (P.T.A.B. Jan. 21, 2020)

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.
13/937,884 07/09/2013 Roger I. Khazan 70009-D27001 9319
69713 7590 01/21/2020
OCCHIUTI & ROHLICEK LLP
50 Congress Street
Suite 1000
Boston, MA 02109
EXAMINER
POTRATZ, DANIEL B
ART UNIT PAPER NUMBER
2491
NOTIFICATION DATE DELIVERY MODE
01/21/2020 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):
INFO@ORPATENT.COM
PTOL-90A (Rev. 04/07)
UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
____________

BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
____________

Ex parte ROGER I. KHAZAN, JOSHUA KRAMER, DANIIL M. UTIN,
MANKUAN MICHAEL VAI, and DAVID WHELIHAN
____________

Appeal 2018-004758
Application 13/937,884
Technology Center 2400
____________

Before ALLEN R. MacDONALD, CAROLYN D. THOMAS, and
DAVID J. CUTITTA II, Administrative Patent Judges.

THOMAS, Administrative Patent Judge.

DECISION ON APPEAL

Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. § 134(a), Appellant1 appeals from the
Examiner’s decision to reject claims 1–39. We have jurisdiction over the
appeal under 35 U.S.C. § 6(b). An oral Hearing was held on January 13,
2020.
We AFFIRM IN PART.

1 We use the word “Appellant” to refer to “applicant” as defined in 37
C.F.R. § 1.42. Appellant identifies the real party in interest as
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Appeal Br. 1.
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Application 13/937,884

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The present invention relates generally to secure cryptography and
key management. Spec. ¶ 2.
Claim 1 is illustrative:
1. An integrated circuit for secure operation comprising:
a plurality of circuit zones including a first circuit zone having a
first level of security and a second circuit zone having a second level
of security less than the first level of security;
one or more gate circuits each configured to limit transfer of
data between the circuit zones, the one or more gate circuits
configured to provide all data connectivity between the first circuit
zone and the second circuit zone and being statically configured to
prevent unmodified transfer of data from the first circuit zone to the
second circuit zone;
wherein each circuit zone of the plurality of circuit zones is
associated with a region of circuitry in the integrated circuit and the
regions of circuitry of the plurality of circuit zones are mutually
exclusive.

Appellant appeals the following rejections:
Claims 1–39 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103(a) as being
unpatentable over at least Wootten (US 6,754,819 B1, June 22, 2004) and
Kudelski (US 2007/0150756 A1, June 28, 2007) in combination with
various other prior art (see Final Act. 4–36).
We review the appealed rejections for error based upon the issues
identified by Appellant, and in light of the arguments and evidence produced
thereon. Ex parte Frye, 94 USPQ2d 1072, 1075 (BPAI 2010) (precedential).

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Application 13/937,884

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ANALYSIS
Rejections under § 103(a)

Claims 1–18, 25–32, 37, and 38
Issue 1: Did the Examiner err in finding that Wootten teaches and/or
suggests “one or more gate circuits configured to provide all data
connectivity between the first circuit zone and the second circuit zone,” as
set forth in representative claim 1?
Appellant contends that “Wootten describes a system that, at least in
some scenarios, allows certain data to pass between circuit zones of differing
levels of security without passing through any ‘gate circuit.’” Appeal Br. 8.
Specifically, Appellant contends that “the Examiner has failed to establish a
proper prima facie rejection of the claim by failing to provide at least some
evidence . . . to support his position that Wootten’s application objects
necessarily pass through the data security system prior to being loaded onto
first controllers on the red side of the red/black boundary.” Id. at 10,
(emphasis omitted). Appellant further contends that “Wootten’s FIG. 1 . . .
shows that the application objects 50, even those that bridge the red and
black zones, are in direct communication with one another (see the links
between the objects 50 in Wootten’s FIG. 1).” Id. at 11.
Here, Appellant emphasizes that “[s]ince Wootten’s application
objects 50 (which span the red and black zones) communicate with one
another without passing through the data security system 26, the data
security system 26 is not ‘one or more gate circuits configured to provide all
data connectivity between the first circuit zone and the second circuit
zone.’” Appeal Br. 11.

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Application 13/937,884

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Figure 1 of Wootten is depicted below (with added notes showing
red/black zones):

Figure 1 of Wootten illustrates a multiprocessor platform supporting a
distributed application 22.
Appellant’s arguments highlight the “messages between the objects
[50,]” and contends that such messages do not appear to have to pass
through the data security system 26, i.e., the gate circuit. Appeal Br. 12.
We agree with Appellant that at least Wootten’s Figure 1 suggests that there
may be a direct connection between the objects themselves, i.e., bypassing
the gate circuit. See Wootten’s Fig. 1, elements 50.
Furthermore, Wootten discloses:
Application objects 50 interact with each other and
multiprocessor platform 20 through well defined interfaces
called messaging to perform the functionality of distributed
application 50. In order to facilitate communication between
application objects 50 distributed across multiple controllers,
distributed object communication mechanisms have been
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Application 13/937,884

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created. These distributed object communication mechanisms
are also referred to as middleware.
Wootten, 5:39–46.
The ORB [Object Request Broker] allows application
objects 50 to transparently make requests to, and receive
responses from, other application objects 50 located locally or
remotely.
Wootten, 5:56–58.
In other words, consistent with Appellant’s aforementioned argument,
Wootten describes application objects 50 (which span the red and black
zones) are in direct communication with one another, without passing
through the data security system 26. Appellant points out that the Examiner
attempts to rebut this apparent teaching in Wootten by referring “to ‘all
cryptographic data’ apparently in contrast to ‘all data.’” Reply Br. 2.
Specifically, the Examiner finds that “[i]n Wootten, the data security
system is configured in the same manner as Appellant’s ‘gate circuit,’
because the data security system is configured to be the only communication
path that provides all cryptographic data connectivity between a first circuit
zone (i.e., elements 24 and 30) and a second circuit zone (i.e., elements 28
and 40).” Ans. 8. However, we highlight that representative claim 1
requires a gate circuit to “provide all data connectivity” not merely all
cryptographic data connectivity.
Additionally, the Examiner finds that “Wootten requires the initial
loading of the objects . . . thereby configuring the data security system to
provide all data connectivity between the circuit zones.” Ans. 11. The
Examiner also finds that “claim 1 merely requires ‘the one or more gate
circuits configured to provide all data connectivity between the first circuit
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and the second circuit zone’ (emphasis added), and thus does not preclude
any such initial configuration of ‘the one or more gate circuits’ themselves.”
Id.
As noted by Appellant, “the Examiner appears to further attempt to
distinguish data for ‘initial configuration’ data from the ‘cryptographic
data.’” Reply Br. 2. We agree with Appellant that “the Examiner appears to
at least tacitly acknowledge that Wootten’s initial configuration may load
application objects across the red/black boundary without passing those
application objects through the data security system.” Id. Furthermore, the
Examiner is attempting to associate the claimed “all data” with data
exclusive of an initial configuration procedure for loading application
objects. We disagree with the Examiner’s interpretation because claim 1
fails to limit the claimed “all data” in any fashion, particularly to data
following a loading procedure.
Thus, we disagree with the Examiner’s finding that Wootten teaches
one or more gate circuits configured to provide all data connectivity, as
recited in independent claims 1 and 16. The Examiner also has not found
that any of the other references of record teach this feature. Since we agree
with at least one of the arguments advanced by Appellant, we need not reach
the merits of Appellant’s other arguments regarding independent claims 1
and 16. Accordingly, we do not sustain the Examiner’s obviousness
rejection of claims 1–18, 25–32, 37, and 38. Independent claim 19, and the
claims dependent thereon, do not require the aforementioned limitation, and
therefore will be addressed separately.
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Claims 19–24, 33–36, and 39
Issue 2: Does Wootten teach away from any realizations of the
platform on a single integrated circuit?
Appellant contends that Wootten “recognizes that the physical
separation afforded by the distributed processing environment in which the
platform 20 is realized is essential to the invention and therefore teaches
away from any realizations of the platform that do not afford the physical
separation of a distributed processing environment.” Appeal Br. 13
(emphasis omitted). Appellant further contends that “[t]he type of physical
separation afforded by the distributed processing environment . . . would not
exist if Woot[t]en’s platform were realized on a single integrated circuit”
(id.), i.e., “where they are separated by microns.” Reply Br. 10.
The Examiner finds, and we agree, Kudelski provides motivation “to
implement the entirety of the multiprocessor platform within a system-on-
chip configuration which would not alter or teach away from the teachings
of Wootten.” Ans. 15.
For example, Wootten discloses that “[d]ata security system 26
provides the physical separation between first controllers 24 and second
controllers 28 . . . in which the software components of the data processing
are performed by separate controllers.” Wootten, 3:58–67. Wootten further
discloses that “[t]hose skilled in the art will readily recognize that a
multiprocessor platform may [be] arranged in any of a number of
configurations with any number of controllers as long as data security
system 26 provides the physical separation between the controllers
processing plain text data and the controllers processing cipher text data.”
Wootten, 4:13–18.
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However, we do not find, and Appellant does not establish, that
Wootten criticizes, discredits, or otherwise discourages implementing the
multiprocessor platform on an integrated circuit. “The prior art’s mere
disclosure of more than one alternative does not constitute a teaching away
from any of these alternative because such disclosure does not criticize,
discredit, or otherwise discourage the solution claimed . . . .” In re Fulton,
391 F.3d 1195, 1201 (Fed. Cir. 2004).
Accordingly, we sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent
claim 19. Appellant does not argue separate patentability for dependent
claims 20–24, 33–36, and 39. We, therefore, also sustain the Examiner’s
rejection of claims 20–24, 33–36, and 39.

CONCLUSION
Claims Rejected 35
U.S.C. §
Reference(s)/Basis Affirmed Reversed
1–18, 25–32, 37,
38 § 103
(At least) Wootten,
Kudelski
1–18, 25–
32, 37, 38
19–24, 33–36, 39 § 103 (At least) Wootten, Kudelski
19–24,
33–36, 39
Overall
Outcome
19–24,
33–36, 39
1–18, 25–
32, 37, 38

No time period for taking any subsequent action in connection with
this appeal may be extended under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a).
AFFIRMED IN PART