Appeal No. 2002-0617
Application 08/942,743
providing a challenge associated with a protected item
of software, and response means for responding to said
challenge, to determine whether said response means has
access to private keying material, wherein:
a) the challenge means has no access to said private keying
material;
b) the response means includes
means for proving that said response means has access to the
private keying material by interacting with the
challenge means using a probabilistic proof scheme,
c) the challenge means includes
means for prohibiting a customer from using at least some
of said item of software unless the challenge means
determines from said probabilistic proof scheme that
said response means in fact has access to said private
keying material and thereby preventing unauthorized use
of the software,
wherein said challenge means is embedded in said protected item
of software.
References
The references relied on by the Examiner are as follows:
Linsker et al. 5,680,455 Oct. 21, 1997
(filing date Jul. 10, 1996)
Kanevsky et al. 5,774,525 Jun. 30, 1998
(filing date Aug. 14, 1997)
Hellman 5,872,917 Feb. 16, 1999
(filing date Oct. 8, 1997)1
1 We note that Hellman does not appear to be a valid
reference applied against the Appellants in that the filing date
is after the Appellants’ filing date of Oct. 2, 1997.
3
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