Appeal No. 2002-1527 Page 25
Application No. 08/885,817
1. Claim Construction
Claim 16 recites in pertinent part the following limitations: "a certification
authority, connected to a sub-network, storing records relating a network address or
alias with a public key of a public/private key encryption pair." Giving the claim its
broadest, reasonable construction, the limitations require that a certification authority
store records relating a network address or alias with a public key.
2. Obviousness Determination
As mentioned regarding claims 2, 11, 15, 25, 34, and 35; we found that Aziz's
Certificate Authorities (CAs), "hav[ing] jurisdiction over the range of IP addresses that
are being certified," col. 17, ll. 14-16, store public keys. As also aforementioned, CAs
have "the authority to bind a particular IP address to a DH public key." Id. at ll. 6-7.
Because storing a record of the binding of a particular IP address to a DH public key
would have memorialized the binding, we are persuaded that teachings from the prior
art would have suggested that a CA store records relating a network address or alias
with a public key. Therefore, we affirm the rejection of claim 16.
K. CLAIMS 18, 26, AND 27
The examiner asserts, "[b]y creating one or more closed multicast groups, Aziz is
partitioning the total multicast address space into subspaces." (Supp. Examiner's
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