Appeal 2007-2120
Application 09/911,149
is used to hash into the SAD). Appellants emphasize, however, that this
general teaching does not mean that the SPI is the specific address value in
the SAD at which the associated SA is stored (Br. 5; Reply Br. 2) (emphasis
added).
The Examiner contends that the SPI in Carman is the sole value used
to access the SAD to store and retrieve the SA. According to the Examiner,
since Carman does not teach hashing the SPI or using any other value in
connection with the SPI to retrieve the SA from the SAD, the reference
therefore teaches assigning the specific memory address value as an SPI
(Answer 8-9).
The issue before us, then, is whether Carman’s utilization of an SPI to
access the SAD reasonably constitutes assigning the specific memory
address value of the received and stored SA as an SPI value as claimed
(emphasis added).
We will not sustain the Examiner’s rejection of independent claims 1
and 36. Carman discloses an adaptive cryptographically synchronized
authentication (ACSA) system that selects an appropriate authentication
mechanism (“gear”) used to authenticate data exchanged between nodes that
share a given SA (Carman, col. 4, ll. 14-28; col. 5, ll. 35-38; Fig. 3). To this
end, Carman’s ACSA system includes four high-level software modules that
implement various security standards: (1) ACSA Controller module 810; (2)
IPsec module 820; (3) PF_KEY module 830; and (4) IKE module 840
(Carman, col. 9, ll. 23-34; Fig. 8).
Carman details the authentication process and gear determination
using these modules in Figure 9. The relevant steps of this process
pertaining to this appeal begin at Step 916. In that step, IKE module 840
5
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