DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 08/11/2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendment
This action is in response to the amendment filed on 08/11/2026. Claims 1, 2, 21, and 24-26 have been amended, claim 23 is canceled, and claims 5-8 and 22 have been previously canceled. Claims 1-4, 9, 10, 21 and 24-26 are currently pending.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-4, 9, 10, 21 and 24-26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed an abstract idea without significantly more. Independent claim 1 recites (additional limitations crossed out):
A method of attention token rewards, the method comprising:
receiving,
displaying,
automatically collecting,
comparing, based at least in part on collecting the indicia of user attention to the media content, the third-party content-producing account to a list of content creators that are verified to accept digital asset rewards via the attention application;
automatically signing,
broadcasting the automatically signed message
transmitting [sending], to an attention consumer associated with the at least one privacy preserving ad, a second message comprising the indicia of user attention to the at least one privacy preserving ad, wherein the second message comprises a zero-knowledge proof that verifies that the indicia of the user attention to the at least one privacy preserving ad is calculated correctly without revealing inputs to a calculation;
receiving,
designating a portion of the attention tokens of the digital asset wallet for payment to one or more non-onboarded content creators that are not on the list;
determining that the one or more non-onboarded content creators have not signaled acceptance of attention tokens within a predetermined retry period following the designating;
displaying,
after expiration of the predetermined retry period, returning the portion of the attention tokens to the
The above limitations, as drafted, are processes that, under their broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of a marketing/sales activity. That is, other than reciting the steps as being performed by an “attention application” including a “digital asset wallet”, and a “user device” including “sensors”, nothing in the claims precludes the steps from being described as a marketing/sales activity. For example, but for the “attention application” ,“digital asset wallet”, “user device” and “sensors” language, the steps describe paying a publisher for presented content that has received attention, and paying a user for viewing presented ads, which are marketing/sales activities. If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers performance of an advertising activity, then it falls within the “Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity” grouping of abstract ideas. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea.
The judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claims only recite the additional elements of an “attention application” and “user device” with “sensors” to perform the steps. This additional element is recited at a high level of generality (see at least Paras [0002], [0021]) such that it amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computing components. Further, the inclusion of a “digital asset wallet”, and a “digital” asset reward merely serves to link the judicial exception (i.e., payment to a publisher and user) to a particular technological environment or field of use (i.e., computer environment). The claims also recite “automatically signing, using a private key associated with the digital asset wallet…” and “broadcasting the automatically signed message via a blockchain network such as to execute the transfer of the first digital asset reward from the digital asset wallet to the third-party content-producing account, wherein the messages is configured to cause a first update a shared ledger of the blockchain network to reflect the transfer of the first digital asset reward from the digital asset wallet to the third-party content-producing account”. However, these limitations merely serve to link the use of the judicial exception (i.e., payment to a publisher) to a particular technological environment or field of use (i.e., payment through blockchain). Accordingly, these additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claims are therefore still directed to an abstract idea.
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional elements of using an “attention application” to perform the steps amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components, while the elements of a “digital asset wallet” and “digital” asset reward, and the limitations of “automatically signing, using a private key associated with the digital asset wallet…” and “broadcasting the automatically signed message via a blockchain network such as to execute the transfer of the first digital asset reward from the digital asset wallet to the third-party content-producing account, wherein the messages is configured to cause a first update a shared ledger of the blockchain network to reflect the transfer of the first digital asset reward from the digital asset wallet to the third-party content-producing account” merely link the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use. Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component, or general linking the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use cannot provide an inventive concept. Therefore, the claim is not found to be patent eligible.
Claims 2-4, 9-10, 21 and 24-26 are dependent on claim 1, and include all the limitations of claim 1. Therefore, they are also found to be directed to an abstract idea. Claims 2-4 and 9-10 merely further narrow the abstract idea. For example, claims 2-4 merely describe attributes of the payment to the publisher, claim 5 merely describes the publisher, and claim 9 merely describes parameters of the digital asset reward. Claim 10 indicates that the media content is a “toast notification”, however this merely links the judicial exception to a particular technological environment or field of use. Claim 21 discloses “authenticated hardware”, but this computing element merely serves to place the abstract idea of “authenticating data” in a computer environment. The dependent claims have not been found to integrate the judicial exception into a practical application, or provide significantly more than the abstract idea. Therefore, the dependent claims are found to be directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Examiner Notes
No prior art was found for claim 1’s limitation “determining that the one or more non-onboarded content creators have not signaled acceptance of attention tokens within a predetermined retry period following the designating”. While the concept of distributing cryptocurrency to content creators based on a voting system was found (See Steemit and BAT Mercury NPL). No prior art was found in regard to designating tokens for payment to non-onboarded content creators, and determining that they have not signaled acceptance of tokens within a predetermined period.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments regarding claims rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant argues with substance:
Applicant argues that the claims do not recite a judicial exception. Applicant argues that claim 1 states “automatically signing, using a private key associated with the digital asset wallet…a message to execute a transfer”, broadcasting the automatically signed message via a blockchain network”, and a second message that “comprises a zero-knowledge proof that verifies that the indicia of user attention…is calculated without revealing inputs to a calculation”, and that these are cryptographic and network operations. This is not persuasive. The “private key associated with the digital asset” and “blockchain network” are merely applied to the abstract functions of signing and broadcasting a message, respectively. Further, a message being comprised of a zero-knowledge proof does not make relaying a message any less abstract.
Applicant argues that claim 1 recites features that integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. Applicant states that “the attention application is identified to other participants by a wallet payment address rather than by user identity”, and that this provides an improvement to the operation of the content-delivery and measurement system itself: attention is measured and compensated without the transmission of personally identifiable information that conventional systems require”. This is not persuasive. The use of proxy identifiers (i.e., the wallet payment address) to measure attention instead of PII does not constitute a technological improvement.
Applicant argues that the zero-knowledge proof contributes to the practical application, and that the proof provides a function. The Examiner respectfully disagrees. The limitation in question states, “transmitting, to an attention consumer associated with the at least one privacy preserving ad, a second message comprising the indicia of user attention to the at least one privacy preserving ad, wherein the second message comprises a zero-knowledge proof that verifies that the indicia of the user attention to the at least one privacy preserving ad is calculated correctly without revealing inputs to a calculation”. The language “… a zero-knowledge proof that verifies that the indicia of the user attention to the at least one privacy preserving ad is calculated correctly without revealing inputs to a calculation” merely states the intended result/purpose of the particular data being transmitted.
Applicant argues that statistical voting does not address fairness of compensation, but privacy leakage from the distribution itself. The Examiner respectfully disagrees as the specification is silent in regard to statistical voting being used to address privacy leakage. If anything, the claims are indeed directed to address fairness of compensation as evidenced by at least Para. [0039] stating “One way of determining contributions is to use “statistical voting”” (emphasis added), rather than language pertaining to privacy leakage.
Applicant argues that the Office improperly evaluated the additional elements individually rather than considering the claim as a whole citing MPEP 2106.04 (d). This is not persuasive.
The Office has considered the claim as a whole, including the ordered combination. Consideration of the claim as a whole does not, however, mean that the mere combination of additional elements with the recited judicial exception establishes an integration into a practical application.
As explained in MPEP 2106.04(d), the additional elements must be evaluated to determine whether they integrate their judicial exception into a practical application. Here, the additional elements do not improve the functioning of a computer or other technology, nor do they otherwise apply the exception in a manner that imposes a meaningful limitation on the exception. The recited computing and communication components are used for their ordinary functions of calculating information and transmitting resulting messages. Further, the zero-knowledge proof does not alter the manner in which the underlying attention metric is calculated. Rather the zero-knowledge proof is generated after the calculation to provide verification of the calculation while withholding the inputs. Thus, even when the limitations are considered in their order combination, the claimed arrangement amounts to applying a known cryptographic technique to the claimed information processing activity. The purported benefit of allowing a recipient to verify the correctness of the calculation without obtaining the inputs is a benefit or result of the information testing scheme, rather than an improvement to the underlying computer or cryptographic technology. Accordingly, consideration of the claim as a whole does not establish that the additional elements integrate the judicial exception into a practical application under MPEP 2106.04 ( d ). The claim therefore remains directed to the recited judicial exception.
Applicant argues that the ordered combination of an “attention application” (i.e., browser), “user device” with “sensors”, “digital asset wallet” and blockchain limitations is not conventional, relying, in part, on five references that allegedly demonstrate the unconventional nature of the claimed combination. This argument is not persuasive.
The fact that the claimed elements may not be disclosed in a single reference, or may require multiple references to demonstrate that the individual techniques were known, does not, by itself, establish that the claim integrates the judicial exception into a practical application. The 101 inquiry is distinct from an anticipation or obviousness inquiry under 102 and 103. Thus, the number of references relied upon by the office does not determine whether the claim is directed to a judicial exception.
The determination of whether additional elements amount to significantly more than the judicial exception is not established merely by identifying a combination of known components and asserting that the particular combination is unconventional. Rather, the relevant inquiry is whether the additional elements, individually or in combination, provide a technological improvement or otherwise impose a meaningful limitation on the judicial exception. See MPEP 2106.05.
Here, the claimed attention application, user device with sensors, digital asset wallet, and blockchain are you each used for their respective ordinary functions. The attention application obtains or processes user attention information, the user device and sensors obtain information indicative of user activity or attention, the digital asset wallet manages digital assets, and the blockchain provides a distributed data structure for recording or verifying transactions/data. Merely arranging these known components together to perform the claimed attention measurement and digital asset-related operations does not, by itself, establish an improvement to the operation of any of the underlying computer technology. The claim does not recite a specific technical mechanism by which combining the attention application, sensors, digital asset wallet, and blockchain produces an improvement in computer functionality, sensor operation, blockchain technology, or digital asset processing.
Accordingly, Applicant’s assertion that the particular combination is not conventional is insufficient to establish that the claim as a whole integrates the judicial exception into a practical application or amounts to significantly more than the exception. The rejection under 101 is therefore maintained.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Franham (US 2018/0357729) discloses users compensating content creators (Paras. [0013], [0109]).
“Soon, you’ll get paid in cryptocurrency to watch ads on your phone” by Permission.io, available on February 27, 2018, discusses providing compensation in crypto to users based on ad consumption
“Vimeo ‘Tip Jar’ Lets Users Pay Creators for Content” teaches paid Vimeo accounts being able to activate a button to allow users to donate by credit card or PayPal
“How to send Ether to 11,440 people” by Nick Johnson, available August 5, 2016, teaches that in order to create an Ethereum transaction, you first have to sign it using a private key.
“Interview with Brendan Eich, CEO of Brave” by Elio Qoshi, available May 2, 2016, teaches the use of zero-knowledge-based impression and click confirmation.
“An Introduction to Steemit - A Step by Step Guide for New Steemians” by shadowolfdg, available 20171, hereinafter referred to as Steemit, teaches the payment of crypto-rewards to content creators based on a voting system.
“BAT Mercury Concept [revision 2017-08-01-A]” by Marshall T. Rose2, available August 1, 2018, teaches the use of statistical voting in the distribution of tokens.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KYLE G ROBINSON whose telephone number is (571)272-9261. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday - Thursday, 7:00 - 4:30 EST; Friday 7:00-11:00 EST.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kambiz Abdi can be reached on 571-272-6702. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/KYLE G ROBINSON/Examiner, Art Unit 3626
/KAMBIZ ABDI/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3685
1 Available at https://web.archive.org/web/20221207124341/https://steemit.com/steemiteducation/@shadowolfdg/an-introduction-to-steemit-a-step-by-step-guide-for-new-steemians
2 Available at https://github.com/brave-intl/bat-mercury-concept
