DETAILED ACTION
This is a non-final office action on the merits. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (the Office) has received claims 1 – 5 in application 17/428304.
Claim 4 is withdrawn from consideration.
Claim 3 is canceled.
None of the claims are amended.
Claims 1, 2, 4 and 5 are pending. Claims 1, 2, and 5 and have been examined.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 01/28/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
103 Rejection
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1/21/2026 have been considered but are not persuasive. Applicant focuses on the label “anchor” instead of the claimed structure and functions. Examiner asserts that the prior art Back and Dechu teaches the claimed limitations, however, new prior art is presented in addition to Dechu to provide a more precise mapping to the limitations.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 1, 2, and 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable by Zamayatin (NPL: Flux: Revisiting Near Blocks for Proof-of-Work Blockchains) in view of Dechu (US20180115425A1).
Regarding Claim 1. Zamayatin teaches:
A computer implemented method in a blockchain system, said method comprising: generating, by a plurality of peer nodes in a peer-to-peer (p2p) blockchain network, a plurality of anchors,
Note - “Sub-blocks” are additional PoW solutions created repeatedly by miners (nodes) for example, a plurality of PoW-bearing entities generated in the network.
Zamayatin - In this paper we introduce Flux, a protocol extension for Bitcoin-like proof-of-work blockchains that builds upon the concept of velvet forks in order to reduce the targeted block interval (Introduction, second paragraph). Sub-blocks represent otherwise valid key blocks, which do not meet difficulty target dk but some predefined lower target ds < dk for the PoW and hence maintain a lower block interval (B. Sub-blocks, first paragraph).
wherein each of the plurality of anchors includes a bitstring information comprising of:
a hash pointer to a parent block in a main chain of the blockchain system, and
Note – A 256-bit hash reference is a hash pointer. Flux explicitly points to a prior key block when starting a subchain.
Zamayatin - sub-blocks contain an additional reference to the previous sub-block, the 256-bit hash of the previous sub block header. If no sub-block is present, i.e., at the start of a subchain, the reference points to the previous key block (B. Sub-blocks, second paragraph).
wherein said plurality of anchors are additional entities to the main chain of the blockchain system and have identifiers distinguishable from blocks;
Note – Flux implements sub-blocks as a distinct class from full “key blocks” (they fail dk and satisfy ds), i.e., distinguishable entities.
Zamayatin - Sub-blocks represent otherwise valid key blocks, which do not meet difficulty target dk but some predefined lower target ds < dk) (B. Sub-blocks, first paragraph).
wherein, each of the plurality of anchors adds weight to the parent block, and every new anchor generated causes an increase in weight contribution that is updated on the weight of the parent block;
Note – the incremental contribution concept is taught by Flux. More sub-blocks submitted results to more credited contribution toward the key block.
Zamayatin - Flux makes use of an alternative reward distribution model…the block reward and transaction fees are distributed among all miners who have contributed to the latest key block, similar to the approach used by mining pools. Thereby, we make use of an approach initially introduced in P2Pool [2]: the hash rate of each miner is estimated using the number of sub-blocks submitted to the subchain (E. Remuneration Model, first paragraph).
wherein, said plurality of anchors are generated, propagated and thereby accepted by the plurality of peer nodes in the peer-to-peer (p2p) blockchain network on said blockchain system so as to increase the responsiveness and stability of a blockchain; and
Zamayatin - A higher generation frequency of sub-blocks leads to a lower mining variance, quicker fork detection and better responsiveness to transactions (B. Sub-blocks, third paragraph).
wherein said plurality of anchors include fixed size small structures having data such that they have low propagation/queuing delays and broadcast in the peer-to-peer (p2p) blockchain network.
Zamayatin - do not meet difficulty target dk but some predefined lower target ds < dk for the PoW and hence maintain a lower block interval (B. Sub-blocks, first paragraph).
Flux does not teach, however Dechu discloses:
a Proof Of Work (PoW) solution to a PoW puzzle different from the PoW puzzle used for mining a block;
Note – the prior art presented below is for smart contract/IoT operations (restricted nonce set), not for mining blocks (a different PoW puzzle on a separate distinction as presented above).
Dechu - determining a proof-of-work via a device 312 using a predefined set of nonce values when determining the proof-of-work 314, and storing the proof-of-work on a blockchain 316. The proof-of-work may also be broadcast as a broadcast message 318 (using NRB/EMBs) (¶ 0023).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled of the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the PoW-blockchain extension based on near blocks (“sub-blocks”) of Flux with the broadcasting the PoW as a broadcast message of Dechu because doing so creates a standardized, network message that nodes can verify and record for PoW evidence.
Regarding Claim 2. The combination of Zamayatin and Dechu further discloses:
The method as claimed in claim 1, wherein said plurality of anchors comprises information that includes an address of an entity creating said plurality of anchors.
Zamayatin - When building the block, a miner inserts her own payout address(es) in the outputs of the coinbase transaction (D. P2Pool, third paragraph).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled of the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the cumulative work and compact proof framework of Back with the PoW object of Dechu because doing so achieves quicker, lower-overhead accumulation of effective work per parent block which is a predictable improvement in responsiveness and stability.
Regarding Claim 5. Zamayatin teaches:
A non-transitory computer readable storage medium storing instructions that when executed by one or more processors cause the one or more processors to perform operations comprising: generating, by a plurality of peer nodes in a peer-to-peer (p2p) blockchain network, a plurality of anchors, wherein each of the plurality of anchors includes a bitstring information comprising:
Zamayatin - sub-blocks contain an additional reference to the previous sub-block, the 256-bit hash of the previous sub block header. If no sub-block is present, i.e., at the start of a subchain, the reference points to the previous key block (B. Sub-blocks, second paragraph).
a hash pointer to a parent block in a main chain of the blockchain system, and
Zamayatin - sub-blocks contain an additional reference to the previous sub-block, the 256-bit hash of the previous sub block header. If no sub-block is present, i.e., at the start of a subchain, the reference points to the previous key block (B. Sub-blocks, second paragraph).
wherein, each of the plurality of anchors adds weight to the parent block, and every new anchor generated causes an increase in weight contribution that is updated on the weight of the parent block;
Zamayatin - Flux makes use of an alternative reward distribution model…the block reward and transaction fees are distributed among all miners who have contributed to the latest key block, similar to the approach used by mining pools. Thereby, we make use of an approach initially introduced in P2Pool [2]: the hash rate of each miner is estimated using the number of sub-blocks submitted to the subchain (E. Remuneration Model, first paragraph).
wherein, said plurality of anchors are generated, propagated and thereby accepted by the plurality of peer nodes in the peer-to-peer (p2p) blockchain network on a blockchain system so as to increase the responsiveness and stability of a blockchain; and
Zamayatin - do not meet difficulty target dk but some predefined lower target ds < dk for the PoW and hence maintain a lower block interval (B. Sub-blocks, first paragraph).
wherein said plurality of anchors include fixed size small structures having data such that they have low propagation/queuing delays and broadcast in the peer-to-peer (p2p) blockchain network.
Zamayatin - do not meet difficulty target dk but some predefined lower target ds < dk for the PoW and hence maintain a lower block interval (B. Sub-blocks, first paragraph).
Flux does not teach, however Dechu discloses:
a Proof Of Work (PoW) solution to a PoW puzzle different from the PoW puzzle used for mining a block;
Dechu - determining a proof-of-work via a device 312 using a predefined set of nonce values when determining the proof-of-work 314, and storing the proof-of-work on a blockchain 316. The proof-of-work may also be broadcast as a broadcast message 318 (using NRB/EMBs) (¶ 0023).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled of the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the PoW-blockchain extension based on near blocks (“sub-blocks”) of Flux with the broadcasting the PoW as a broadcast message of Dechu because doing so creates a standardized, network message that nodes can verify and record for PoW evidence.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Ford (US20180359096A1) - Data storage and retrieval systems, methods, and computer-readable media utilize a cryptographically verifiable data structure that facilitates verification of a transaction in a decentralized peer-to-peer environment using multi-hop backwards and forwards links. Backward links are cryptographic hashes of past records. Forward links are cryptographic signatures of future records that are added retroactively to records once the target block has been appended to the data structure.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to CHRISTINA C STEVENSON whose telephone number is (571)270-7280. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday to Friday to 8am-5pm.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Patrick Mcatee, can be reached at telephone number 571-272-7575. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/C.C.S./Examiner, Art Unit 3698
/PATRICK MCATEE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3698