DETAILED ACTION
Acknowledgements
This Final Office Action is in reply to Applicant’s response filed July 6, 2026.
Claims 1, 2, 3, 5-13, 16, 20 are currently amended. Claims 4 and 15 are currently canceled.
Claims 1-3, 5-14, 16-20 are currently pending.
Claims 1-3, 5-14, 16-20 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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Claims 1-3, 5-14, 16-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
Regarding claims 1, 12, and 20
The amendments to claims 1, 12, and 20 remove the line “presenting a virtual artifact in a virtual environment” and, as a result, later mentions of “the virtual artifact” and “the virtual environment” lack antecedent basis. The claims now first introduce “a plurality of virtual artifacts in a plurality of virtual environments” and then later reference “the virtual artifact…in the virtual environment”.
The claims are indefinite because it is unclear which of the plurality of virtual artifacts / virtual environments is being referenced. For purposes of examination, the claim is interpreted as though the last limitation read “presenting the virtual characteristics associated with the leased digital asset in associated with a selected virtual artifact during the period in a virtual environment;”.
Regarding claims 2-3, 5-11, 13, 14, 16-19
The remaining claims are indefinite by virtue of their dependence on claims 1, 12, or 20.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1, 7, 8, 9, 12, and 17-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Andon (US 20200273048 A1) in view of Nice (US 20150278908 A1) in view of Fulghum (US 20210217056 A1).
Regarding claim 1
Andon teaches:
A computer implemented method comprising:
managing, using transaction data of Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs, digital assets) stored on a blockchain implementation, a usage of virtual characteristics of the digital assets, wherein the virtual characteristics are usable with a plurality of virtual artifacts in a plurality of virtual environments, and wherein the managing comprises one of creating, modifying, copying, and transferring of the digital assets; {[0015] “The cryptographic digital asset is transferred to a digital wallet of the second user, and the unique digital asset code is transmitted to a distributed blockchain ledger and recorded on a distinct record block to confirm the transfer of the cryptographic digital asset.”; [0061] “If the CryptoKick [digital asset] is imported into a separate video game, in some configurations, different attributes [virtual attribute] of the CryptoKick may impart changes in the ability level of a user's character [virtual artifact] outfitted with the asset.”}
responsive to the user selecting a digital asset of the one or more recommended available assets or the one or more recommended used assets, leasing the selected digital asset at a price and during a period, the leasing allowing use of the leased digital asset during the period in return for payment of the price; and {[0116] “Further building upon the notion of the CryptoKick as property, in an example, a user or company may rent out or lease out the use of the digital collectable within a video game for a period of time.}
presenting the virtual characteristics associated with the leased digital asset in association with the virtual artifact during the period in the virtual environment. {[0061] “If the CryptoKick [digital asset] is imported into a separate video game, in some configurations, different attributes [virtual attribute] of the CryptoKick may impart changes in the ability level of a user's character [virtual artifact] outfitted with the asset.”; [0115] “The character's attributes 230 may include, for example, speed, ball control, passing, defense, kicking power, balance, and stamina (among others). In an example, the character 226 may be outfit/skinned with a digital collectable (e.g., an article of apparel 234) that may be uniquely backed by a token on the blockchain 60. In an embodiment, the digital collectable may have been acquired in any one of the manners described herein.”; [0116] “Further building upon the notion of the CryptoKick as property, in an example, a user or company may rent out or lease out the use of the digital collectable within a video game for a period of time. In an example, the leasing may be constrained so that only one instance of a particular user's asset exists in any particular context. For example, a user may own full rights to an exclusive CryptoKick. That user may concurrently lease out the CryptoKick for use in Basketball Game A for 1 week, Soccer Game B for 2 weeks, and 1st Person Shooter Game C for 3 weeks.”}
Andon does not teach, however Nice teaches:
generating a goal embedding vector representing a set of characteristics of a performance objective of a user to be achieved in the virtual environment; {[0003] “a user may be associated with a user vector [goal embedding vector] whose elements measure the extent of interest the user has in items that are high in corresponding factors.”}
generating asset embeddings comprising vectors of sets of the virtual characteristics of the digital assets; {[0003] “An item may be associated with an item vector [asset embedding] whose elements measure the extent to which the item possesses some factors.”}
comparing the asset embeddings against the goal embedding vector; {[0003] “The dot product [comparing] of the vectors may describe the interaction between the user and item and may be used to determine whether to make a recommendation to a user.”; [0004] “after all the items have been scored, the highest scoring items may be selected and recommended.”}
responsive to determining that one or more of the asset embeddings associated with one or more available assets of the digital assets achieve a high score based on the comparing, iteratively recommending the one or more available assets; {[0003] “The dot product […] represents the score between the user i and the item j. The score represents the strength of the relationship between the user i and the item j and may be used to make a recommendation (e.g., recommend item with highest score).”}
Andon, as discussed above, teaches a marketplace for selling and/or leasing cryptographic digital assets. Nice teaches an item recommendation system to help consumers discover items to buy or rent ([0001] “Conventional recommendation systems provide a powerful discovery experience by suggesting items to users that the users have consumed in the past. Recommendation systems provide information about matches between users (e.g., shoppers) and items (e.g., books, videos, games) based on user interests, preferences, history, or other factors. For example, if a system has data that a user has previously accessed (e.g., purchased, rented, borrowed, played) a set of items, then a recommendation system may identify similar items and recommend them to the user based on the data about the user's own actions (e.g., ‘if you liked this, you might like that’)”).
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the recommendation system of Nice with the digital asset marketplace of Andon because it would help consumers discover items to lease/buy and therefore have the advantage of potentially increased sales/leases.
Andon in view of Nice does not teach, however Fulghum teaches:
responsive to determining that none of the one or more asset embeddings associated with the one or more available assets achieve the high score based on the comparing, and responsive to determining one or more of the asset embeddings associated with one or more used assets of the digital assets achieve the high score based on the comparing, iteratively recommending the one or more used assets; {Abstract “The pull-type searching system provides an effective and efficient way to navigate deals and assist the user in identifying a deal for selection. The pull-type searching system further enables identification of one or more alternative deals to present [recommend] to the user”; [0072] “ the pull-type searching system scores the accessed deals and, at 326, ranks the deals based on the scores. At 328, the pull-type searching system applies one or more rules to the ranked deals in order to generate an ordered list of deals for output.”; [0117] “A ‘null’ result of a search may include zero results, undesired results, and/or too few results”; [0119] “In response to the null result, the pull-type searching server 102 may select an alternate category […] Undesired results may include search results that the pull-type searching system determines do not satisfy a configurable user selection threshold [high score]”}
Fulghum teaches a search system which scores deals and then presents the deals to a user when the score meets a threshold. Fulghum further teaches, when no deals in a category meet the threshold, searching an alternate category of deals instead.
The claim terms “used assets” and “available assets” are interpreted as mere labels because the type of asset has no functional role in the claim. The alternate category of Fulghum therefore reads on “used asset”.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the scored-based recommendation method of Andon in view of Nice with Fulghum’s alternative-category fallback in order to prevent a situation in which no recommendation can be made, and thus make a completed transaction more likely.
Regarding claim 7
Andon teaches:
The computer implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:
allowing, as a part of the presenting, a use of the leased digital asset by the virtual artifact during the period. {[0116] “a user or company may rent out or lease out the use of the digital collectable within a video game for a period of time. In an example, the leasing may be constrained so that only one instance of a particular user's asset exists in any particular context.”}
Regarding claim 8
Andon teaches:
The computer implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:
allowing, according to the transaction data, a first use of the leased digital asset by the virtual artifacts for the period; and
further allowing, according to a second transaction data, a second use of the leased digital asset by the virtual artifacts during at least a portion of the period. {[0116] “a user or company may rent out or lease out the use of the digital collectable within a video game for a period of time. In an example, the leasing may be constrained so that only one instance of a particular user's asset exists in any particular context. For example, a user may own full rights to an exclusive CryptoKick. That user may concurrently lease out the CryptoKick for use in Basketball Game A for 1 week [first use], Soccer Game B for 2 weeks [second use], and 1st Person Shooter Game C for 3 weeks.”}
Regarding claim 9
Andon teaches:
The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the digital assets comprise a virtualized ability of the virtual artifacts in the virtual environment. {[0061] “If the CryptoKick [digital asset] is imported into a separate video game, in some configurations, different attributes of the CryptoKick may impart changes in the ability level of a user's character [virtualized artifact] outfitted with the asset. In one example, the attributes of the user's character may be positively influenced by the rarity or exclusivity of the various attributes or by the overall combined rarity or exclusivity of the asset. For example, a rare CryptoKick may impart better jumping ability [virtualized ability] or lateral quickness, a rare CryptoThread may impart better strength or speed, and a rare CryptoLid may impart better vision.”}
Regarding claim 12
Claim 12 (media) is substantially similar to claim 1 and is treated the same with respect to prior art rejections.
Regarding claim 17
Andon teaches:
The computer program product of claim 12, wherein the program instructions are stored in the at least one of the one or more storage media of a local data processing system, {[0016] “Aspects of this disclosure are also directed to a non-transitory, computer-readable medium (CRM) that stores instructions executable by one or more processors of one or more computing devices”; [0080] “The 3rd party integration service 66 may operate as an API on an app provided on the user's device [local data processing system], or as a dedicated cloud based service.”}
and wherein the program instructions are transferred over a network from a remote data processing system.
This is not given patentable weight because it describes where the program instructions come from and does not describe any structure.
Regarding claim 18
Andon teaches:
The computer program product of claim 12, wherein the program instructions are stored in the at least one of the one or more storage media of a server data processing system, {[0016] “Aspects of this disclosure are also directed to a non-transitory, computer-readable medium (CRM) that stores instructions executable by one or more processors of one or more computing devices [server data processing system]”; [0080] “The 3rd party integration service 66 may operate as an API on an app provided on the user's device, or as a dedicated cloud based service.”}
“Cloud based service” implies a data processing system which is a server.
and wherein the program instructions are downloaded over a network to a remote data processing system for use in a computer readable storage device associated with the remote data processing system.
This is not given patentable weight because it describes where the program instructions come from and does not describe any structure.
Regarding claim 19
Andon teaches:
The computer program product of claim 12, wherein the computer program product is provided as a service in a cloud environment. {[0080] “The 3rd party integration service 66 may operate as an API on an app provided on the user's device, or as a dedicated cloud based service.”}
The above limitation is an intended use of the computer-readable media of claim 12, and is not given any patentable weight. However, it is taught by Andon.
Regarding claim 20
Claim 20 (system) is substantially similar to claim 1 and is treated the same with respect to prior art rejections.
Claims 2 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Andon in view of Nice in view of Fulghum, as applied to claims 1 and 12 above, and further in view of Ye “Customized Regression Model for Airbnb Dynamic Pricing,”.
Regarding claim 2
Andon in view of Nice in view of Fulghum does not teach, however Ye teaches:
The computer implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:
determining the price by predicting a future price for use of the digital asset using a regression model. {abstract “Second, a regression model predicts the optimal price for each listing-night […] The unique nature of Airbnb listings makes it very difficult to estimate an accurate demand curve that's required to apply conventional revenue maximization pricing strategies.”}
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the regression model pricing of Ye with the NFT rental and owner determined price of Andon because both references deal with renting unique things and the regression model solves the difficulty in pricing them using conventional strategies.
Regarding claim 13
Claim 13 is substantially similar to claim 2 and is treated the same with respect to prior art rejections.
Claims 3 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Andon in view of Nice in view of Fulghum, as applied to claims 1 and 12 above, and further in view of Dudash (US 20230325461 A1).
Regarding claim 3
Andon in view of Nice in view of Fulghum does not teach, however Dudash teaches:
The computer implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:
determining the period using a time scheduling model implemented as a quadratic unconstrained binary optimization problem. {[0070] “QUBO problems have NP (non-deterministic polynomial) hardness; as such, theoretical computational NP-hard problems such as the traveling salesman problem, the protein folding problem, and the genotype imputation problem, as well as practical NP-hard problems such as airline scheduling problems and traffic routing problems, may be represented by QUBO problems. Representing NP-hard problems as QUBO problems and finding solutions using quantum annealers has been shown in many cases to be more efficient than solving NP-hard problems using classical computers.”}
Dudash teaches that scheduling may be represented by QUBO problems. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the QUBO scheduling model of Dudash with the NFT rental of Andon because it would provide a way to determine available time slots while avoiding scheduling conflicts.
Regarding claim 14
Claim 14 is substantially similar to claim 3 and is treated the same with respect to prior art rejections.
Claims 5-6 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Andon in view of Nice in view of Fulghum, as applied to claims 1 and 12 above, and further in view of Ross, JR, (US 20230005045 A1).
Regarding claims 5-6
Andon does not teach, however Ross teaches:
Claim 5:
The computer implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:
using information about a plurality of the digital assets previously leased by a plurality of users as a basis for the recommending of the one or more available assets or the one or more used assets. {[0059] “In some aspects, the collaborative filtering algorithm can identify users who buy similar items in order to recommend products”}
Claim 6:
The computer-implemented method of claim 4, further comprising:
using information about a leasing history of a user to which the selected digital asset is leased out in the transaction data as a basis for the recommending of the one or more available assets or the one or more used assets. {[0060] “In some aspects, the content-based filtering algorithm can recommend items based upon user's purchase history”}
Ross teaches recommending products based on the history of the user receiving the recommendation, and also on the history of a plurality of users. Ross does not explicitly teach using leasing history or recommending leasing an item (as opposed to purchasing). However, Ross teaches [0058] “Identification of desirable content is the first stage of determining a content recommendation.” It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the identification of desirable content and recommendations of Ross with the NFT rental of Andon because it would alert potential renters to things they may desire and therefore increase sales.
Regarding claim 16
Claim 16 is substantially similar to claim 5, respectively, and is treated the same with respect to prior art rejections.
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Andon in view of Nice in view of Fulghum, as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Ching (US 20230368600 A1).
Regarding claim 10
Andon in view of Nice in view of Fulghum does not teach, however Ching teaches:
The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the digital assets comprise an appearance of the virtual artifacts in the virtual environment. {[0133] “In other implementations, the items being offered may not be social gaming currency amounts but may instead be digital assets, e.g., skins [appearance of the virtual artifact], game enhancements, avatars, etc., for use in a social gaming system.”}
Ching teaches a digital asset which gives a user an avatar inside of a game. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Ching with the NFT rental of Andon because Andon teaches renting digital assets and Ching teaches a specific type of digital asset.
Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Andon in view of Nice in view of Fulghum, as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Eby (US 20230316263 A1).
Regarding claim 11
Andon in view of Nice in view of Fulghum does not teach, however Eby teaches:
The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the digital assets comprise an audio characteristic of the virtual artifacts in the virtual environment. {[0008] “In these situations, an NFT [digital asset] could be used to represent [comprise] a unique authentication credential for an individual, such as the virtual equivalent of an avatar's biometric information (e.g., an iris scan, fingerprint, voice print [audio characteristic], etc. of an avatar [virtual artifact] in a virtual world).”}
Eby teaches a digital asset which represents a voice print of an avatar. It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Eby with the NFT rental of Andon because Andon teaches renting digital assets and Eby teaches a specific type of digital asset.
Response to Arguments
35 USC § 112
The previous 112 rejections have been withdrawn.
35 USC § 103
Applicant has amended the independent claims to both add and remove limitations. As a result of these amendments, the 103 rejections have been updated to remove Weber as a reference, and to add Fulghum as a reference.
Applicant argues the “user vector” of Nice, which is a vector “whose elements measure the extent of interest the user has in items that are high in corresponding factors”, is not equivalent to the claimed “goal embedding vector” which comprises a set of characteristics of a performance objective of a user. However, this argument is not convincing. The performance objectives of a potential customer and the item factors which interest a potential customer appear to be relatively synonymous. To the extent there is any difference in meaning, it does not affect the method in any way. The claims require comparing the asset embedding vectors against the goal embedding vectors and then recommending assets based on the comparison. The claim description of the goal embedding vectors as representing “a set of characteristics of a performance objective of a user to be achieved in the virtual environment” is therefore non-functional descriptive material which cannot distinguish the claim from the prior art. See MPEP 2111.05 Functional and Nonfunctional Descriptive Material.
Applicant further argues that Nice does not teach the claimed recommending of available assets and recommending of used assets when no available assets exceed a score. This argument refers to newly added subject matter. Examiner agrees that this is not taught by the art of record and has added Fulghum as a reference. Fulghum teaches the concept of scoring items for recommendation and then recommending items from an alternative category when no items in a first category have a score exceeding a threshold.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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/S.M.D./Examiner, Art Unit 3698
/PATRICK MCATEE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3698
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