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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1 – 10 dated by 07/24/2024 are presently pending in the application and have been examined below, of which claim 1 is presented in independent form.
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119
(a)-(d).
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) dated 02/22/2023 has been received and considered.
Drawings
The drawings were received on 07/04/2024. These drawings are accepted.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101, non-statutory
(Directed to a Judicial Exception without an Inventive Concept/Significantly More)
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
therefore, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1 – 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Step 1 Statutory Category:
Independent claim 1 and dependent claims are directed to a method, therefore, the claims 1 – 10 fall within the four statutory categories of invention, and thus must be further analyzed at Step 2A to determine if the claims are directed to a judicial exception (See MPEP 2106.03, subsection II).
Step 2A Prong 1 Judicial exception:
Limitations of independent claim 1 have been identified as elements or part of the abstract idea itself. The claims recite a series of steps instructing
Initializing … parameters …;
generating … immunity passport …;
establishing … a safety index …;
… generating … a trapdoor …;
… searching … by means of a smart contract …;
… performing … periodic maintenance …;
The above system steps appear to recite operations which may be performed by a human being. According to MPEP § 2106.04(a)(2), subsection III, where it examples a claim to "performing a mental process on a computer environment” as a Mental Process.
A human being may mentally perform different actions aided by specified equipment using respective software, e.g., smart contract. MPEP states that it is still a Mental Process if the action is aided by devices (emphases added).
Step 2A Prong 2 Integration into a practical application:
The following claim limitations are identified as additional elements not part of the abstract idea itself:
encrypting, … passport … and … numbers;
generating … a hash value …;
generating … a transaction …;
decrypting …cyphertext;
The dependent claims list in addition up to 94 computational steps focusing on mathematical details of single operations with numerous formulae without further details. The above recited claim limitations are interpreted as known computing actions providing merely well-documented extra-solution activity, e.g., using standard encrypting software. Although not explicitly recited, these additional limitations are interpreted as being implemented on a generic computing device or system. These limitations appear to recite general purpose computer machines which are merely implementing the abstract idea within a computer environment. See General purposes machine MPEP 2106.05(b)(I).
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the combination of several recited computational steps without further details fail to integrate the judicial exception into a practical application.
Step 2B Significantly more: The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception.
The above identified claim limitations have been identified as General-Purpose Machine which are merely implementing the abstract idea within a computer environment. See MPEP 2106.05(b)(I). When taken individually or viewed as an ordered combination the claims as a whole do not appear to amount to significantly more (also known as an “inventive concept”) than the abstract idea.
Overall, the claims are written mostly focusing on detailed description of mathematical operations well-known in applied cryptography, see e.g., A. Menezes, P. van Oorschot, S. Vanstone. Handbook of Applied Cryptography; CRC Press, 1997 as applied to various medical data. Claims list several dozens of computational steps processing medical data which does not represent a new mathematical concept thus disclosing unpatentable abstract ideas (MPEP 2106.04 (a)(2)).
The claims fail to disclose an inventive concept indicating clear integration into practical applications, i.e., the goal of the invention declared in SPECS as security improvement and medical data protection using specific features of blockchain and data encryption technologies, support in para. [0003 – 0007; 0106 – 0109].
Based on the above rational the claims have been deemed to ineligible subject matter under 35 USC 101.
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 set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied 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.
Claims 1 – 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable Park et al. (US 20250062919) (hereafter Park), in view of Han et al. (US 20220368545) (hereafter Han), and in view of Coulmeau et al. (US 20200304290) (hereafter Coulmeau).
As per claim 1 Park discloses: A blockchain-based supervision method for an electronic immunity passport, (Park in para. [0015, 0068] discloses a blockchain based method for management of electronic vaccination certificates, i.e., electronic immunity passports) comprising the following steps:
S
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initializing, by a certificate authority (CA), (Examiner note: certificate authority is disclosed by applicant in para. [0103] of SPECS as a trusted third party; the certified authority is met in Park [0068] by “an individual or organization to issue certificate”, i.e., an issuer device 10 of the third party, located outside the system as depicted in Fig. 1 of Park), common parameters CP according to safety parameters (Park in para. [0068] discloses a set of parameters used for certification including safety parameters, such as data from the “identification cards”); and
generating public-private key pairs corresponding to various members, including a vaccinee i, a hospital h,
[a national alliance chain node c and a world alliance chain node w,]
in a blockchain system, and correspondingly distributing these key pairs (Park discloses generation and usage of public keys, in para [0015-0016, 0020], and private keys, in para. [0019, 0025-0026]);
S2. after the vaccinee i is vaccinated in the hospital h, generating, by the hospital h, an immunity passport m for the vaccinee i and assigning a passport number PUID1 (Park, in para. [0068] discloses issuing a vaccination certificate by a device 10 of a third party); S3. encrypting, by the hospital h, the immunity passport mn and the passport number PUID, generating a hash value H1 (C1) of ciphertext C1 of the immunity passport
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and uploading the ciphertext C1 of the immunity passport in to a hospital server for storage (Examiner note: different data operations listed in the claim represent standard unpatentable mathematical operations used in cryptography and disclosed in specialized literature, see e.g., A. Menezes, P. van Oorschot, S. Vanstone. Handbook of Applied Cryptography; CRC Press, 1997) (Park, in para. [0007] discloses generation of a hash value of the vaccination certificate, i.e., immunity passport, that is stored in respective data base); S4. generating, by the hospital h, a transaction Tc by means of the ciphertext hash value H1 (C1), a keyword index IK, and the date of expiry T of the immunity passport; (Park, in para. [0007, 0015] discloses generation of a hash value of the vaccination certificate; the stored certificate information includes a set of ID and encryption parameters)
Park failed to disclose transactions by nodes of national alliance chain network. However, Han discloses:
a national alliance chain node c and a world alliance chain node w;
and uploading the transaction Tc to the national alliance chain node;
S5. establishing, by the national alliance chain node, a safety index Is by means of
searchable encryption technology, generating a transaction Tw according to the safety index Is and the date of expiry T, and S9. performing, by an alliance chain node, including a national alliance chain node and a world alliance chain node (Examiner note: safety index is disclosed by Applicant in SPECS, [0030] as an index corresponding to keyword index and data identifier in alliance chain block; this limitation is met in Han by complex parameter including data index in storage and keyword ciphertext) (Han, in para. [0053] discloses operations of alliance chain nodes within an alliance chain network including storage and communication of respective information including stored data index and keyword ciphertext, i.e., safety index);
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Park, in view of teaching of Han because they both disclose data encryption and processing by blockchain technology. The motivation to combine would be to modify Park for teaching of Han for operations of alliance chain nodes within an alliance chain network.
Park as modified further discloses: and uploading the transaction Ty to the world alliance chain; (Park in para. [0006] discloses processing of vaccination certification on servers of variety of world alliance organizations); and sending the found ciphertext C1 of the immunity passport in to the vaccinee i; (Park, in para. [0015] discloses generation and communication of the vaccination certificate, i.e., immunity passport, between user and provider within a network);
Park as modified failed to disclose application of trapdoor functions and smart contracts by using encryption technology within the blockchain. However, Coulmeau discloses:
S6. when the vaccinee i is requested to show the immunity passport mn, generating, by the vaccinee i, a trapdoor TQ by means of searchable encryption technology and according to the passport number PUID1, and then uploading the trapdoor TQ to the world alliance chain as a transaction; (Coulmeau in para. [0134] discloses cryptological application of trapdoor functions by encryption technology) S7. after receiving the trapdoor TQ, searching, by the world alliance chain, for the ciphertext C1 of the corresponding immunity passport in by means of a smart contract, (Coulmeau in para. [0015] discloses application of smart contract within the blockchain technology), S8. decrypting, by the vaccinee i, the received ciphertext C1 of the immunity passport to obtain immunity passport; (Coulmeau in para. [0012] discloses data decryption using smart contract); periodic maintenance by means of a smart contract; (Coulmeau in para. [0015] discloses maintenance using smart contract) checking whether the immunity passport m expires; and updating the expired immunity passport m (Coulmeau in para. [0017] discloses data validity control for expiration and update [0035, 0053]).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Park-Han, in view of teaching of Coulmeau because they all disclose data encryption and processing by blockchain technology.
The motivation to combine would be to modify Park-Han for teaching of Coulmeau for usage of trapdoor functions and smart contracts by data encryption technology in blockchain system.
As per claim 2 Park as modified discloses: The blockchain-based supervision method for an electronic immunity passport of claim 1, wherein step S1 is specifically as follows: S11. selecting, by the CA, two multiplicative cyclic groups G1 and G2 of which the order is a prime p according to the input safety parameter A, a generating element being g CG1; defining bilinear mapping e: G1xG1->G2; setting three collision-proof hash functions:H1: {0,1}*->Z,H2: {0,1)* ->G1, H3: G2 ->{0,1}*; (Coulmeau in para. [0136] discloses creation and usage of a chameleon hash function, i.e., a cryptographic function combined with the trapdoor function creating the collision-proof function) and issuing the common parameters CP = {p, g, e, H1
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S12, randomly selecting (Coulmeau in para. [0047] discloses application of statistical methods in cryptographic algorithms that use random parameter selection), by the CA, x (Examiner note: certificate authority is disclosed by applicant in para. [0103] of SPECS as a trusted third party; the certified authority is met in Park [0068] by “an individual or organization to issue certificate”, i.e., an issuer device 10 of the third party, located outside the system as depicted in Fig. 1 of Park); EZ as a private key ski of the vaccinee i, and calculating the corresponding public key pk =gxi; randomly selecting xhEZ as a private key skh of the hospital h, and calculating the corresponding key pkc = gXc (Park discloses generation and usage of public keys, in para [0015-0016, 0020], and private keys, in para. [0019, 0025-0026]); randomly selecting x,EZ as a private key skc of the national alliance chain node c and calculating the corresponding key pk, = gxc; and randomly selecting x, EZ as a private key sk, of the world alliance chain node w and calculating the corresponding key pk" = gxw; (Examiner note: sequence of mathematical steps disclosed within the S11, S12 paragraphs represent non-patentable abstract ideas addressed above).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Park-Han, in view of teaching of Coulmeau because they all disclose data encryption and processing by blockchain technology.
The motivation to combine would be to modify Park-Han for teaching of Coulmeau for usage of trapdoor functions and smart contracts by data encryption technology in blockchain system.
Park as modified further discloses: and S13. correspondingly assigning, by the CA through a secure channel, the public-private key pairs obtained in step S12 to the members, including the vaccinee i, the hospital h, the national alliance chain node c and the world alliance chain node w, in the blockchain system. (Han, in para. [0053] discloses operations of alliance chain nodes within an alliance chain network including storage and communication of respective information including stored data index and keyword ciphertext, i.e., safety index);
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Park, in view of teaching of Han because they both disclose data encryption and processing by blockchain technology. The motivation to combine would be to modify Park for teaching of Han for operations of alliance chain nodes within an alliance chain network.
As per claim 3 Park as modified discloses: The blockchain-based supervision method for an electronic immunity passport of claim 1, wherein in step S2, the immunity passport m comprises personal information and vaccination information of a user, the vaccination information comprising vaccination time, vaccination location, and vaccine information (Park, in para. [0015] discloses generation and processing the vaccination certificate, i.e., immunity passport, between user and provider within a network; Park, in para. [0092] discloses vaccination certificate containing vaccination history and information about date and time, location, provider etc.);
As per claim 4 Park as modified discloses: The blockchain-based supervision method for an electronic immunity passport of claim 2, wherein in step S3, the hospital h encrypting the immunity passport m and the passport number PUIDi is specifically as follows (Park, in para. [0015] discloses generation and processing the vaccination certificate, i.e., immunity passport): randomly selecting, by the hospital h, a secrete value 0 E Z*, wherein Z is the remainder class of the integer module p, that is, Zp = {1,2, … , p - 1}; calculating A = pkg
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k =
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), B = k x m, and F = H3(k), (Examiner note: calculation details related to processing of different listed medical values corresponds to mathematical operations disclosed in specialized literature on cryptology, e.g., A. Menezes, P. van Oorschot, S. Vanstone. Handbook of Applied Cryptography; CRC Press, 1997) wherein pki is a public key of the vaccinee I (Park discloses generation and usage of public keys, in para [0015-0016, 0020], and private keys, in para. [0019, 0025-0026]), e is the bilinear mapping defined in step S11, g is the generating element of G1,G1 is the multiplicative cyclic group of which the order is a prime p, H2 and H3 are two collision-proof hash functions (Examiner note: properties and applications of multiplicative cyclic groups in cryptography are disclosed in specialized literature, see e.g., A. Menezes, P. van Oorschot, S. Vanstone. Handbook of Applied Cryptography; CRC Press, 1997) (Coulmeau in para. [0134 – 0136] discloses cryptological application of trapdoor functions by encryption technology, i.e., processing of collision-proof hash functions), and m is the plaintext data of the immunity passport; and recording C1= (A, B) as the ciphertext of the immunity passport m and C2 = (A, F) as the ciphertext of the immunity passport number PUIDi (Coulmeau in para. [0062] discloses smart contract application for encryption, i.e., generation of ciphertext).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Park-Han, in view of teaching of Coulmeau because they all disclose data encryption and processing by blockchain technology.
The motivation to combine would be to modify Park-Han for teaching of Coulmeau for usage of trapdoor functions and smart contracts by data encryption technology in blockchain system.
As per claim 5 Park as modified discloses: The blockchain-based supervision method for an electronic immunity passport of any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein in step S4, the hospital h generating the transaction Tc by means of the ciphertext hash value H1(C1), the keyword index II, and the date of expiry T of the immunity passport and uploading the transaction Tc to the national alliance chain node is specifically as follows (Examiner note: different data operations listed in the claim are standard unpatentable mathematical operations used in cryptography and disclosed in specialized literature, see e.g., A. Menezes, P. van Oorschot, S. Vanstone. Handbook of Applied Cryptography; CRC Press, 1997) (Park, in para. [0007] discloses generation of a hash value of the vaccination certificate, i.e., immunity passport, processed by the system):
S41. establishing, by the hospital h, a keyword index IK2(C) by means of searchable encryption technology and according to the ciphertext C2 of the immunity passport number PUID; S42. generating, by the hospital h, a transaction Tc by means of the hash value H1(C1) of the ciphertext of the immunity passport m, the date of expiry T of the immunity passport, and the keyword index IK; (Park, in para. [0007, 0015] discloses generation of a hash value of the vaccination certificate; the stored certificate information includes a set of ID and encryption parameters)
And S43. packing, by the hospital h, the transaction Tc and uploading the same to the national alliance chain node; and running, by the national alliance chain node, a PBFT consensus mechanism to authenticate the transaction Tc, and generating a new block Block c after successful authentication. (Han, in para. [0053] discloses operations of alliance chain nodes within an alliance chain network including storage and communication of respective information including stored data index and keyword ciphertext);
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Park, in view of teaching of Han because they both disclose data encryption and processing by blockchain technology. The motivation to combine would be to modify Park for teaching of Han for operations of alliance chain nodes within an alliance chain network.
As per claim 6 Park as modified discloses: The blockchain-based supervision method for an electronic immunity passport of any one of claims 1 to 4 (Park in para. [0015, 0068] discloses a blockchain based method for management of electronic vaccination certificates, i.e., electronic immunity passports), wherein in step S5 the national alliance chain node establishing a safety index Is by means of searchable encryption technology (Han, in para. [0053] discloses operations of alliance chain nodes within an alliance chain network including storage and communication of respective information including stored data index and keyword ciphertext, i.e., safety index),
generating a transaction Tw according to the safety index Is and the date of expiry T, and uploading the transaction Tw to the world alliance chain is specifically as follows: S51. in each national alliance chain, extracting, by the national alliance chain node, a keyword index II, the data of expiry T, and a block identifier BID of the national alliance chain where the node is located from each transaction in the block Block c generated in step S43; (Han, in para. [0015 – 0016] discloses data processing in alliance chain node system based on the data indexing); S52. establishing a safety index Is= (BID, IK) by means of the keyword index IK and the national alliance chain block identifier BID; (Han, in para. [0012] discloses data identification within the alliance chain node system); S53. generating, by the national alliance chain node, a transaction Tw by means of the safety index Is and the date of expiry T; (Han, in para. [0015 – 0016] discloses data processing in alliance chain node system based on the data indexing); and S54. packing and uploading, by the national alliance chain node, the transaction Tw to the world alliance chain; and running, by the world alliance chain node, a PBFT consensus mechanism to authenticate the transaction, and generating a new block Block w after successful authentication (Han, in para. [0078] discloses generation and processing of new blocks within the alliance chain network).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Park, in view of teaching of Han because they both disclose data encryption and processing by blockchain technology. The motivation to combine would be to modify Park for teaching of Han for operations of alliance chain nodes within an alliance chain network.
As per claim 7 Park as modified discloses: The blockchain-based supervision method for an electronic immunity passport of any one of claims 2 to 4, wherein in step S6, the vaccinee i generating the trapdoor Tg by means of searchable encryption technology and according to the passport number PUIDi when the vaccinee i is requested to show the immunity passport m, and then uploading the trapdoor TQ to the world alliance chain as a transaction is specifically as follows (Coulmeau in para. [0134] discloses cryptological application of trapdoor functions by encryption technology): S61. when the vaccinee i is requested to show the immunity passport m, randomly selecting, by the vaccinee i (Coulmeau in para. [0047] discloses application of statistical methods in cryptographic algorithms that use random parameter selection), a secrete value d EZp, wherein Zp =
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, p - 1}; and calculating r1 = H2
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and T72 = gd by means of his/her own passport number PUIDi, wherein ski is a private key of the vaccinee i, pk, is a public key of the world alliance chain node w, H2 is a harsh function defined in step Sll, and g is a generating element of G1; (Examiner note: as noted above, calculation details related to processing of different listed medical values corresponds to mathematical operations disclosed in specialized literature on cryptology, e.g., A. Menezes, P. van Oorschot, S. Vanstone. Handbook of Applied Cryptography; CRC Press, 1997), and S62. generating a trapdoor TQ = (r1,T2), wherein 1 and T2 are parameters calculated in step S61; and then uploading the trapdoor TQ to the world alliance chain as a transaction (Coulmeau in para. [0134] discloses cryptological application of trapdoor functions by encryption technology).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Park-Han, in view of teaching of Coulmeau because they all disclose data encryption and processing by blockchain technology.
The motivation to combine would be to modify Park-Han for teaching of Coulmeau for usage of trapdoor functions and other cryptological operations applied to medical data using encryption technology in blockchain system.
As per claim 8 Park as modified discloses: The blockchain-based supervision method for an electronic immunity passport of claim 6, wherein in step S7, the world alliance chain searching for the ciphertext C1 of the corresponding immunity passport m (Park, in para. [0098 – 0100] discloses comparative analysis of vaccination certificates, immunity passports, using search technology for specified cryptographic information) by means of a smart contract (Coulmeau in para. [0062] discloses smart contract application for encryption, i.e., generation of ciphertext) after receiving the trapdoor TQ, and sending the found ciphertext C1 of the immunity passport m to the vaccinee i is specifically as follows: S71. after receiving the trapdoor TQ =
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T2), calculating, by the world alliance chain node
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wherein sk, is a private key of the world alliance chain node w, and -c1 = H2
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and c2 = gd are parameters calculated in step S61 (Coulmeau in para. [0134 – 0136] discloses cryptological application of trapdoor functions by encryption technology, i.e., processing of collision-proof hash functions); S72. extracting, by the world alliance chain node, the safety index Is = (BID, II) from the transaction Tw in the block Blocky generated in step S54, to authenticate whether the equation F = H3
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holds true, wherein BID is the national alliance chain block identifier, IK = (C2) is the keyword index, C2 = (A, F) is the ciphertext of the immunity passport number PUID1, A = pkf and F = H3(k) are parameters calculated in step S3, k = e(g 0 H2(PUIDi)), skW is the private key of the world alliance chain node w, -c1 and T2 are parameters calculated in step S61, and e is the bilinear mapping defined in step S11; and if the equation holds true, extracting the country ID and the national alliance chain block identifier BID from the transaction Tw;
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S73. finding the corresponding national alliance chain according to the country ID; S74. in the national alliance chain, accessing the corresponding block by means of the national alliance chain block identifier BID; S75. extracting the hash value H1(C1) of the ciphertext C1 of the immunity passport m and the hospital ID from the block; (Examiner note: sequence of mathematical steps disclosed within the S71 - S75 paragraphs represent details of mathematical operations on medical data addressed in specialized literature, see e.g., A. Menezes, P. van Oorschot, S. Vanstone. Handbook of Applied Cryptography; CRC Press, 1997; thus, corresponding to non-patentable abstract ideas addressed above).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Park-Han, in view of teaching of Coulmeau because they all disclose data encryption and processing by blockchain technology.
The motivation to combine would be to modify Park-Han for teaching of Coulmeau for usage of trapdoor functions and smart contracts by data encryption technology in blockchain system.
Park as modified further discloses: S76. finding a corresponding hospital server according to the hospital ID, and performing hash-value comparison to obtain the ciphertext C1= (A, B) of the immunity passport m; S77. returning the ciphertext C1 of the immunity passport m to the alliance chain node; and S78. sending, by the alliance chain node, the ciphertext C1 of the immunity passport m to the vaccinee (Park, in para [0007 – 0008, 0098, 0100] discloses verification of identifiers of the vaccination certificates using cryptographic values, such as hash values, keys).
As per claim 9 Park as modified discloses: The blockchain-based supervision method for an electronic immunity passport of claim 4, wherein in step S8, the vaccinee i decrypting the received ciphertext C1 of the immunity passport to obtain plaintext data m of the immunity passport (Coulmeau in para. [0012] discloses data decryption using smart contract) is as follows: S81. receiving, by the vaccinee i, the ciphertext C1 = (A, B) of the immunity passport m, wherein A =
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and B = k x m are parameters calculated in step S3, and k =
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e(g6 ); and S82. calculating the plaintext data m = of the immunity passport, wherein ski is the private key of the vaccinee i, and H2 is the hash function defined in step S11 (Examiner note: sequence of mathematical steps disclosed within the cited paragraphs represent details of mathematical operations on medical data addressed in specialized literature, see e.g., A. Menezes, P. van Oorschot, S. Vanstone. Handbook of Applied Cryptography; CRC Press, 1997; thus, corresponding to non-patentable abstract ideas addressed above).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Park-Han, in view of teaching of Coulmeau because they all disclose data encryption and processing by blockchain technology.
The motivation to combine would be to modify Park-Han for teaching of Coulmeau for usage of trapdoor functions and smart contracts by data encryption technology in blockchain system.
As per claim 10 Park as modified discloses: The blockchain-based supervision method for an electronic immunity passport of any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein in step S9, the alliance chain node, including the national alliance chain node and the world alliance chain node, (Han, in para. [0053] discloses operations of alliance chain nodes within an alliance chain network including storage and communication of respective information including stored data index and keyword ciphertext);
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Park, in view of teaching of Han because they both disclose data encryption and processing by blockchain technology. The motivation to combine would be to modify Park for teaching of Han for operations of alliance chain nodes within an alliance chain network.
Park as modified further discloses: performing periodic maintenance by means of a smart contract, (Coulmeau in para. [0015] discloses application of smart contract within the blockchain technology), checking whether the immunity passport m expires, and updating the expired immunity passport m is specifically as follows: S91. acquiring, by the alliance chain node, the data of expiry T of the immunity passport m from the transaction; S92. acquiring, by the alliance chain node, the timestamp t of the transaction; S93. acquiring, by the alliance chain node, the current time Tcur; and S94. calculating Tcur-t (Examiner note: sequence of mathematical steps disclosed within the cited paragraphs represent details of mathematical operations on medical data addressed in specialized literature, see e.g., A. Menezes, P. van Oorschot, S. Vanstone. Handbook of Applied Cryptography; CRC Press, 1997; thus, corresponding to non-patentable abstract ideas addressed above); and if Tcur - t < T, it indicating that the current immunity passport m has not yet expired; or if Tcur - t > T, it indicating that the current immunity passport m has expired, and notifying the relevant hospital to reassess the immune status of the vaccinee i through the national alliance chain node and to update the immunity passport for the vaccinee (Coulmeau in para. [0027] discloses data validation for expiry date).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Park-Han, in view of teaching of Coulmeau because they all disclose data encryption and processing by blockchain technology.
The motivation to combine would be to modify Park-Han for teaching of Coulmeau for usage of trapdoor functions and smart contracts by data encryption technology in blockchain system.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: Althumairi US_20220108792, Morris US_7899687, Currin US_20190138995, Heath US_20130073387, Silver US_20140278492, Clark US_20190109713, Gnanasambandam US_20250291948.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to VLADIMIR IVANOVICH GAVRILENKO whose telephone number is (313)446-6530. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Friday 7:30-4:30 EST.
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/VLADIMIR I GAVRILENKO/Examiner, Art Unit 2431
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