DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
Claims 1, 4-5, 11-15, 20, and 40-41 have been amended.
Claims 2-3, 6-10, 16-19, and 21-39 have been cancelled
Claims 1, 4-5, 11-15, 20, and 40-41 are currently pending and have been considered by the examiner.
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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 2 March 2026 was considered by the examiner.
Response to Arguments
101 Rejection
Applicant asserts that the newly amended claims are patent eligible under 35 USC 101. The examiner respectfully disagrees based upon the rationale provided in the following 101 rejection.
Prior Art Rejection:
Applicant’s arguments have been considered and are moot in view of new grounds for rejection.
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, 4-5, 11-15, 20, and 40-41 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
In the instant case, claims 1, 4-5, 11-15, and 20 are directed to a method, claim 40 is directed to an system/apparatus, claim 41 is a directed to a non-transitory, computer readable medium. Therefore, these claims fall within the four statutory categories of invention.
Claim 1 recites the following:
A computer-implemented method of using a QUIC protocol and a blockchain to quickly and securely transmit data, wherein the method is performed by a first party and comprises:
receiving, by a first device and from a second device over a QUIC connection, an incoming QUIC handshake message,
obtaining, from a payload field of the incoming QUIC handshake message, a cryptographic public key and/or a cryptographic public-key-based address; and
generating a blockchain transaction, wherein the blockchain transaction is a data structure comprising a plurality of fields, wherein the plurality of fields comprise one or more inputs and one or more outputs;
locking an output of the blockchain transaction to the cryptographic public key and/ or the cryptographic public-key- based address by configuring a locking script of the output to require an input of a later blockchain transaction to include a cryptographic signature generated by applying a digital signature algorithm to a message together with a cryptographic private key corresponding to the cryptographic public key;
sending the blockchain transaction to the second device over the QUIC connection
Regarding Step 2A Prong One, the claims recite the abstract idea of performing an economic transaction. Specifically, the claims recite the limitations underlined above which recite performing an economic transaction which is grouped within the Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity grouping of abstract ideas in prong one of step 2A of the Alice/Mayo test (See MPEP § 2106.04) because the claims involve the process of performing an economic transaction. Accordingly, the claims recite an abstract idea (See pages 7, 10, Alice Corporation Pty. Ltd. v. CLS Bank International, et al., US Supreme Court, No. 13-298, June 19, 2014; 2019 Revised Patent Subject Matter Eligibility Guidance, 84 Fed. Reg. 50, 53-54 (January 7, 2019)).
Regarding Step 2A Prong Two, the recited abstract idea is not integrated into a practical application because, when analyzed under prong two of step 2A of the Alice/Mayo test (See MPEP § 2106.04(d)), the additional element(s) of the claim(s) such as a “computer” merely use(s) a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea. Specifically, the “computer” perform(s) the steps or functions underlined above. The use of a processor/computer as a tool to implement the abstract idea does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it requires no more than a computer performing functions that correspond to acts required to carry out the abstract idea. The additional elements do not involve improvements to the functioning of a computer, or to any other technology or technical field (MPEP 2106.05(a)), the claims do not apply or use the abstract idea to effect a particular treatment or prophylaxis for a disease or medical condition (Vanda Memo), the claims do not apply the abstract idea with, or by use of, a particular machine (MPEP 2106.05(b)), the claims do not effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing (MPEP 2106.05(c)), and the claims do not apply or use the abstract idea in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception (MPEP 2106.05(e) and Vanda Memo). Therefore, the claims do not, for example, purport to improve the functioning of a computer. Nor do they effect an improvement in any other technology or technical field. Accordingly, the additional elements do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea, and the claims are directed to an abstract idea.
The claim(s) do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because, when analyzed under step 2B of the Alice/Mayo test (See MPEP § 2106.05), the additional element(s) of “computer” amounts to no more than using a computer or processor to automate and/or implement the abstract idea. As discussed above, taking the claim elements separately, the “computer” perform(s) the steps or functions underlined above. These functions correspond to the actions required to perform the abstract idea. Viewed as a whole, the combination of elements recited in the claims merely recite the process of performing an economic transaction. Therefore, the use of these additional elements does no more than employ the computer as a tool to automate and/or implement the abstract idea. The use of a computer or processor to merely automate and/or implement the abstract idea cannot provide significantly more than the abstract idea itself (MPEP 2106.05(I)(A)(f) & (h)). Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
Dependent claims 4-5, 11-15, and 20 further describe the recited abstract idea. The dependent claims do not include additional elements that integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or that provide significantly more than the abstract idea. Specifically:
Claims 12 and 20 recite additional elements which are also directed towards the recited abstract idea.
Claims 4-5, 11, and 13-15 merely further describe the steps and/or data used to perform the recited abstract idea.
Therefore, as the dependent claims do not include additional elements that integrate the abstract idea into a practical application nor provide significantly more than the abstract idea, the dependent claims are also not patent eligible.
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.
Claim(s) 1, 20, and 40-41 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Madisetti et al. (US 20190311337 A1) in view of Wallet Workshop, Author of the Article titled “Simplified Payment Protocol”, hereinafter simply referred to as Wallet, in further view of Mackay (WO 2021014233 A1) in further view of Patel et al. (US 20200389869 A1)
Regarding Claims 1, 20, and 40-41, Madisetti discloses:
A computer-implemented method of using a QUIC protocol and a blockchain to quickly and securely transmit data, wherein the method is performed by a first party and comprises:
receiving, by a first device and from a second device over a QUIC connection, an incoming QUIC handshake message,(See Madisetti: Para [0006] – “On each blockchain network, a user can create multiple Externally Owned Accounts (EOAs). Each Externally Owned Account (EOA) has a public-private keypair associated with it. The account address is derived from the public key. When a new EOA is created, a keyfile is created which has the public and private keys associated with the account. The private key is encrypted with the password which is provided while creating the account.”, See Madisetti ‘s Para [0057] – “While TCP is specifically recited, all other transport layer protocols as are known in the art are contemplated and included within the scope of the invention, including, but not limited to, User Datagram Protocol (UDP), SCTP (Stream Controlled Transfer Protocol), and Quick UDP Internet Connections (QUIC).”
Obtaining, from the incoming QUIC handshake message, account information (See Madisetti: Para. [0081] – “A VTTP client 550 can authenticate with a VTTP server 552 using an authentication token which is generated by the client and verified by the VTTP server 552. VTTP may use existing authentication token standards such as JSON Web Token (JWT)… A JSON Web Token contains header, payload and signature fields. The header field may specify the token type (JWT) and the signing algorithm used (such as HMAC SHA-256 algorithm). The payload field may contain registered, private and public claims. The registered claims defined in JWT include claims such as ‘iss’ (issuer of the token), ‘sub’ (subject of the token), ‘aud’ (audience of the token), ‘exp’ (token expiration time defined in Unix time), ‘nbf’ (‘not before time’ that identifies the time before which the JWT must not be accepted for processing), ‘iat’ (‘issued at’ time, in Unix time, at which the token was issued) and ‘jti’ (JWT ID). To create the signature part of a JSON Web Token the encoded header, the encoded payload, a secret, are signed using the algorithm specified in the header”; See Madisetti: Para. [0006] – “The account address is derived from the public key”; See Madisetti: Para. [0056] – “Each EOA 110 has an account address 102, account public-private keys 104 and a balance 106 (in certain units of a Cryptocurrency associated with the Blockchain network) associated with it. EOAs do not have any associated code. All transactions 120 on a blockchain network are initiated by EOAs”)
generating a blockchain transaction, wherein the blockchain transaction is a data structure comprising a plurality of fields, wherein the plurality of fields comprise one or more inputs and one or more outputs (See Madisetti: Para. [0060] – “The server processes the VTTP requests and generates and sends transactions to the participating blockchain networks 268, 270 to execute a value transfer.” – Madisetti disclose the generation of a blockchain transaction in order to transfer value on a blockchain. It is known to one of ordinary skill in the art that in order to successfully transfer value on a blockchain, said transaction much include multiple pieces of identifying data/inputs and/or outputs which would be stored in data structures analogous to the broadly claimed plurality of fields);
sending the blockchain transaction to the second device over the QUIC connection See Madisetti: Para [0062] – “ The VTTP intra-chain value transfer process enables transfer of cryptocurrency or tokens from one account (a second party) to another account (a first party) on the same blockchain network. For example, consider an intra-chain value transfer request where a User A 354 wants to transfer certain units of a cryptocurrency or tokens from an account on a blockchain network 374 to the account of another User B 358 on the same blockchain network. At step 1 356, User A 354 initiates value transfer request to send cryptocurrency or tokens to User B 358 (e.g. to send 1 ETH from user A to user B). At step 2 360, the VTTP client 350 sends a VTTP SEND request to the VTTP server 370. At step 3 362, the VTTP server generates a raw transaction and returns the same in SEND response. At step 4 364, User A signs the raw transaction with the private key and VTTP client 350 sends the VTTP SIGN transaction. At step 5 372, VTTP server 370 verifies the signature and broadcasts the transaction to the blockchain network 374. At step 6 366, User A 354 receives a value transfer notification. At step 7 368, User B 358 receives a value transfer notification via VTTP Client 352.”
Madisetti fails to explicitly disclose that:
the payment destination is sent from the second party and is received by the first party.
However, Wallet discloses an online merchant where Bitcoin Payment protocol is used for the online payment using Bitcoin where payment address is sent by the second party (merchant) and is received by the first party (customer) (See Wallet: page 2, “Motivation”, steps 2; and also the flowchart as shown on page 4, where “Payment Request” step (address of merchant or second party as claimed) is sent to the customer (first party).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the payment protocol as taught by Wallet into the method of Madisetti’s because this would allow the payment destination to be sent by the second party to the first party thus ensuring the correct address of the intended party.
However, the combination of Madisetti and Wallet fails to explicitly disclose:
locking an output of the blockchain transaction to the cryptographic public key and/ or the cryptographic public-key- based address by configuring a locking script of the output to require an input of a later blockchain transaction to include a cryptographic signature generated by applying a digital signature algorithm to a message together with a cryptographic private key corresponding to the cryptographic public key;
However, in a similar field of endeavor, Mackay discloses:
locking an output of the blockchain transaction to the cryptographic public key and/ or the cryptographic public-key- based address by configuring a locking script of the output to require an input of a later blockchain transaction to include a cryptographic signature generated by applying a digital signature algorithm to a message together with a cryptographic private key corresponding to the cryptographic public key; (See Mackay: pg. 65, Para. 4 – “generating a transaction for inclusion in the blockchain, wherein the transaction comprises a locking script for locking the amount of the digital asset to the first party, and wherein the locking script comprises the root hash, and wherein the locking script is configured, so as when executed together with an unlocking script of a later transaction, to determine whether the unlocking script comprises: i) a data element representing a condition of the contract that has been signed with a signature of a trusted third party, and ii) an authentication path for generating, using the signed data element, a candidate root hash that matches the obtained root hash”);
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate transaction locking functionality as taught by Mackay into the method of Madisetti and Wallet yielding the predictable result of an increase in the security of the invention by ensuring that transaction cannot yield duplicate payouts.
However, the combination of Madisetti and Wallet fails to explicitly disclose:
Wherein the account information obtained is a cryptographic public key and/or a cryptographic public-key-based address contained within a specified field
However, in a similar field of endeavor discloses:
Wherein the account information obtained is a cryptographic public key and/or a cryptographic public-key-based address contained within a specified field (See Patil: Para. [0089] – “For example, a STA may prepare a higher layer protocol (HLP) packet intended for a remote destination server. The STA may transmit the HLP packet to the AP for the AP to forward the HLP packet to the remote destination server. The HLP packet may be included in a container element of an uplink (UL) frame from the STA to the AP. In some implementations, the format of the HLP packet and content type may be defined by a communication protocol specification (such as the IEEE 802.11bc specification or to other amendments to the IEEE 802.11 family of wireless standards). The format of the UL frame may include fields defined for various indicators related to an HLP packet. Examples of fields of the UL frame may include an uplink frame control field, a payload data field, a network address of the remote destination, a certificate or public key of the transmitting STA, a certificate or public key of the remote server, a timestamp, a packet counter value and a frame signature, among other examples.”)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify the account information obtained by the combination of Madisetti and Wallet for the packaged payload containing an identifying public key as disclosed by Patil to transfer the public key of the account holder yielding the predictable result of an increase in the security strength of the invention.
Claim(s) 4-5, and 11-15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Madisetti in view of Wallet, and further in view of Patil, Mackay and an Article titled “QUIC Transport Protocol” (hereinafter referred to as QUIC-TP).
Regarding Claims 4-5, and 11-15, even though Madisetti mentioned the use of QUIC in place of the detailed disclosed TCP/IP protocol (Para [0057]) such as the handshake message (para 0025), payload field (para 0081) along with other source and destination IDs along with the payment destination which is basically required for all protocols mentioned in Madisetti’s para 0057, Madisetti in view of Wallet does not disclose the specific protocol structure of QUIC.
However, QUIC-TP discloses the details of the QUIC transport protocol including the
handshake (as recited in claims 7, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15) (see QUIC-TP, page 96, 6th paragraph; page 99, 2nd paragraph);
source connection ID (as recited in claims 8, 10, 11, 13, 15) (see QUIC-TP, page 92, 4th paragraph);
destination connection ID (as recited in claim 11) (see QUIC-TP, page 92, 2nd paragraph); and
payload field (as recited in claims 11) with transaction template (as recited in claim 4) ((see QUIC-TP, page 95, Fig. 11, last portion of the packet).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement the QUIC transport protocol as disclosed by QUIC-TP into the combined method of Madisetti and Wallet’s because this would allow the QUIC protocol to be fully implemented for the blockchain transaction system thus achieving the fast handshake, secure and authenticated sessions.
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NICHOLAS K PHAN whose telephone number is (571)272-6748. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 1 pm-9 pm EST.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Neha Patel can be reached on 571-270-1492. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/NICHOLAS K PHAN/Examiner, Art Unit 3685
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