DETAILED ACTION
Status of Claims
This communication is in response to applicant’s response filed on 04/13/2026.
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claims 1, 15, 18 and 20 are amended. Claims 1-20 are currently pending and have been examined.
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The Republic of Korea certified copies have been filed in parent Applications No. 10-2022-0029302, filed on 8 Mar 2022; 10-2022-0095024, filed on Jul 29 2022, and 10-2022-0113374, filed on Sep 7 2022.
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 04/13/2026 has been entered.
Information Disclosure Statement
The Information Disclosure Statement (IDS) submitted is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the IDS is being considered by the Examiner.
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 - 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Subject Matter Eligibility Standard
When considering subject matter eligibility under 35 U.S.C. 101, it must be
determined whether the claim is directed to one of the four statutory categories of
invention, i.e., process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter. If the claim
does fall within one of the statutory categories, it must then be determined whether the
claim is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., law of nature, natural phenomenon, and
abstract idea), and if so, it must additionally be determined whether the claim is
integrated into a practical application. Examples of abstract ideas include mathematical
concepts, certain methods of organizing human activity and mental processes (MPEP
2106.04).
Analysis
In the instant case, Claim 1 – 14 and 20 are directed toward an apparatus(es), and Claims 15 - 19 are directed to a method(s). Therefore, these claims fall within the four statutory categories of invention.
Claim 1 is directed to data communication, which is an abstract idea.
Specifically, the claim recites " …receive a registration request for a token for a date…; register the token with the blockchain network to correspond to the date based on the registration request, transmit posting information associated with the date…, wherein the posting information includes a display attribute of an entry corresponding to the token…, generate, based on the registration request and the token, posting information associated with the data/object, wherein the posting information includes a display attribute of an entry corresponding to the token, and wherein the display attribute is configured to cause the entry to be displayed in an area corresponding to the period of time/date on a calendar screen; and transmit the posting information to the external device, wherein the registration request includes date indication information…and token identification information…, and wherein the display attribute is determined based on the date indication information…”, which is grouped within the "Certain methods of organizing human activity", specifically, "…commercial or legal interactions (including agreements in the form of contracts; legal obligations; advertising, marketing or sales activities or behaviors; business relations); managing personal behavior or relationships or interactions between people (including social activities, teaching, and following rules or instructions)”, grouping of abstract ideas because the claims involve sending, receiving and /or processing information in prong one of Step 2A (see MPEP 2106). [Claims 15, 18 and 20 recite similar abstract ideas involving data communication.]
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because, when
analyzed under prong two of step 2A, the additional elements of the claim such as
"communication interface”, "nodes'', “blockchain network”, “external device”, “processors”, “memory” and/or “instructions, merely serves as tools to perform the abstract idea and/or generally link the use of a judicial exception to a particular technological environment. Therefore, the additional elements do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application as they do no more than represent a computer performing functions that correspond to (i.e., automate and/or implement) the abstract idea. Accordingly, these additional elements, when considered separately and as an ordered combination, do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea.
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to
significantly more than the judicial exception because, when analyzed under step 2B,
the additional elements amount to no more than using a computer or processor to
automate and/or implement the abstract idea. Mere instructions to apply an exception
using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept. Viewed as a whole, the combination of elements recited in the claims merely describe data communication using computer technology. Considered separately and as an ordered combination, they do not add significantly more (also known as an "inventive concept") to the exception. Which, according to the MPEP, cannot provide significantly more than the abstract idea itself (MPEP 2106.05). Hence, the claim is not patent eligible.
Dependent Claims 2 – 14, 16, 17 and 19 further describe the abstract idea within the independent claims, and do not include additional elements that integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or that provide significantly more than the abstract idea.
Allowable Subject Matter
6. The claims are rejected, but would be allowable if amended to overcome the 35
USC 101 rejection. The cited prior art, does not anticipate or render obvious, alone or
in combination the claimed invention. The closest cited prior art, Etwaru et al. (US 11,483,156 Bl) discloses (session) tokens encoded with unique identifiers and reference patch data used in delivering digital content; JOE et al. (WO 2020051710 A1) discloses managing digital security tokens that involve transactions comprising timestamp, date, success/failure data; and Nakadaira et al. (US 20210390161 A1) discloses blockchain digital content distribution, but do not anticipate or render obvious, the invention as recited. Applicant's reply must either comply with all formal requirements or specifically traverse each requirement not complied with. See 37 CFR 1.111 (b) and MPEP § 707.07(a).
Response to Arguments
Applicant submits that the Specification articulates an improvement to the technologies of electronic calendar management, and that this improvement is properly reflected in the claims, for example in the portions of the independent claims relating to registering the token with the blockchain network to correspond to a date based on a registration request, generating posting information (including a display attribute of an entry corresponding to the token, wherein the display attribute is configured to cause an entry to be displayed in an area corresponding to the date on a calendar screen) based on the registration request and the token, and transmitting the posting information to the external device. Accordingly, even assuming arguendo that any judicial exception is present in the claims, the proposed claims relate to an improvement to a technical field, and is therefore patent eligible at least at Step 2A Prong Two (See MPEP 2106.04(d)(I)).
Examiner would like to point out to applicant that while the applicant asserts that the claims reflect an improvement to electronic calendar management, the claims as drafted do not recite a specific technical improvement to computer technology or another technical field. Instead, they merely implement known calendar display and registration functions using generic computing and blockchain components. The claimed steps—registering a token with a blockchain network, generating posting information with display attributes, and displaying entries on a calendar screen—amount to organizing and displaying information. Courts and the USPTO consistently find such activities to be abstract ideas (see MPEP § 2106.04(a)), particularly when implemented on generic computer hardware. The claims’ use of a blockchain network for token registration and information storage is not presented as a specific technical improvement to blockchain technology itself. Instead, the blockchain is used in a conventional manner to store and retrieve information, which does not confer eligibility (see Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank, 573 U.S. 208 (2014); In re TLI Communications, 823 F.3d 607 (Fed. Cir. 2016)). The claims do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application beyond generic computer implementation. The steps of transmitting, receiving, and displaying information are routine and conventional. There is no evidence in the specification or claims of a specific technical solution or improvement, such as enhanced security, novel data structures, or improved processing efficiency (see MPEP § 2106.05(a)-(g)). The claims do not recite a specific technical improvement to the functioning of a computer or to another technical field. Rather, they recite the use of generic computing elements to perform routine calendar management tasks. As such, Step 2A Prong Two of the eligibility framework is not satisfied.
Conclusion
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/NEHA PATEL/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3699
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