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 1-14 are presented for examination.
This action is in response to amendment filed on 9/22/25.
The New Grounds of Rejection
Applicant’s amendment and argument with respect to claims 1-12, and new claims 13-14 filed on 9/22/25 have been fully considered but they are deemed to be moot in views of the new grounds of rejection.
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.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 1-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Referring to claim 1, the amended claim recites the limitation “wherein, the computer processor in the router executes the machine instructions to perform validation tasks that use verifiable random function (VRF) and verifiable delay function (VDF); wherein the router contributes computing, network and storage resources and stakes tokens to generate both a proof-of-storage and a proof-of-bandwidth; the persistent storage medium in the router is used to store the proof-of-storage and the proof-of-bandwidth on the Blockchain network; and the router is compensated with utility tokens proportional to contributed resources and staked tokens.” renders the claim vague and indefinite. The claim is describing a router to 1. performs the validation task; 2. contributes computing, network and storage resources and stakes tokens to generate both a proof-of-storage and a proof-of-bandwidth; 3. store the proof-of-storage and the proof-of-bandwidth on the Blockchain network; and 4. the router is compensated with utility tokens proportional to contributed resources and staked tokens. Steps 1, 2, 3 are performed individually, and the conclusive step 4 seems to only vaguely connected to the information contributed and staked in step 2 without the connection and the relations to steps 1 and 4. Also it is unclear how the proportional compensation to the router in step 4 is achieved with contributed resources and staked token. Furthermore, it is also unclear that if the contributed resources are the contributed computing, network and storage resources and also what is the utility token and how is related to the staked token. The claim is vague and indefinite to allow a person with skill in the art to reason the recited steps 1-3 to achieve the conclusive step 4 in order to establish the scope of the claimed invention. Clarification is required.
Referring claim 5, the amended claims recited steps (a) to (g), however, similar to the steps recited in claim 1, steps (a) to (g) appears to be performed without linkage to one another, and only slight proof of linkage appears to be the term “validated contribution” in step (g), however the validating step (e) does not recite any contribution being validated. The claim is vague and indefinite to allow a person with skill in the art to reason the recited steps (a)-(f) to achieve the conclusive step (g) in order to establish the scope of the claimed invention. Clarification is required.
All dependent claims are rejected to as having the same deficiencies as the claims they depend from.
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 extension fee 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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Liang-che Alex Wang
December 15, 2025
/LIANG CHE A WANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2447