DETAILED ACTION
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 .
The following is a Final Office action in response to communications received 12/04/2025.
Response to Amendment
Claims 1, 14, and 21 have been amended.
Claim 25 has been newly added.
Claims 1-15, 21, and 25 have been examined.
The objection to claim 14 is withdrawn in light of the applicant’s amendments to the claim.
Applicant's arguments filed on 12/04/2025 regarding the rejection of claim 21 under 35 U.S.C 101 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. As per the applicant’s arguments that the amendments made to claim 21 should overcome the rejection, the examiner respectfully disagrees. Claim 21 recites: “A system for registering information in a permissioned blockchain, the system comprising a controller, a local client, and an aggregation service comprising a server”. It is well known to one of ordinary skill in the art a server can be implemented in software. Therefore, the addition of “server” does not make the claim statutory.
Applicant’s arguments, filed on 12/04/2025, with respect to the prior art rejection of claims 1 and 21 have been fully considered and are persuasive. The rejection of claims 1-15 and 21 under 35 U.S.C 103 has been withdrawn.
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.
Claim 21 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter. Claims 21 is directed to a system for registering information in a permissioned blockchain, the system comprising a controller, a local client, and an aggregation service comprising a server. Paragraph [0020] of the published specification states that the local client may be a software module. [0020] also provides examples of possible implementations of the controller but does not explicitly recite that the controller is implemented in hardware. Therefore, it is within the scope of one of ordinary skill in the art to construe the controller to be implemented in software. [0021] states that the aggregation service may for example, any server capable to perform the above-mentioned steps. It is well known to one of ordinary skill in the art that a server can be implemented in software. Therefore, claim 21 is directed to a system that comprises of only software elements which is software per se and is non-statutory.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-15 and 25 are allowed over prior arts of record.
Claim 21 will be allowable if the rejection under 35 U.S.C 101 is overcome.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
US 20200273026 to Soni et al: Systems and methods for a blockchain-based system for efficient storage and retrieval of disparate supply-side transaction information. An example embodiment includes features to receive a transaction from a provider system; aggregate the received transaction with a plurality of other transactions, wherein each transaction is encrypted; generate one or more hashes associated with the aggregated transactions, and broadcast the generated hashes onto a blockchain of a blockchain network; store the encrypted transactions and generated hashes, wherein the computer system is configured to respond to a search request received from a user, and wherein the computer system is further configured to validate stored transactions which are responsive to the search request via comparison to the generated hashes on the blockchain.
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 MADHURI R HERZOG whose telephone number is (571)270-3359. The examiner can normally be reached 8:30AM-4:30PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Taghi Arani can be reached at (571)272-3787. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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MADHURI R. HERZOG
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2438
/MADHURI R HERZOG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2438