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 .
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 02/26/2026 has been entered.
Information Disclosure Statement
The Information Disclosure Statement filed 03/11/2026 was considered. An initialed copy of the Form PTO-1449 is enclosed herewith.
Acknowledgements
This Office Action is in response to the RCE filed on 02/26/2026.
Claims 1 and 9 were amended.
Claims 1-16 are pending.
Claims 1-16 were examined.
Claim Objections
Claim 6 objected to because of the following informalities: The claim recites “the blockchain network” and “the blockchain” in line 6. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this language in the claim due to the removal of “a blockchain network” and “a blockchain” in claim 1. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 1-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
Claims 1 and 9 were amended to recite “storing, in a user profile, the first full alias, wherein said user profile also includes at least one second full alias including a second subsection indicating a second service provider that manages a second blockchain wallet of the user, said second service provider being different from the first service provider;... deactivating, by the processor of the processing server, the second blockchain wallet from use in future cryptographic transactions...” (Emphasis added by Examiner).
The specification as filed recites, inter alia:
“[0028] In addition to the permission token, the processing server 102 can generate an alias for the participant. The alias can be a value that is unique to the participant and directly associated with their participant's permission token that can be used for identification of the participant and their permission token across service providers 110. The processing server 102 can return the alias to the user device 108 (e.g., directly or via the service provider 110). The participant can then send their alias to another participant via their user device 108 and the other participant's user device 108 when a new transaction is desired. In some instances, a participant can request a specific alias during the registration process. In some embodiments, a participant can link their alias across multiple service providers 110. For example, a participant can have three different blockchain wallets managed by three different service providers 110 and can register with the processing server 102 (e.g., via their user device 108) to have the alias associated with all three blockchain wallets. In such embodiments, the participant can select which blockchain wallet to be used for sending or receiving currency for a specific transaction. In some cases, an alias can have subsections or components indicating the service provider. For instance, a participant, Jane, can request the alias Jane" where a service provider used for a transaction can be indicated in part of the full alias, such as jane.vaspone.tokenservice for a first service provider 110 and jane.vasptwo.tokenservice for a second service provider 110. In these embodiments, the participant can deactivate one or more blockchain wallets for use in future cryptographic transactions and/or delete blockchain wallets from their account entirely…
[0043] In such an example, the participant with an alias of ACC55059970032193496 (e.g., which can be a hash of the alias issued to the participant or otherwise mapped to the issued alias) has two blockchain wallets registered with the processing server 102 for use with the alias, one that uses BTC and the other that uses ETC. As indicated in the profile, both are active and thus can be used to send or receive currency using the provided addresses. ”.
Therefore, the specification as filed does not recite the manner in which the processor deactivates a second blockchain wallet, defined by the claim as managed by a second service provider. In other words, the BRI of the claims encompass at least one embodiment in which the actual second blockchain wallet managed by the second service provider is "deactivated". This is not taught by the disclosure. A fair reading of the specification as filed would lead one of ordinary skill in the art to reasonably understand the "deactivating" being directed to either the status of the alias or the status of the Crypto Address ID, as stored by the processing server (see, for instance paragraphs [0034], [0038] and [0043]), in other words a deactivation of a status internal to the server rather than a wallet not in possession of the server. Therefore, while the disclosure recites that a participant can deactivate A. the account alias or B. the crypto address ID of the blockchain wallets registered with the processing server for use with the alias, the disclosure does not offer sufficient written description for the newly introduced language requiring the deactivation of the second blockchain wallet itself. For this reason, the specification as filed does not provide sufficient written description for the claimed language (see MPEP 2161.01). In other words, the algorithm or steps/procedure taken to perform the function must be described with sufficient detail so that one of ordinary skill in the art would understand how the inventor intended the function to be performed. Dependent claims 2-8 and 10-16 are also rejected since they depend on claims 1 and 9, respectively.
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 1-16 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.
Claims 1 and 8 were amended to recite: “receiving, by a receiver of a processing server, an onboarding request including at least permission data and an identification value from a first computing system... / a receiver receiving an onboarding request including at least permission data and an identification value from the first computing system...”. It is unclear by the claim language whether the language “from first computing system” refers to “receiving” (i.e. “receiving… from… first computer system”), or whether it refers to “an identification value” (i.e. “an identification value from… first computing system”). For Examination purposes, Examiner adopts the former, i.e. the term describes the origin of the request rather than the description of the value, in light of the specification as filed. See, for instance, Fig.3A, 304. This duality renders the scope of the claims unclear. Dependent claims 2-7 and 9-16 are also rejected since they depend on claims 1 and 8, respectively.
Claims 3 and 11 recite the language “wherein the one or more verified identity data points includes at least one of: geographic location, age, income, identity verification status, compliance status, etc.”. This language is unclear as “etc.” is an abbreviation for the Latin phrase “et cetera.”, which plain meaning is, among others, “and so forth”, representing additional unspecified items. The use of the term renders the scope of the claim indefinite as the boundaries of the claim are not clearly defined.
Prior Art Analysis
The prior art of record does not appear to reasonably disclose the combination of: upon an onboarding request, generating a permission digital token and generating an alias, producing a first full alias by appending a first subsection indicating the first service provider to the alias, storing the first full alias in a user profile including at least one second full alias, transmitting the first full alias, transmitting at least the generated permission digital token and the identification value to the second computing system in response to a token request received from a second computing system, and deactivating a wallet status upon request. Examiner notes that while the prior art appears to disclose similar aliases (i.e. PayID/PayString, OpenVASP VANN), decentralized protocols for Travel Rules compliance by VASPs (i.e. Travel Rule Information Sharing Architecture (TRISA)) and also centralized protocols for Travel Rules compliance by VASPs (i.e. VerifyVASP), the combination of alias generation and service provider permission digital token generation and distribution and blockchain wallet deactivation by a server was not reasonably found in the literature. Therefore, Claims 1 and 9 appear to be allowable if rewritten to overcome any pending 35 U.S.C. §112(a), 112(b) rejections.
Examiner notes that further search and consideration will be required upon presentation of the rewritten claims. Reasons for allowance, if applicable, will be the subject of a separate communication to the Applicant or patent owner, pursuant to 37 CFR § 1.104 and MPEP § 1302.14.
Claims 2-8 and 10-16 would also be allowable upon allowance of claims 1 and 9, due to their dependency, if rewritten to overcome any pending 35 U.S.C. 112(b) rejections.
Response to Arguments/Amendments
Claim rejections - 35 USC § 101
Applicant’s amendments and arguments (see remarks, pages 8-17, filed on 02/26/2026), with respect to the rejection of claims 1-16 under 35 USC § 101 as being directed to an abstract idea have been fully considered. Examiner finds Applicant's arguments persuasive in view of the submitted amendments, therefore the rejection was withdrawn. Specifically, Examiner agrees with Applicant's position that the claims, as amended, overcome step 2A, prong two of the analysis, as the combination of claimed elements represent a practical application.. The rejection under 35 USC § 101 has been withdrawn in view of the claim amendments.
Claim rejections - 35 USC § 103
Applicant’s amendments and arguments (see remarks, pages 17-21, filed on 02/26/2026), with respect to the rejection of claims 1-16 under 35 USC § 103 have been fully considered . Examiner finds Applicant's arguments persuasive in view of the submitted amendments, therefore the rejection was withdrawn.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Patent Literature
Knudsen et al. (US 2014/0365363 A1) disclose secure integrative vault of consumer payment instruments for use in payment processing system and method, including deactivating a specific payment instrument.
Murdoch et al. (US 2023/0319039 A1) disclose securing authentication flows using a decentralized identifier, including utilizing a DID of a DID owner who desires to request one or more verifiable claims from a verifiable claim issuer.
Tai et al. (US 11,501,297 B1) disclose blockchain agnostic token network, including a payment service providing a buyer and/or seller the choice of what blockchain an NFT should be made available on or otherwise minted to.
Yantis et al. (US 2021/0326849 A1) disclose tokenization platform, including a linking system that generates a one-to-at-least-one link between the unique digital token generated by the cryptographic token generation system and the unique identifier for the unique unit of the digital product, such that the unique digital token provides a unique digital representation of the unique unit of the digital product.
Kim et al. (WO 2022070453 A1) disclose program, information processing method, terminal, and server, including destroying a linked wallet based on user terminal input.
Non-Patent Literature
S. De Cristo et al. (NPL 2021, listed in PTO-892 as page 1, reference "U") disclose Self-Sovereign Identity for the Financial Sector: A Case Study of PayString Service, including privacy and security features applied to PayString.
Malhotra et al. (NPL 2020, listed in PTO-892 as page 1, reference "V") disclose PayID Protocol, including a verifiable PayID.
LoisRP et al. (NPL 2020, listed in PTO-892 as page 1, reference "W") disclose Paystring Design Best Practices, including generating an identity key and a verifiable PayString.
Scheidt de Cristo et al. (NPL 2021, listed in PTO-892 as page 2, reference "U") disclose Privacy-Preserving PayString Service, including Paystring Secure.
Notabene.id (NPL , listed in PTO-892 as page 2, reference "V") disclose Verify WASP, including a decentralized Travel Rule messaging protocol created by South Korean cryptocurrency exchange Upbit.
OpenVASP.org (NPL 2022, listed in PTO-892 as page 2, reference "W") disclose OpenVASP whitepaper, including An Open Protocol to Implement FATF's Travel rule for virtual assets.
Paystring.org (NPL 2022, listed in PTO-892 as page 2, reference "X") disclose Paystring Protocol, including an integration of verifiable PayString protocol with another Travel Rule information sharing messaging proposal Travel Rule Information Sharing Architecture (TRISA).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to EDUARDO D CASTILHO whose telephone number is (571)270-1592. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri 8-5.
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/EDUARDO CASTILHO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3698