DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the America Invents Act (AIA ).
Response and Claim Status
The instant Office action is responsive to the response received July 17, 2025 (the Response).1
Claims 1, 4, 5, 8, and 10 are currently pending.
Claim Rejections – 35 U.S.C. § 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 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over Levy et al. (US 2020/0074388 A1; filed Aug. 28, 2018) in view of Brock (US 2019/0306232 A1; filed Mar. 27, 2018).
Regarding claims 8, while Levy teaches a blockchain management method comprising:
identifying a subject device (a device represented by “‘Miner’ Device B” at ¶ 127), based on identification information (“‘Miner’ Device B” at ¶ 127 is identification information of the device) that corresponds to the subject device, in a mining process (fig. 7A-7B) to generate a block from a newly generated transaction and store the block as part of the ledger (intended use in italics), each device among the plurality of devices holds a ledger (fig. 1, items 120 corresponding to items 130);
determining whether a device (“identify a previous “Miner” Device” at ¶ 127 which may or may not be “‘Miner’ Device B”) that corresponds to a past block (“that generated a previous block” at ¶ 127) selected during the mining process is the subject device; and
determining an incentive for success in the mining process to be a first incentive when2 the device that corresponds to the past block is determined to be a device other than the subject device, and
determining an incentive for success in the mining process to be a second incentive (“a similar reward to that ‘Miner’ Device” at ¶ 127) that is a sum of the first incentive and an additional incentive when3 the group that corresponds to the past block is determined to be the specific group (in the instance “a previous ‘Miner’ Device” at ¶ 127 is “‘Miner’ Device B”); and
increasing the second incentive when4 the group that corresponds to the past block is determined to be the group other than the specific group,
Levy does not teach (A) the identifying the subject device being identifying a specific group that includes the subject device among a plurality of groups that each includes a plurality of devices that holds a ledger; and (B) the device being a group.
Brock teaches identifying a specific group (“the first group” at ¶ 50) that includes a subject device (“a first IoT node in the first group” at ¶ 50; “IoT nodes include phones, computers, smart watches, appliances, tablets, televisions, servers” at ¶ 16) among a plurality of groups (“the first and second groups” at ¶ 55) that each includes a plurality of devices (“the first and second groups of IoT nodes” at ¶ 52) that holds a ledger (“adding the first and second groups of IoT nodes to the ledger” at ¶ 52).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the invention for Levy’s identifying the subject device to be identifying a specific group that includes the subject device among a plurality of groups that each includes a plurality of devices that holds a ledger and for Levy’s device to be a group as taught by Brock “for asset management. In particular, . . . for managing the assets of an IoT network using a blockchain.” Brock ¶ 1. Morevoer, for “ensuring the health and security of a network.” Id. ¶ 2.
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over Levy in view of Brock, and in further view of Son (KR 20210073059 A; filed Dec. 10, 20195).
Regarding claim 10, Levy does not teach wherein the determining the incentive for success in the mining process includes: identifying a size of the past block; and determining the additional incentive in accordance with the identified size.
Son teaches identifying a size of the past block; and determining an additional incentive in accordance with the identified size (“The incentive providing unit 350 may determine the payment amount of the private token provided as the first incentive based on the size of the data block, the time taken for block generation, and the time taken for block propagation.” at p. 10).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the invention for the Levy’s determining the incentive for success in the mining process to include identifying a size of the past block; and determining the additional incentive in accordance with the identified size as taught by Son to “provide incentives to participants in charge of block generation in the process of operating a block chain and methods.” Son p. 1.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1, 4, and 5 allowed.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to Applicants’ disclosure: US-11520776-B1; US-20190378133-A1; and US-20200402026-A1.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the Examiner should be directed to DAVID P. ZARKA whose telephone number is (703) 756-5746. The Examiner can normally be reached Monday–Friday from 9:30AM–6PM ET.
If attempts to reach the Examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the Examiner’s supervisor, Vivek Srivastava, can be reached at (571) 272-7304. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300.
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/DAVID P ZARKA/PATENT EXAMINER, Art Unit 2449
1 The Examiner erred in the Office action mailed August 4, 2025 because the Examiner failed to address a limitation of claim 8 received June 17, 2025. In particular, the Examiner failed to address the limitation reciting “increasing the second incentive when the group that corresponds to the past block is determined to be the group other than the specific group.” of claim 8.
Accordingly, (1) the after-final response received November 4, 2025 will not be entered; and (2) the Examiner will address the limitation of claim 8 received June 17, 2025 in the instant Office action.
2 The other-group method-step (claim 8, lines 9–11) is conditional and, therefore, need not be satisfied to meet claim 8. See Ex parte Schulhauser, No. 2013-007847, 2016 WL 6277792, at *3–5 (PTAB Apr. 28, 2016) (precedential) (holding that in a method claim, a step reciting a condition precedent does not need to be performed if the condition precedent is not met) (available at https://www.uspto.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Ex%20parte%20Schulhauser%202016_04_28.pdf; last visited Apr. 11, 2025); see also MPEP § 2111.04(II) (citing Schulhauser).
The Examiner finds, however, there are only two possibilities whether the group that corresponds to the past block is the specific group: either the group that corresponds to the past block is the specific group or it is not. That is, one condition must occur from these two possibilities. But because only one condition must occur, only one condition need be satisfied to meet claim 8—not both.
Accordingly, the Examiner elects the specific -group method-step (claim 8, lines 11–14) to be satisfied and not the other-group method-step (claim 8, lines 9–11).
3 The Examiner elects the specific-group method-step (claim 8, lines 11–14) to be satisfied. See n. 2 supra; see also Schulhauser at *3–5.
4 The Examiner does not elect the other-group method-step (claim 8, lines 9–11) to be satisfied. See n. 2 supra; see also Schulhauser at *3–5.
5 The Examiner relies on a machine English-translation of Son as attached to the instant Office action.