DETAILED ACTION
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
1. A request for continued examination (“RCE”) 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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 01/15/2026 has been entered.
Acknowledgements
This Office Action is in response to Applicant’s response/application filed on 01/15/2026.
The Examiner notes that citations to United States Patent Application Publication paragraphs are formatted as [####], #### representing the paragraph number.
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 .
Status of Claims
Claim 1, 24, 25 has been amended.
Claims 15-18, and 21 have been canceled.
No claims have been added.
Claims 1-14, 19, 20, and 22-25 are currently pending and have been examined.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1, 2-5, 11-14, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Wang (US 20200210451).
Regarding claim(s) 1, 24 and 25, Wang discloses:
a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium comprising a computer program ([0162]),
memory comprising one or more memory units ([0158], [0162], Fig. 11); and
processing apparatus comprising one or more processing units ([0158], Fig. 11), wherein the memory stores code arranged to run on the processing apparatus, the code being configured so as when run on the processing apparatus, the processing apparatus performs a method of
using a multi-level, ML, blockchain protocol to reach consensus on a secondary data chain using a core blockchain, wherein the ML blockchain comprises one or more previous ML blocks, wherein each previous ML block is a respective core blockchain transaction and comprises a) a respective data block associated with the data chain, and b) a respective chain output, wherein the respective chain output is configured to be spent by a respective chain input of a subsequent ML block and comprises a locking script configured to implement a respective consensus-based locking mechanism that can be unlocked by any one or more of a plurality of ML block producers (By disclosing, a multi-level blockchain network is disclosed, each block has it’s own input and output, and a locking script can be unlocked if the condition of the block is met ([0154], [0033], [0175], [0176], Fig. 1); “The divergence of the chain is called as fork, and the blocks not in the main chain are called as orphaned blocks.” ([0033], [0101], [0105]); and “When a miner in zone B receives a relay transaction from zone A, it may need to verify this transaction in order to avoid the attack from a malicious relaying node.” ([0081], [0109], [0111])), and
wherein the method is performed by a ML block producer and comprises:
obtaining a) a target data block associated with the secondary data chain ([0033], [0081], [0109], [0111], Fig. 1);
generating a locking script configured to implement a respective consensus-based locking mechanism as a function of the target data block ([0175]-[0176]);
using the locking script to generate b) a target chain output that is configured to be spent by a respective chain input of a subsequent ML block ([0175]-[0176]);
generating c) a target chain input that references the respective chain output of a previous ML block and is configured to unlock the respective consensus locking mechanism of that previous ML block ([0105], [0175], [0176]);
including a) the target data block, b) the target chain output, and c) the target chain input in a respective core blockchain transaction to generate a target ML block of the ML blockchain ([0044], [0105], [0173]-[0176]);
causing the target ML block to be recorded on the core blockchain ([0175]).
Regarding claim(s) 2, Wang discloses:
wherein the respective chain output of each respective ML block comprises a same type of consensus-based locking mechanism (By disclosing, the consensus mechanism may be the same for each zone ([0055])).
Regarding claim(s) 3, Wang discloses:
wherein the respective consensus-based locking mechanism comprises a respective proof-of-work (PoW) puzzle, wherein the respective PoW puzzle comprises a respective hash of at least the respective data block, and a respective difficulty target, and wherein the PoW puzzle is configured to require the respective chain input of the subsequent ML block to comprise a respective hash of at least the respective data block of the subsequent ML block, such that when executed, the PoW puzzle is configured to hash a combination of the respective hashes and require a resulting hash value to satisfy the respective difficulty target (By disclosing, “A chaining-header may comprise one or more of: a version, a partition order k, a zone index s, a hash of the previous chaining-block, a timestamp, a Merkle root (e.g., root of Merkle tree or chain) of a list of confirmed transactions, a Merkle root of a list of deposit transactions originating from the current block, and a difficulty (e.g., mining or PoW target).”; and “In at least one embodiments, a miner computes n nonces η.sub.i (i∈[0,n−1]) that each fulfills hash(A.sub.i,η.sub.i)<τ in which τ denotes the mining difficulty (e.g., PoW target), and the <operator takes place by regarding the hash value as a big integer.” ([0150]-[0153])).
Regarding claim(s) 4, Wang discloses:
wherein the respective hash of at least the respective data block of the subsequent ML block comprises a hash of at least the respective data block of the subsequent ML block and a respective nonce value ([0150]-[0153]).
Regarding claim(s) 5, Wang discloses:
determining a target nonce value that results in a target hash value that satisfies the respective difficulty target of the PoW puzzle of the previous ML block referenced by the target chain input ([0112], [0150]-[0153]).
Regarding claim(s) 11, Wang discloses:
wherein the chain output comprises the respective data block. (By disclosing, “a blockchain transaction references an unspent transaction output (UTXO) that is used to validate the transaction by executing the UTXO locking and unlocking script. If the UTXO locking and unlocking script executes successfully (e.g., by evaluating to TRUE and any other validation operations). Accordingly, a blockchain transaction is written to a blockchain ledger when it is validated by a node that receives the transaction and is added to a new block by a node (e.g., miner) and actually mined by being added to the public ledger of past transactions.” ([0175])).
Regarding claim(s) 12, Wang discloses:
wherein the respective data block is part of a different output compared to the respective chain output (By disclosing, each chain output includes a hash of a previous block and other data elements (Fig. 3, [0111]-[0113], [0173] of Wang)).
Regarding claim(s) 13, Wang discloses:
wherein said causing of the target ML block to be recorded on the core blockchain comprises submitting the target ML block to a core blockchain network ([0175], Fig. 1).
Regarding claim(s) 14, Wang discloses:
wherein said causing of the target ML block to be recorded on the core blockchain comprises submitting a core block to a core blockchain network, wherein the core block comprises the target ML block (By disclosing, a core block is generated on the core blockchain ([0175], Fig. 1)).
Regarding claim(s) 19, Wang discloses:
wherein the data chain is a secondary blockchain, and wherein each respective data block comprises a blockchain transaction of a secondary blockchain (By disclosing, “the first operation is a withdrawal operation of an amount of digital assets from a first blockchain user in the first consensus zone and the second operation is a deposit operation of the amount to a second blockchain user in the second consensus zone” ([0156], Claim 6)).
Regarding claim(s) 20, Wang discloses:
wherein the respective data comprises application-specific data (By disclosing, the blockchain data includes version data (Fig. 3)).
Regarding claim(s) 22, Wang discloses:
wherein the ML block producer is not a blockchain node of the core blockchain (By disclosing, “Blocks are created by miners. The verification of a block is involved with a mathematical puzzle (also called as proof-of-work, PoW), which is moderately hard on the request side but easy to check for the network. Miners compete with each other, and the first miner who solves the puzzle will be given rewards and the one-time privilege for creating a new block. A newly-created block has to be sufficiently propagated among miners and full nodes before the next block can be created” ([0033]); and “All accepted blocks of the chain need to be stored persistently in every miners and full nodes.” ([0037])).
Regarding claim(s) 23, Wang discloses:
wherein the ML block producer is a simplified payment verification client (By disclosing, “When a miner in zone B receives a relay transaction from zone A, it may need to verify this transaction in order to avoid the attack from a malicious relaying node.” ([0081])).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 9, 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wang (US 20200210451), in view of Borne (US 20210105144).
Regarding claim(s) 9, Wang does not disclose, but Borne teaches:
wherein the respective consensus-based locking mechanism of each respective ML block comprises a multi-signature locking script locked to one or more of a predetermined set of public keys (By disclosing, “ Consensus may be shared between DLT networks with a multi-signature message that can be validated based on the public keys and identities of nodes made available to the interoperable DLT networks via the membership blockchain” ([0027], [0039], [0046]-[0048] of Borne)).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the present application to modify the invention of Wang in view of Borne to include techniques of wherein the respective consensus-based locking mechanism of each respective ML block comprises a multi-signature locking script locked to one or more of a predetermined set of public keys. Doing so would result in an improved invention because this would leverage the advantages of using multi-signature consensus mechanism (e.g. enhanced security, etc.).
Regarding claim(s) 10, Wang does not disclose, but Borne teaches:
wherein the respective consensus-based locking mechanism of each respective ML block requires a respective signature corresponding to a respective threshold private key, wherein at least two different signature shares produced by different respective ML block producers are required to generate the respective signature (By disclosing, “The blockchain node may generate a certification of the token data (206). In examples where the token data is being exported, the certification may include a certification that the token data is locked on the blockchain. The certification may include a digital signature based on a participate private key and a public key. For example, the data furnisher 108 may sign the digital signature with the node private key. Alternatively or in addition, the certification may include multiple digital signatures and/or a multi-signature signed by multiple nodes of the DLT network 104. The blockchain node or node(s) may have previously shared a corresponding public key with the membership service provider 112 that can be used to validate the multi-signature.” ([0039], [0046]-[0048] of Borne)).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the present application to modify the invention of Wang in view of Borne to include techniques of wherein the respective consensus-based locking mechanism of each respective ML block requires a respective signature corresponding to a respective threshold private key, wherein at least two different signature shares produced by different respective ML block producers are required to generate the respective signature. Doing so would result in an improved invention because this would leverage the advantages of using multi-signature consensus mechanism (e.g. enhanced security, etc.).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim(S) 6-8 are allowable.
As per claim 6, the closest prior art of record, Wang (US 20200210451) discloses an invention for a multi-level (ML) blockchain system with a main blockchain containing blocks having a target chain output, wherein the target chain output is configured to be spent by a respective chain input of a subsequent ML block and comprises a locking script configured to implement a respective consensus-based locking mechanism, wherein the respective consensus-based locking mechanism of each respective ML block is a function of the respective data block of that respective ML block, and a target chain input that references the respective chain output of a previous ML block and is configured to unlock the respective consensus locking mechanism of that previous ML block. In addition, Craige (WO 2021022246) discloses an invention for a message signing system that verifies each partial signatures uses an r-value.
The closest prior art of record fail to teach or suggest, in the context of the ordered combination of the claim:
A computer-implemented method of using a multi-level, ML, blockchain protocol to reach consensus on a data chain using a core blockchain, wherein the ML blockchain comprises one or more previous ML blocks, wherein each previous ML block is a respective core blockchain transaction and comprises a) a respective data block associated with the data chain, and b) a respective chain output, wherein the respective chain output is configured to be spent by a respective chain input of a subsequent ML block and comprises a locking script configured to implement a respective consensus-based locking mechanism that can be unlocked by any one or more of a plurality of ML block producers, and wherein the method is performed by a ML block producer and comprises:
obtaining a target data block associated with the data chain;
generating a target ML block of the ML blockchain, wherein the target ML block is a respective core blockchain transaction and comprises a) the target data block, and b) a target chain output, wherein the target chain output is configured to be spent by a respective chain input of a subsequent ML block and comprises a locking script configured to implement a respective consensus-based locking mechanism, wherein the respective consensus-based locking mechanism of each respective ML block is a function of the respective data block of that respective ML block, and c) a target chain input that references the respective chain output of a previous ML block and is configured to unlock the respective consensus locking mechanism of that previous ML block; and causing the target ML block to be recorded on the core blockchain,
wherein the respective chain output of each respective ML block comprises a same type of consensus-based locking mechanism, and
wherein the respective consensus-based locking mechanism comprises a respective PoW r-puzzle, wherein the respective PoW r-puzzle comprises a respective first hash value and a respective difficulty target, wherein the respective first hash value is generated by hashing a hash of at least the respective data block combined with a respective r-value, where the respective r-value is a respective component of a digital signature, and wherein the PoW r-puzzle is configured to require the respective chain input of the subsequent ML block to comprise i) a respective hash of at least the data block of the subsequent ML block and ii) a respective signature that uses the respective r-value, and wherein PoW r-puzzle is configured to, when executed, extract the respective r-value from the signature, generate a respective second hash value by hashing the respective hash of at least the respective data block of the subsequent ML block combined with the extracted r-value, and require a resulting hash value to satisfy the respective difficulty target.
Claims 7, 8 are dependent on claim 6 and would be allowable for the same reasons stated above.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with regard to the 35 U.S.C. § 102 and 35 U.S.C. § 103 rejection have been considered but are moot in view of new grounds of rejection initiated by applicant’s amendment to the claims.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
WO 2021127115 discloses an invention of:
A set of transaction handling computing elements comprise a network core that receive and process transaction requests into an append-only immutable chain of data blocks, wherein a data block is a collection of transactions, and wherein an Unspent Transaction Output (UTXO) data structure supporting the immutable chain of data blocks is an output from a finalized transaction. Typically, the UTXO data structure consists essentially of an address and a value. In this approach, at least one UTXO data structure is configured to include information either in addition to or in lieu of the address and value, thereby defining a Transaction Output (TXO). A TXO may have a variety of types, and one type includes an attribute that encodes data. In response to receipt of a request to process a transaction, the set of transaction handling computing elements are executed to process the transaction into a block using at least the information in the TXO.
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/DUAN ZHANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3699