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 .
Acknowledgements
This is a first office action on the merits in response to the application filed April 19, 2024.
Claims 1-20 are pending in the application.
Claims 1-20 are examined below.
Based on a comparison of the PGPub US 2024/0346087 A1 with applicant’s originally submitted specification, the PGPub appears to be a fair and accurate record of the applicant’s specification. Therefore, references to applicant’s specification will typically be made by this examiner as references to the PGPub. Unless otherwise noted, references to applicant’s specification as published via PGPub will be in the format [####], and references to applicant’s specification as filed will be in the format ¶## or by page and line number.
The notations in the immediately preceding paragraph apply to any future office actions from this examiner.
Examiner Request
Applicant is requested to indicate where in the specification there is support for amendments to claims should applicant amend. The purpose of this is to reduce potential 35 USC 112(a) or 35 USC 112, 1st paragraph issues that can arise when claims are amended without support in the specification. Examiner thanks applicant in advance. See also relevant portions of MPEP 2163.II.A:
With respect to newly added or amended claims, applicant should show support in the original disclosure for the new or amended claims. See, e.g., Hyatt v. Dudas, 492 F.3d 1365, 1370, n.4 (Fed. Cir. 2007) (citing MPEP § 2163.04 which provides that a "simple statement such as ‘applicant has not pointed out where the new (or amended) claim is supported, nor does there appear to be a written description of the claim limitation ‘___’ in the application as filed’ may be sufficient where the claim is a new or amended claim, the support for the limitation is not apparent, and applicant has not pointed out where the limitation is supported."); see also MPEP § 714.02 and § 2163.06 ("Applicant should ... specifically point out the support for any amendments made to the disclosure."); and MPEP § 2163.04 ("If applicant amends the claims and points out where and/or how the originally filed disclosure supports the amendment(s), and the examiner finds that the disclosure does not reasonably convey that the inventor had possession of the subject matter of the amendment at the time of the filing of the application, the examiner has the initial burden of presenting evidence or reasoning to explain why persons skilled in the art would not recognize in the disclosure a description of the invention defined by the claims.").
Priority
Applicant has not complied with one or more conditions for receiving the benefit of an earlier filing date under 35 U.S.C. 119 as follows:
The later-filed application must be an application for a patent for an invention which is also disclosed in the prior application (the parent or original nonprovisional application or provisional application). The disclosure of the invention in the prior-filed application and in the later-filed application must be sufficient to comply with the requirements of 35 U.S.C. § 112. See Transco Products, Inc. v. Performance Contracting, Inc., 38 F.3d 551, 32 USPQ2d 1077 (Fed. Cir. 1994).
The disclosure of the prior-filed applications, application nos. 63/270,893 and 63/318,495 (including any material incorporated by reference), fail to provide adequate support in the manner required by 35 U.S.C. § 112 for one or more claims of this application. The above-listed applications fail to provide support for the independent claims (1 and 15). In particular, the limitation of “clustering … [a] social graph” (or similar) is not disclosed.
For the above reasons, the claims affected and their dependents are being compared to the prior art based on a filing date of October 21, 2022 (filing date of prior-filed application PCT/US2022/047396).
Information Disclosure Statement
The attached information disclosure statements are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR § 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
Applicant’s 6-page IDS submitted March 19, 2025 and 7-page IDS submitted January 13, 2025 each list related co-pending applications. Examiner will review the contents of these applications as part of the normal examination process, however if applicant seeks consideration of documents other than the specification (including the claims) and drawings of an application, for example, office actions, applicant must list such documents separately under the non-patent literature section or in a new section appropriately labeled. Furthermore, other references cited in another application and considered relevant to the instant applicant (e.g., references cited in a co-pending application) should be submitted in an additional IDS for the instant application. See 37 CFR 1.98(b); MPEP 609.04(a).
Due to extremely voluminous prior art citation by the applicant, the examiner has only given each reference a cursory review. Applicant is reminded that the cloaking of a clearly relevant reference by inclusion in a long list of citations may not comply with the applicant’s duty of disclosure. Penn Yan Boats, Inc. v. Sea Lark Boats, Inc., 359 F. Supp. 948 (S.D. Fla. 1972). See also, dicta from Molins PLC v. Textron, Inc., 48 F.3d 1172 (Fed. Cir. 1995), stating that forcing the examiner to find “a needle in a haystack” is “probative of bad faith.” Therefore, it is recommended that if any information that has been cited by applicant in the information disclosure statements is known to be material for patentability as defined by 37 C.F.R. § 1.56, applicant should present a concise statement as to the relevance of those particular documents cited therein.
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.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Regarding claims 1-20, the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more. Representative claim 1 recites receiving transaction data, including accounts of initiators and recipients of transactions; generating a social graph, including a plurality of entities linked by relationships; clustering the social graph to identify clusters of accounts associated with similar transactions; generating a social feed for a cluster of accounts; identifying an account using the social graph; and transmitting the social feed to a service configured to display the feed to an owner of the account. This constitutes a certain method of organizing human activity (specifically, a commercial or legal interaction) or mental process or mathematical concept. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea. This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because the additional elements beyond the abstract idea simply link the abstract idea to a particular technological environment (distributed ledgers) or amount to extra-solution activity (display on a user device). Because the abstract idea is not integrated into a practical application, claim 1 is “directed to” an abstract idea. The claim does not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because the additional elements identified above represent only well-understood, routine, and conventional technology (or placeholders for such) when compared with the court decisions listed in MPEP § 2106.05(d). Viewing the additional elements as a combination does not add anything further than the individual elements. Therefore, the additional elements in the claim are not sufficient to amount to an inventive concept. Because claim 1 is directed to an abstract idea and fails to recite an inventive concept, it is patent ineligible.
Independent claim15 contains limitations similar to claim 1 and is therefore rejected using the same rationale.
The dependent claims when analyzed as a whole are held to be patent ineligible under 35 U.S.C. 101. The additional limitations added by these claims fail to either integrate the claims into a practical application or add an inventive concept, because they serve to further narrow the abstract idea without integrating it into a practical application (claims 1-7, 12-14, and 16-20), add additional elements that simply further link to a particular technological environment (claims 10-12), and/or amount to additional extrasolution activity (claim 8). Viewing the additional elements of the dependent claims as a combination does not add anything further than the individual elements. Therefore, the dependent claims neither practically integrate the abstract idea nor constitute an inventive concept, and these claims are also rejected as patent ineligible.
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
The USPTO Internet website contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit www.uspto.gov/patent/patents-forms. The actual filing date of the application in which the form is filed determines what form (e.g., PTO/SB/25, PTO/SB/26, PTO/AIA /25, or PTO/AIA /26) should be used. A web-based eTerminal Disclaimer may be filled out completely online using web-screens. An eTerminal Disclaimer that meets all requirements is auto-processed and approved immediately upon submission. For more information about eTerminal Disclaimers, refer to www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/applying-online/eterminal-disclaimer.
Claims 1-20 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-20 of U.S. Patent No. 12,511,332. Although the conflicting claims are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because they differ merely in terminology, nonfunctional descriptive material, intended use, etc.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-20 are not obvious or anticipated by the prior art of record and would be allowable if a terminal disclaimer were submitted to overcome the double patenting rejection and the claims were amended to overcome the rejections under 35 U.S.C. 101 set forth in this office action.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Regarding the claimed terms, the examiner notes that a “general term must be understood in the context in which the inventor presents it.” In re Glaug 283 F.3d 1335, 1340, 62 USPQ2d 1151, 1154 (Fed. Cir. 2002). Therefore the examiner must interpret the claimed terms as found in applicant’s specification. Clearly, almost all the general terms in the claims may have multiple meanings. So where a claim term “is susceptible to various meanings, . . . the inventor’s lexicography must prevail . . . .” Id. Using these definitions for the claims, the claimed invention was not reasonably found in the prior art.
The closest art of record includes:
Kuchar (US 2019/0279215 A1) discloses a system for predicting fraud using a graph-based analysis of blockchain transactions.
Bucu (US 2025/0233729 A1) discloses a system for automating blockchain knowledge repositories.
Jakobsson (US 2023/0281606 A1) discloses a system for partitioning crypto wallet addresses in order to increase security.
Dulys (US 2024/0007290 A1) discloses a system for ranking tokens, including using cluster analysis and token ownership history.
Ta (US 2020/0279249 A1) discloses a social media crypto commerce system that includes providing recommendations to social media groups ([0153]).
Muriqi (US 2024/0046318 A1) discloses a social networking and commerce system using tokens as rewards.
Xiong (US 2023/0245247 A1) discloses a social media system allowing purchase of crypto assets.
The references alone or in combination fail to teach or suggest the following limitations of the independent claims 1 and 15: “receiving, by a tokenization platform, transaction data for a plurality of distributed ledger transactions executed on a distributed ledger, wherein each distributed ledger transaction indicates a respective distributed ledger account associated with an initiator of the distributed ledger transaction and a respective distributed ledger account associated with a receiver of the distributed ledger transaction, wherein the transaction data is received from a distributed ledger node of a distributed ledger network that hosts the distributed ledger; generating, by the tokenization platform, a social graph including a plurality of entities linked by relationships, wherein at least a subset of the plurality of entities correspond to distributed ledger accounts; and clustering, by the tokenization platform, the social graph to identify clusters of distributed ledger accounts associated with similar distributed ledger transactions; generating, by the tokenization platform, a social feed for a first cluster of distributed ledger accounts; identifying, by the tokenization platform, a first distributed ledger account using the social graph, wherein the first distributed ledger account is part of the first cluster of distributed ledger account; and transmitting, by the tokenization platform, the social feed to a cloud wallet service that is configured to manage the first distributed ledger account, wherein the cloud wallet service is further configured to display the social feed on a user device that is used to access the cloud wallet service by an owner of the first distributed ledger account.” (or similar). While the limitations are not unknown in the art on an individual basis, the particular requirements of the claims when viewed as a whole would make any combination of prior art references only viable with hindsight reasoning.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to JAMIE KUCAB whose telephone number is (571)270-3025. The examiner can normally be reached Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET. The examiner’s email address is Jamie.Kucab@USPTO.gov. See MPEP 502.03 regarding email communications. Following is the sample authorization for electronic communication provided in MPEP 502.03.II: “Recognizing that Internet communications are not secure, I hereby authorize the USPTO to communicate with the undersigned and practitioners in accordance with 37 CFR 1.33 and 37 CFR 1.34 concerning any subject matter of this application by video conferencing, instant messaging, or electronic mail. I understand that a copy of these communications will be made of record in the application file.” Without such an authorization in place, an examiner is unable to respond via email.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Neha Patel, can be reached at telephone number (571) 270-1492. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from Patent Center. Status information for published applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Patent Center for authorized users only. Should you have questions about access to Patent Center, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free).
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) Form at https://www.uspto.gov/patents/uspto-automated-interview-request-air-form.
/JAMIE R KUCAB/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3699
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