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 .
DETAILED ACTION
Claims 1-20 remain for examination. Claims 1, 7, 11 have been amended. Applicant's arguments filed on 10/10/2025 have been fully considered but they are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection necessitated by the amendments. Accordingly, this action has been made final.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
The following is a quotation of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1-2, 6-8, 11-12, 14-17 and 19 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Sundaram US 20200372576 A1 in view of Gong US 20200145200 A1, in further view of LI US 20210160227 A1.
As to claim 1, Sundaram teaches a service offer processing method implemented by a computer interfacing with at least one node belonging to a blockchain network configured to execute a smart contract of the blockchain, the method comprising (Sundaram Pa. [0091]) [wherein offers may be stored securely on a blockchain ledger repository or other central database hosted by the multi-lender architecture as part of the offer repository]: receiving encrypted service offers, in association with the smart contract (Sundaram Pa. [0090]) [ The lender specific broker 114 may call the encryption service 115 to encrypt the offers] [0072] [certain lenders under a predefined criteria, and conversely in the form of agreements (read smart contract) or other restrictions certain lenders may have with regard to certain dealerships under a predefined criteria]; decrypting the encrypted service offers by means of the first decryption keys (Sundaram Pa. [0090]) [the Buy/Sell API 106 may decrypt the encrypted offers, and interface with the Buyer UI 101 application to render the offers on the Buyer UI 101 application GUI 1006. As explained above, the data of the outputs of the microservices 108a, 108b, and 108c, resulting in the offer terms, may only be decrypted], and transmitting, to at least one node of the blockchain network (Sundaram Pa. [0091]) [wherein offers may be stored securely on a blockchain ledger repository or other central database hosted by the multi-lender architecture as part of the offer repository], an identifier of at least one of the decrypted service offers (Sundaram Pa. [0090]) [ The API Passthru 107 may forward the encrypted offers, as a grouped payload or separate payloads, to the Experience Layer 104. In the Experience Layer 104, the Buy/Sell API 106 may decrypt the encrypted offers]
It is noted that Sundaram does not appear explicitly disclose decrypting first decryption keys by means of a private encryption key of said the computer.
However, Gong discloses decrypting first decryption keys by means of a private encryption key of said the computer (Gong Fig. 8-9 Pa. [0074-0081]) [data from +application 108 may be encrypted using data encryption key… encrypt or wrap data encryption key 306 using public key 302 and according to policy 502 into encrypted data encryption key… decryption module 210 receives encrypted data encryption key 1… decrypting encrypted data encryption key 122 decryption module 210 determines whether one or more rules in policy 502A that was used to encrypted data encryption key 122 during encryption are passed using attributes 402A and 402B]
Thus, it would have been recognized by one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, that applying the known technique taught by Gong to the service offer system of Sundaram would have yield predictable results and resulted in an improved system, namely, a system that would provide data security, and more specifically to attribute-based encryption (Gong pa. [0001)
It is noted that the combination of Sundaram and Gong does not appear explicitly disclose receiving first decryption keys, stored in the blockchain, of the encrypted service offers, the first decryption keys being themselves encrypted by means of a public encryption key issued by the computer.
However, LI discloses receiving first decryption keys, stored in the blockchain, of the encrypted service offers, the first decryption keys being themselves encrypted by means of a public encryption key issued by the computer (LI Pa. [0050-0051]) [the first derived key or the first derived public key can be used to encrypt a decryption
key corresponding to ciphertext of all or some of the service data to generate encrypted service data]
Thus, it would have been recognized by one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, that applying the known technique taught by LI to the service offer system of Sundaram and Gong would have yield predictable results and resulted in an improved system, namely, a system that would provide a blockchain technologies, to blockchain-based service data encryption methods and apparatuses (LI pa. [0002)
As to claim 2, Sundaram teaches wherein the at least one decrypted service offer whose identifier is transmitted is one of the decrypted service offers (Sundaram Pa. [0090]) [ The API Passthru 107 may forward the encrypted offers, as a grouped payload or separate payloads, to the Experience Layer 104. In the Experience Layer 104, the Buy/Sell API 106 may decrypt the encrypted offers] meeting at least one service selection criterion for the smart contract (Sundaram Pa. [0044]) [During the pre-eligibility screening criteria assessment by the system 100, the Buy/Sell API 106 compares the user's entered information against a ruleset implemented by the administrator of the Multi-Lender Architecture]
As to claim 6, the combination of Sundaram, Gong and LI disclose comprising prior to receiving the encrypted service offers (Sundaram Pa. [0090]) [ The lender specific broker 114 may call the encryption service 115 to encrypt the offers], transmitting a public encryption key corresponding to said the private key to the smart contract (Gong Fig. 8-9 Pa. [0018]) [key encryption keys may include a public key that is associated with one or more private keys. The private keys may be associated with attributes]
Thus, it would have been recognized by one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, that applying the known technique taught by Gong to the service offer system of Sundaram would have yield predictable results and resulted in an improved system, namely, a system that would provide data security, and more specifically to attribute-based encryption (Gong pa. [0001)
As to claim 7, claim recite 7 he claimed that contain similar limitations as claim 1; therefore, it is rejected under the same rationale.
As to claim 8, the combination of Sundaram, Gong and LI discloses the service provision method according to comprising selecting a service offer of which an identifier is received by the node based on information relating to the service offer (Sundaram Pa. [0090]) [The lender specific broker 114 may call the encryption service 115
to encrypt the offers in a universal non-lender-specific format, using one of the several protocols described above], of which the identifier is received by the node, stored in the blockchain (Sundaram Pa. [0091]) [wherein offers may be stored securely on a blockchain ledger repository or other central database hosted by the multi-lender architecture as part of the offer repository]
As to claim 11, claim 11 recite he claimed that contain similar limitations as claim 1; therefore, it is rejected under the same rationale.
As to claim 12, claim 12 recite he claimed that contain similar limitations as claim 2; therefore, it is rejected under the same rationale.
As to claim 14, claim 14 recite he claimed that contain similar limitations as claim 1; therefore, it is rejected under the same rationale.
As to claim 15, claim 15 recite he claimed that contain similar limitations as claim 8; therefore, it is rejected under the same rationale.
As to claims 16-17, claims 16-17 recite he claimed that contain similar limitations as claim 1; therefore, they are rejected under the same rationale.
Claims 3-5, 9, 13, 18, 20 are rejected under pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 103(a) as being unpatentable over Sundaram US 20200372576 A1 in view of Gong US 20200145200 A1, of LI US 20210160227 A1; in further view of BAGLIN US 20220210688 A1.
As to claim 3, the combination of Sundaram, Gong and LI fail to teach wherein the method comprises determining a binary vector for comparing service offers, a binary component of the vector for comparing service offers representing a result of a comparison between two service offers.
However, BAGLIN discloses wherein the method comprises determining a binary vector for comparing service offers, a binary component of the vector for comparing service offers representing a result of a comparison between two service offers (BAGLIN Pa. [0018]) [compute a vector of availability of RATs, on the basis of the
comparison between the target Quality of Service and a predicted Quality of Service over a future time window, the availability vector comprising a set of components having a binary value]
Thus, it would have been recognized by one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, that applying the known technique taught by BAGLIN to the service offer system of Sundaram, Gong and LI would have yield predictable results and resulted in an improved system, namely, a system that would provide wireless communication systems and in particular to a device for managing communication between a vehicle and one or more receiver devices (BAGLIN pa. [0001)
As to claim 4, the combination of Sundaram, Gong, LI and BAGLIN disclose wherein the content of the services offers is encrypted using a homomorphic encryption (Gong Fig. 8-9 Pa. [0003]) [the encryption and decryption mechanism described above, access to key encryption keys dictates access to decrypting data], and the binary result of a comparison between two service offers is obtained by testing an equality between a tested service offer and a local extremum determined by comparing the tested service offer with another service offer (BAGLIN Pa. [0018]) [compute a vector of availability of RATs, on the basis of the comparison between the target Quality of Service and a predicted Quality of Service over a future time window, the availability vector comprising a set of components having a binary value]
Thus, it would have been recognized by one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, that applying the known technique taught by BAGLIN to the service offer system of Sundaram, Gong and LI would have yield predictable results and resulted in an improved system, namely, a system that would provide wireless communication systems and in particular to a device for managing communication between a vehicle and one or more receiver devices (BAGLIN pa. [0001)
As to claim 5, the combination of Sundaram, Gong, LI and BAGLIN disclose further comprising: transmitting the comparison binary vector to a device in possession of a homomorphic encryption key by means of which the content of the service offers has been encrypted (BAGLIN Pa. [0018]) [compute a vector of availability of RATs, on the basis of the comparison between the target Quality of Service and a predicted Quality of Service over a future time window, the availability vector comprising a set of components having a binary value], receiving said the decrypted binary vector, and determining the identifier taking into account the decrypted binary vector (Gong Fig. 8-9 Pa. [0017]) [key management system that encrypts and decrypts a data encryption key using key encryption keys that are associated with policies and attributes.]
Thus, it would have been recognized by one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, that applying the known technique taught by BAGLIN to the service offer system of Sundaram, Gong and LI would have yield predictable results and resulted in an improved system, namely, a system that would provide wireless communication systems and in particular to a device for managing communication between a vehicle and one or more receiver devices (BAGLIN pa. [0001)
As to claim 9, the combination of Sundaram, Gong and BAGLIN disclose wherein the selected service offer is the service offer of which an identifier is received by the node having the earliest storing timestamp in the blockchain (BAGLIN pa. [0012) [conveying information between the application server and the piece of mobile vehicle equipment if a Quality of Service estimated over a future time period meets one or more conditions relating to the Quality of Service information]
Thus, it would have been recognized by one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, that applying the known technique taught by BAGLIN to the service offer system of Sundaram, Gong and LI would have yield predictable results and resulted in an improved system, namely, a system that would provide wireless communication systems and in particular to a device for managing communication between a vehicle and one or more receiver devices (BAGLIN pa. [0001)
As to claim 13, claim 13 recite he claimed that contain similar limitations as claim 3; therefore, it is rejected under the same rationale.
As to claim 18, claim 18 recite he claimed that contain similar limitations as claims 3-4; therefore, it is rejected under the same rationale.
As to claim 20, claim 20 recite he claimed that contain similar limitations as claim 9; therefore, it is rejected under the same rationale.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 10 is/are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Conclusion
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.
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/EVANS DESROSIERS/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2491