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 .
The text of those sections of Title 35 U.S.C not included in this section can be found in the prior office action.
The prior office actions are incorporated herein by reference. In particular, the observations with respect to claim language, and response to previously presented arguments.
Claims 1, 15, 33 and 34 have been amended.
No new claims have been added.
No claims have been cancelled.
Claims 1-15, 33 and 34 are pending.
Information Disclosure Statement
The Information Disclosure Statement (IDS) submitted on 03/02/2026 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the IDS statement has been considered by the Examiner.
Response to Arguments
Regarding claims 1 and 33, Applicant’s arguments in view of amendment into the claims are persuasive. The rejection of claims is withdrawn.
With regards to claim 15, Applicant argues “Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Trock in view of DAVIES JACK et al. WO 2020240296 (hereinafter Davies) and further in view of Mackay. Claim 15 depends from an allowable base claim and is therefore allowable at least pursuant to the chain of dependency.”
Examiner respectfully disagrees and asserts that claim 15 is an independent claim. Applicant’s argument is mute in view of new ground of rejection.
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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 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 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over TROCK STANISLAV WO 2022022864 (hereinafter TROCK) in view of BRODY; Paul Richard et al. US 20200034457 (hereinafter BRODY) in view of DAVIES JACK et al. WO 2020240296 (hereinafter DAVIES) and further in view of DAVIS; Steven C. US 20220286275 (hereinafter DAVIS).
As per claim 15, TROCK teaches: A computer-implemented method of implementing a token protocol using a blockchain, wherein the method is performed by a second party and comprises: obtaining a first blockchain transaction, the first blockchain transaction comprising a first output comprising a first locking script, the first locking script comprising token data ("A computer-implemented method of sending digital tokens using blockchain transactions, wherein each token is represented by a single unit of an underlying digital asset native units of the blockchain, and wherein the method comprises: generating a first token transaction; and transmitting the first token transaction to the blockchain network, wherein the first token transaction comprises a first token output, the first token output comprising a first token locking script and a first token amount," TROCK: page 42, lines 1-4);
TROCK does not teach; however, BRODY discloses: corresponding to a token, wherein the token comprises a digital asset that represents ownership of a real-world asset (“In some implementations, the determining the past owner and/or the past location of the smart contract is performed iteratively, for example to “track” a property of the tangible asset through a series of past owners and/or past locations that indicate a history of the property of the tangible asset. The property being tracked can be, for example, an ownership, a configuration, a size, a location, a condition, a remaining shelf life, an associated value, or any other mutable attribute.” BRODY: para. 47).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify TROCK with the teaching of BRODY to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied to enhance the utility of the method.
The combination of TROCK and BRODY and DAVIES does not teach; however, DAVIES discloses: constructing a transaction Merkle tree, wherein a plurality of respective leaves of the transaction Merkle tree are formed from one or more fields of the first blockchain transaction ("identifying a set of data fields of the target transaction, each data field comprising respective data of the transaction; and generating a transaction hash tree, wherein the transaction hash tree comprises: i) a leaf layer comprising a plurality of leaf hashes, wherein each data field is hashed to generate a respective one of the plurality of leaf hashes, ii)" DAVIES: page. 3 lines 28-32);
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of TROCK and BRODY with the teaching of DAVIES to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied to use blockchain as a data structure to efficiently summarize all transactions information.
The combination of TROCK, BRODY and DAVIES does not teach; however, DAVIS discloses: generating a first signature based on a first message comprising a Merkle root of the Merkle tree ("The proposal message may then be transmitted by the generating device to the next device, such as from the sender device 102 to the receiver device 104. The receiver device 104 may validate the transaction values and network identifiers to ensure that the transactions are correct and were as agreed upon, such as to ensure that the assets being transferred are in the proper amounts. If the receiver device 104 (e.g., or sender device 102, as applicable) is satisfied with the transaction values and network identifiers, then the receiver device 104 may generate their own digital signature for the proposal message. The digital signature may be generated using the same data as was used by the sender device 102 in the first digital signature that was generated for the proposal message (e.g., the root of a Merkle tree generated using the transaction values and network identifiers). The receiver device 104 may then encrypt its digital signature using the swap public key (e.g., retrieved from the received proposal message) and its own private key (e.g., as determined according to any applicable rules, as discussed above). The encrypted digital signature of the receiver device 104 may be added to the proposal message in a predetermined manner, such as appended to the end of the proposal message after the sender device's encrypted digital signature. " DAVIS: para. 29. Also, see para. 51).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of TROCK, BRODY and DAVIES with the teaching of DAVIS to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied to validate the transactions.
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GHODRAT JAMSHIDI whose telephone number is (571)270-1956. The examiner can normally be reached 10:00-6:00.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Carl Colin can be reached at 5712723862. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/GHODRAT JAMSHIDI/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2493
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