DETAILED ACTION
Status of Claims
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
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.
This action is in reply to the remarks/arguments for Application 18/707,557 filed on 1 June 2026.
Claims 1-16 have been previously canceled.
Claims 26-32 have been withdrawn/canceled.
Claim 33 has been added.
Claim 17 has been amended.
Claims 17-25 and 33 are currently pending and have been examined.
Response to Arguments
A. Claim Rejections – 35 U.S.C. § 101:
Claims 17-25 and 33 stand rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 101 as being directed to a judicial exception.
Applicant’s remarks/arguments/amendments to the claims at issue are sufficient to overcome the rejection of the claims under 35 U.S.C. § 101 set forth in the previous Office Action. Accordingly, the rejection of the claims under 35 U.S.C. 35 U.S.C. § 101 is withdrawn.
B. Claim Rejections – 35 U.S.C. § 103:
Claims 17-25 stand rejected under U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Trachtenberg et al., US 10,269,323 B2 (“Trachtenberg”), in view of Rice, US 2021/0279695 A1 (“Rice”).
1. Applicant argues that the cited references do not teach or suggest the specific cryptographic operations recited comprising in independent claim 17 comprising:
"access[ing] the NFT market server by generating a login signature according to the at least one piece of key information stored in the cryptocurrency wallet" and
"generat[ing] a purchase transaction comprising a signature according to the at least one piece of key information stored in the cryptocurrency wallet."
Examiner respectfully disagrees. Regarding said references not teaching “specific cryptographic operations” as argued by Applicant, Examiner asserts that the Applicant is reading a limitation into the claims not found in the claim language. Claimed subject matter, not the specification, is the measure of the invention. Disclosure contained in the specification cannot be read into the claims for the purpose of avoiding the prior art (In re Sporck, 55 CCPA 743, 386 F.2d 924, 155 USPQ 687 (1986)).
In this instance, the limitations above merely recite a “login signature” being generated according to “at least one piece of key information” stored in a wallet, as well as a purchase transaction comprising a “[login] signature” according to “at least one piece of key information” stored in a wallet. What said piece of key information that comprises the login signature is not specifically recited or indicated nor are any steps pertaining to a “cryptographic operation” recited in the claim. As such Applicant’s argument is unpersuasive since the element comprising a “login signature”, broadly interpreted, can be any piece of information associated with a wallet (e.g., credential, password, account number, etc.) which is sufficiently disclosed by the cited references.
2. The Office has given consideration to the remarks and amendments made to the pending set of claims, but are considered moot in light of the grounds of rejection, provided below, for the current listing of claims.
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 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 17-25 and 33 are rejected under U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Trachtenberg et al., US 10,269,323 B2 (“Trachtenberg”), in view of Rice, US 2021/0279695 A1 (“Rice”), further in view of Brunk et al., US 2002/0157005 A1 (“Brunk”).
Re Claims 1-16: (Canceled)
Re Claim 17: (Currently Amended) Trachtenberg discloses a television (TV) platform comprising:
a display device comprising a display unit and a speaker; (C3 L39-44: “In preferred embodiments, the invention includes a display device for artwork or the like-including a lightweight 40 digital display with a thin and sleek design, an application ("APP"), which is a program that enables management of digital content displayed on the Display Devices of the present invention …”)
a transceiver configured to establish a communication connection with a non-fungible token (NFT) market server; (C2 L62-65: “The service cloud comprises a server, a memory, and a processor, and further comprises a secure storage system, configured to store and manage digital content to be displayed on the display device, a communication controller configured to communicate with the display device …”)
Regarding the limitation feature comprising:
a memory storage storing a cryptocurrency wallet storing at least one piece of key information related to a cryptocurrency account of a user;
a processor configured to: access the NFT market server by generating a login signature according to the at least one piece of key information stored in the cryptocurrency wallet according to a request by the user;
Rice, however, makes this teaching in a related endeavor ([0060] “rights transfers effected through
VGO selection, purchase, acquisition, alienation or other re-characterization can incorporate crypto-currency tokens and blockchain techniques. One exemplary cryptocurrency, the non-fungible token (NFT) is generally stored in a crypto wallet …”; [0061] “NFTs may be acquired through an NFT marketplace, where a user creates the NFT token and associates it with the referenced item as represented by a photo or image of the referenced item. NFTs are sold through the marketplaces, and may be transferred or sold to another user, in a direct blockchain wallet to wallet transfer or listing on a NFT marketplace”; [0062] “The VGO may be stored in a user's … wallet …”; [0067] “cryptocurrency
may be stored in a crypto wallet. Non-fungible tokens may also be stored in crypto wallets …”; [0122] “… method also includes API calls 806 to authenticate, validate, and assign to a user account”; [0187] “User is at, the application communicates with a master server (login server … )”; [0197] “… remote user, … could login to the system …”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of Rice with the invention of Trachtenberg as disclosed above for the motivation of facilitating the transfer of digital goods acquired in an exchange in a secure manner.
Trachtenberg further discloses:
receive data of pieces of preview artwork corresponding to at least one piece of digital artwork provided by the NFT market server; (C2 L62-65: “The service cloud comprises a server, a memory, and a processor, and further comprises a secure storage system, configured to store and manage digital content to be displayed on the display device, a communication controller configured to communicate with the display device …”)
control the display device to display the pieces of preview artwork; C3 L39-44: “In preferred embodiments, the invention includes a display device for artwork or the like-including a lightweight 40 digital display with a thin and sleek design, an application ("APP"), which is a program that enables management of digital content displayed on the Display Devices of the present invention …”)
based on a selection by the user of a piece of preview artwork of the displayed pieces of preview artwork, (C30 L63-67: Using the split relationship between the App 108 and a Display Device 105, a user can log into his/her own web service account - i.e., social network, media streaming, etc. on the Client Control 107 and direct the output to be displayed on a select Display Device 105 …”)
generate a purchase transaction comprising a signature according to the at least one piece of key information stored in the cryptocurrency wallet, (C40 L2-7: “Under proper commercial arrangement with an external digital media content catalog, a user could browse and purchase a media content item that is not ingested in the Service Cloud and push it to a Display Device in near real-time”; C27 L1-3: “… complete a one-time transaction to purchase content items using payment information linked to the Customer account …”)
transmit the purchase transaction to the NFT market server, (C40 L2-7: “Under proper commercial arrangement with an external digital media content catalog, a user could browse and purchase a media content item that is not ingested in the Service Cloud and push it to a Display Device in near real-time”; C27 L1-3: “… complete a one-time transaction to purchase content items using payment information linked to the Customer account …”)
receive NFT status information of digital artwork corresponding to the selected piece of preview artwork and having transaction details updated based on the purchase transaction. (C24 L12-20: … secure access to user account and profile information; review, monitoring, and management of owned devices; review, monitoring, and control of product subscriptions; browsing and management of purchased digital media content; browsing and management of private user media content; browsing and viewing of media content collections and catalog; purchase or subscription of products or services through a shopping cart including immediate access to a payment gateway …”; C27 L15-17: “user interface provides access to commercial terms and conditions of transactions, transaction history and order status”)
Regarding the limitation(s) comprising:
wherein the piece of preview artwork is generated from corresponding digital artwork by:
limiting at least one of image quality or playback time of the corresponding digital artwork, or inserting a preset mark or image into the corresponding digital artwork such that the piece of preview artwork is distinguishable from the corresponding digital artwork; and
inserting a watermarking mask into an alpha channel of the corresponding digital artwork, the watermarking mask having a red-green-blue (RGB) value which is one bit lower than or higher than an RGB value of the corresponding digital artwork depending on a contrast in each portion of the corresponding digital artwork.
Brunk, however, makes this teaching in a related endeavor (Abstract: “a digital water mark is embedded in the media signal. A metric is calculated for the digital watermark as embedded in the media signal”; [0025] “To embed the pattern, the embedder perceptually adapts the calibration signal to the host image block and adds it to that block … To make the calibration signal less perceptible yet
detectable, the embedder modulates the energy of the calibration signal according to the data hiding attributes ( e.g., local contrast) of the image samples to which it is added”; [0105] “Comparator 36 uses the device information to calibrate its comparison process. For instance, it might be understood that embedded media printed by Printer Z yields a metric that is a predetermined percentage below a metric for the embedded media if printed by Printer Y. The comparator can adjust its comparison to
compensate. Or when metric 20 includes color space information, e.g., spot color information, and comparator 36 (or metric 34) determines that media 30 contains only CMYK (or RGB) colors …”; [0106] “… digital watermark includes a benchmark metric to identify media alterations”; [0086] One way to detect that a detect whether a printed object (e.g., a document, label, ticket, box) has been copied is to embed two watermark signals with different characteristics that change differently in response to reproduction operations such as photocopying, or digital scanning and re-printing … Four approaches are listed in this document, including: [0087] 1. high and low spatial resolution watermarks; [0088] 2. one watermark with a geometrically linear assignment of pixels and another with a random assignment of pixels; [0089] 3. low and high power watermarks; and [0090] 4. one watermark with a standard RGB to HSI-HSI to RGB transform and a second watermark that is biased before being transformed from HSI to RGB”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of Brunk with the invention of Trachtenberg as disclosed above for the motivation of facilitating media authentication in a secure manner – e.g., comparing a computed metric to the embedded metric to detect whether an alteration has occurred.
Re Claim 18: (Previously Presented) Trachtenberg in view of Rice in view of Brunk discloses the TV platform of claim 17. Trachtenberg further discloses:
wherein the processor is further configured to: request, from the NFT market server, information about pieces of digital artwork owned by the user by transmitting the purchase transaction, and, in response to the requesting of the information, receive, from the NFT market server, a list of pieces of digital artwork corresponding to an NFT in which the user is recorded as an owner of the listed pieces of digital artwork. (C24 L38-42: “App 108 is configured to communicate with the service cloud over public or private Internet. In turn the Service Cloud 101 is configured to send requests and content to, and receive information from, the Display Devices 105 of the present invention …”)
Re Claim 19: (Previously Presented) Trachtenberg in view of Rice in view of Brunk discloses the TV platform of claim 18. Trachtenberg further discloses:
wherein the processor is further configured to receive, from the NFT market server, at least one piece of digital artwork corresponding to the received list of pieces of digital artwork, and control the display device to sequentially output the received at least one piece of digital artwork. (C2 L62-65: “The service cloud comprises a server, a memory, and a processor, and further comprises a secure storage system, configured to store and manage digital content to be displayed on the display device, a communication controller configured to communicate with the display device …”)
Re Claim 20: (Previously Presented) Trachtenberg in view of Rice in view of Brunk discloses the TV platform of claim 19. Regarding the limitation feature comprising:
an interface port connectable to an external memory storage comprising a second cryptocurrency wallet, wherein the processor is further configured to read key information stored in the second cryptocurrency wallet for generating the login signature and the purchase transaction signature.
Rice, however, makes this teaching in a related endeavor ([0060] “rights transfers effected through
VGO selection, purchase, acquisition, alienation or other re-characterization can incorporate crypto-currency tokens and blockchain techniques. One exemplary cryptocurrency, the non-fungible token (NFT) is generally stored in a crypto wallet …”; [0061] “NFTs may be acquired through an NFT marketplace, where a user creates the NFT token and associates it with the referenced item as represented by a photo or image of the referenced item. NFTs are sold through the marketplaces, and may be transferred or sold to another user, in a direct blockchain wallet to wallet transfer or listing on a NFT marketplace”; [0062] “The VGO may be stored in a user's … wallet …”; [0067] “cryptocurrency
may be stored in a crypto wallet. Non-fungible tokens may also be stored in crypto wallets …”; [0122] “… method also includes API calls 806 to authenticate, validate, and assign to a user account”; [0187] “User is at, the application communicates with a master server (login server … )”; [0197] “… remote user, … could login to the system …”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of Rice with the invention of Trachtenberg as disclosed above for the motivation of facilitating the transfer of digital goods acquired in an exchange in a secure manner.
Re Claim 21: (Previously Presented) Trachtenberg in view of Rice in view of Brunk discloses the TV platform of claim 17. Trachtenberg further discloses:
wherein, based on the selection of the piece of preview artwork of the displayed pieces of preview artwork, the processor is further configured to request, from the NFT market server, information of a purchase screen for purchasing the digital artwork corresponding to the selected piece of preview artwork and, in response to the request, control the display to display a purchase screen for receiving an input of unique information of the user at a region of the display. (C36 L20-13: “VCRME 1207 also keeps track of all registered Display Devices 105, their relationships to customer accounts and authentication information”)
Re Claim 22: (Previously Presented) Trachtenberg in view of Rice in view of Brunk discloses the TV platform of claim 21. Regarding the limitation feature comprising:
wherein the processor is further configured to identify whether the unique information of the user received via the purchase screen corresponds to a user corresponding to the login signature, and based on a user corresponding to the unique information being identical to the user corresponding to the login signature, generate the purchase transaction and transmit the generated purchase transaction to the NFT market server.
Rice, however, makes this teaching in a related endeavor ([0060] “rights transfers effected through
VGO selection, purchase, acquisition, alienation or other re-characterization can incorporate crypto-currency tokens and blockchain techniques. One exemplary cryptocurrency, the non-fungible token (NFT) is generally stored in a crypto wallet …”; [0061] “NFTs may be acquired through an NFT marketplace, where a user creates the NFT token and associates it with the referenced item as represented by a photo or image of the referenced item. NFTs are sold through the marketplaces, and may be transferred or sold to another user, in a direct blockchain wallet to wallet transfer or listing on a NFT marketplace”; [0062] “The VGO may be stored in a user's … wallet …”; [0067] “cryptocurrency
may be stored in a crypto wallet. Non-fungible tokens may also be stored in crypto wallets …”; [0122] “… method also includes API calls 806 to authenticate, validate, and assign to a user account”; [0187] “User is at, the application communicates with a master server (login server … )”; [0197] “… remote user, … could login to the system …”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of Rice with the invention of Trachtenberg as disclosed above for the motivation of facilitating the transfer of digital goods acquired in an exchange in a secure manner.
Re Claim 23: (Previously Presented) Trachtenberg in view of Rice in view of Brunk discloses the TV platform of claim 22. Trachtenberg further discloses:
a camera configured to obtain an image in one direction of the TV platform through an image sensor, wherein, based on a user identified based on user unique information obtained by the camera being identical to the user corresponding to the login signature, the processor is further configured to generate the purchase transaction and transmit the generated purchase transaction to the NFT market server. (C26 L4-11: “Each Display Device 105 can be linked to a Customer account using its unique identification number. This number is preferably encoded in the image displayed by the device … and … captured by the App 108 through the camera of Client Control 107”; C21 L65-67: “… overlay a synthetic representation of a Display Device 105 on top of the picture captured by the camera in real-time …”)
Re Claim 24: (Previously Presented) Trachtenberg in view of Rice in view of Brunk discloses the TV platform of claim 23. Trachtenberg further discloses:
wherein the user unique information comprises quick response (QR) information displayed on a mobile terminal of the user. (C23 L12-15: “The Mobile App 108 scans the opening pictures displayed on the Display Device 105 or the QR code printed on the packaging to extract the key information necessary …”; C5 L43-45: “FIG. 23 discloses the installation procedure of a display device of the present invention utilizing the client application on a mobile device …”)
Re Claim 25: (Previously Presented) Trachtenberg in view of Rice in view of Brunk discloses the TV platform of claim 17. Trachtenberg further discloses:
wherein the TV platform is a platform implemented as digital signage. (C15 L54-58: “App Images can also be locked in the Display Processor 510 memory 55 during production process or when a user acquires the App Image to create a specialized Display Device 105 that can execute a limited number of Apps ( e.g., digital signage …”))
Re Claims 26-32 : (Withdrawn)
Re Claim 33: (New) Trachtenberg in view of Rice in view of Brunk discloses the TV platform of claim 17. Regarding the limitation comprising:
wherein the watermarking mask has the RGB value that is one bit lower than the RGB value of the digital artwork in a portion where a contrast exceeds a predetermined level, and one bit higher than the RGB value of the digital artwork in a portion where the contrast is below the predetermined level.
Brunk, however, makes this teaching in a related endeavor (Abstract: “a digital water mark is embedded in the media signal. A metric is calculated for the digital watermark as embedded in the media signal”; [0025] “To embed the pattern, the embedder perceptually adapts the calibration signal to the host image block and adds it to that block … To make the calibration signal less perceptible yet
detectable, the embedder modulates the energy of the calibration signal according to the data hiding attributes ( e.g., local contrast) of the image samples to which it is added”; [0105] “Comparator 36 uses the device information to calibrate its comparison process. For instance, it might be understood that embedded media printed by Printer Z yields a metric that is a predetermined percentage below a metric for the embedded media if printed by Printer Y. The comparator can adjust its comparison to
compensate. Or when metric 20 includes color space information, e.g., spot color information, and comparator 36 (or metric 34) determines that media 30 contains only CMYK (or RGB) colors …”; [0106] “… digital watermark includes a benchmark metric to identify media alterations”; [0086] One way to detect that a detect whether a printed object (e.g., a document, label, ticket, box) has been copied is to embed two watermark signals with different characteristics that change differently in response to reproduction operations such as photocopying, or digital scanning and re-printing … Four approaches are listed in this document, including: [0087] 1. high and low spatial resolution watermarks; [0088] 2. one watermark with a geometrically linear assignment of pixels and another with a random assignment of pixels; [0089] 3. low and high power watermarks; and [0090] 4. one watermark with a standard RGB to HSI-HSI to RGB transform and a second watermark that is biased before being transformed from HSI to RGB”). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of Brunk with the invention of Trachtenberg as disclosed above for the motivation of facilitating media authentication in a secure manner – e.g., comparing a computed metric to the embedded metric to detect whether an alteration has occurred.
Conclusion
The prior art(s) made of record and not relied upon is/are considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Williams et al. (US 2021/0133700 A1) discloses a blockchain cross-chain non-fungible token exchange. A system and corresponding method exchange a nonfungible token (NFT) via blockchain cross-chain fungible token transfers. The system comprises first and second blockchains. The first blockchain holds the NFT in a first escrow digital wallet. The NFT is available for trade by a seller and
is associated with a trade value. The first blockchain monitors a balance of fungible tokens, owned by a buyer, that are transferred from a second blockchain to a second escrow digital wallet of the first blockchain. In response to detecting that the balance monitored represents the trade value, the
first blockchain transfers, simultaneously, (i) the NFT from the first escrow digital wallet to a first digital wallet of the first blockchain, the first digital wallet owned by the buyer, and (ii) the balance of fungible tokens from the second escrow digital wallet to a second digital wallet of the second blockchain, the second digital wallet owned by the seller.
Davis et al. (US 2019/0188435 A1) discloses methods and arrangements for identifying objects. A variety of technologies having practical application in retail stores are detailed. One is an improved method of identifying items selected by customers. This method includes receiving sensor data from plural sensors, including (a) ceiling-mounted cameras that monitor tracks of customers through aisles of the store, and (b) inventory sensors that are positioned to monitor removal of stock from store
shelves. This received sensor data is employed in evaluating plural alternate item identification hypotheses. These hypotheses include a first hypothesis that a customer selected an item having a first identity, and a second hypothesis that the customer selected an item having a second identity. A confidence score is associated with each of the first and second item selection hypotheses. These confidence scores are refined as sensor data is received, e.g., increasing a confidence score of one hypothesis, and reducing a confidence score of another. Such refining continues until one of the hypotheses becomes a winner, due to an associated confidence score fulfilling a predetermined criterion (e.g., reaching a threshold value), at which time the item can be added to a tally for that individual. The winning item identification hypothesis may identify a barcoded item, without that item's barcode ever having been read by a barcode reader. A great number of other features and
arrangements are also detailed.
Claims 17-25 and 33 are rejected.
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 extension fee 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 date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Clifford Madamba whose telephone number is 571-270-1239. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon-Thu 7:30-5:00 EST Alternate Fridays.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ryan Donlon, can be reached at 571-272-3602. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/CLIFFORD B MADAMBA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3692
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