DETAILED ACTION
Acknowledgements
This Office Action is in response to Applicant’s correspondence filed on 7/1/24.
The Examiner notes that citations to United States Patent Application Publication paragraphs are formatted as [####], #### representing the paragraph number.
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.
Status of Claims
Claims 1-3 are currently pending.
Claims 1-3 are rejected as set forth below.
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 .
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.
Claim 1 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over United States Patent Application Publication No. 20190028277 to Jayachandran in view of United States Patent Application Publication No. 20200137064 to Wu and United States Patent No. 10789347 to Song.
As per claim 1, Jayachandran teaches:
A personal data reading method comprising: providing, by a user, personal data of the user to a server; encrypting, by the server, the personal data and storing the encrypted personal data in at least one node on a blockchain; ([0020], “In operation, a customer device 112 may enroll 122 to membership services 114 which would receive customer account information and store the information in a profile space of the blockchain. The provider 116 may receive the customer information (KYC) 124 and create a user profile based on a new account, updated account, etc. The information may be encrypted and stored 126 in the blockchain 110. Subsequently, another provider 118 may request consent 128 and receive consent 132 from the customer device 112.”)
delivering, by a company member, a request document containing a request for the personal data to the user; confirming, by the user, the request document; allowing accessing the personal data by the user signing the request document with the private key and transmitting a signed document to the server; obtaining, by the server, the personal data by accessing the node when integrity of the signature is verified through the blockchain; and providing, by the server, the personal data to the company member. ([0035], “The third party may request access to a user/customer profile 312. This request may require a proof of ownership of a credential, which may include a certificate or other credential item. Apart from identifying the requested fields, the request also includes an alternative transactional identity and the proof of owning that identity. The request may be forwarded to the customer device for verification and confirmation 314 and possibly an acceptance 316. The signed consent 318 may be sent as a message to the third party platform 310. The third party 310 may attempt to access the user profile/account information with the granted consent 319. The signed consent 321 may be verified by the blockchain 330. The original provider 340 may be notified 323 of the new access consent granted to the third party.”)
Jayachandran does not explicitly teach, but Wu teaches:
storing a private key and a decentralized identity (DID)- type unique number (“user.id”) for DID-type identity authentication in a user's terminal; ([0072], “More particularly, as shown in FIG. 7, user 704 prepares the user name (e.g. ‘user.id’), the public and private key pair, and the IPNS/IPFS addresses to register himself (step c).”; [0076], “(i) Check whether or not the user.id has been used.”)
storing a DID document in which a public key corresponding to the private key, issuing information (“user.id”), and identification information about a node (“IPFS address”) storing the personal data are recorded on the blockchain; obtaining the personal data by accessing the node based on the identification information about the node; ([0073], “The data to be written in the identity chain 710 thus includes {user.id, public key, IPFS/IPNS addresses}.”; [0062], “The second entry is the IPFS address, pointing to some immutable data. Note that the identity stored on the blockchain and the data stored on the IPFS are both immutable. From the IPFS address in the identity record, the immutable data held by the user is retrieved.”)
One of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that applying the known technique of Wu to the known invention of Jayachandran would have yielded predictable results and resulted in an improved invention. It would have been recognized that the application of the technique would have yielded predictable results because the level of ordinary skill in the art demonstrated by the references applied shows the ability to incorporate such decentralized identity features into a similar invention. Further, it would have been recognized by those of ordinary skill in the art that modifying the invention to include the steps of storing a private key and a decentralized identity (DID)- type unique number for DID-type identity authentication in a user's terminal and storing a DID document in which a public key corresponding to the private key, issuing information, and identification information about a node storing the personal data are recorded on the blockchain, and modifying the step of obtaining the personal data so it is obtained by accessing the node based on the identification information about the node, results in an improved invention because applying said technique ensures that the node that is storing the personal data can be reliably and securely accessed by securing the address of the node in the DID document, thus improving the overall reliability of the invention.
Jayachandran as modified does not explicitly teach, but Song teaches:
an identity-type unique number issued from the server; (col 5 line 64 – col 6 line 2, “For example, if an identity of a user is an identity card number or a unique number allocated by the identification server to the user, it can be agreed that the last four digits of the identity of the user is a group identifier of a user group to which the user belongs.”)
One of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that applying the known technique of Wu to the known invention of Jayachandran as modified would have yielded predictable results and resulted in an improved invention. It would have been recognized that the application of the technique would have yielded predictable results because the level of ordinary skill in the art demonstrated by the references applied shows the ability to incorporate such identity number features into a similar invention. Further, it would have been recognized by those of ordinary skill in the art that modifying the decentralized identity (DID)-type unique number so it is assigned from the server results in an improved invention because applying said technique ensures that the number meets certain formatting standards set by the server, thus improving the overall reliability of the invention.
Claim 2 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over United States Patent Application Publication No. 20190028277 to Jayachandran in view of United States Patent Application Publication No. 20200137064 to Wu and United States Patent No. 10789347 to Song, and further in view of United States Patent Application Publication No. 20170257358 to Ebrahimi.
As per claim 2, Jayachandran as modified does not explicitly teach, but Ebrahimi teaches:
wherein the delivering, by an entity, a request document containing a request for the personal data to the user includes encrypting, by the server, the request document with the public key and delivering the encrypted request document to the user; ([0109]-[0110], “The web server 320 generates a challenge response including the shared-string and a signature of the shared-string. That is, the shared-string created by device 11 of the user 5 is extracted from the challenge envelope, and signed by the web server 320 using its private key. Optionally, the data included in the challenge response may be encrypted using the public key of the user. At operation 730, the challenge response is delivered to the first device 310 of user 5.”)
confirming, by the user, the request document includes decrypting, by the user, the request document with the private key and confirming contents of the request document. ([0111]-[0112], “After scanning, the data contained in the challenge response is optionally decrypted using the private key of the user, if the data was previously encrypted. The shared-string is extracted. In addition, device 11 is configured to verify the signature of the data in the challenge response (e.g., the shared-string).”)
One of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that applying the known technique of Ebrahimi to the known invention of Jayachandran as modified would have yielded predictable results and resulted in an improved invention. It would have been recognized that the application of the technique would have yielded predictable results because the level of ordinary skill in the art demonstrated by the references applied shows the ability to incorporate such request verification features into a similar invention. Further, it would have been recognized by those of ordinary skill in the art that modifying the step of delivering the request document to include encrypting, by the server, the request document with the public key and delivering the encrypted request document to the user, and modifying the step of confirming the request document to include decrypting, by the user, the request document with the private key and confirming contents of the request document results in an improved invention because applying said technique ensures that the validity of the request is verified, thus improving the overall security of the invention.
Claim 3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over United States Patent Application Publication No. 20190028277 to Jayachandran in view of United States Patent Application Publication No. 20200137064 to Wu and United States Patent No. 10789347 to Song, and further in view of WIPO Patent Application Publication No. 2008064065 to Martinez.
As per claim 3, Jayachandran as modified does not explicitly teach, but Martinez teaches:
paying a reward to the user when the company receives the personal data, wherein the reward increases as the number of companies allowed to read, a type of personal data, or the number of readings increases, and is paid to the user in a form of cash or mileage that is convertible to cash. ([00115], “As noted, and with reference back to Figure 10c, methods of compensating the user for allowing data collection 1115 may be based on the amount of data the user allows to be collected and shared 1118. For example, a first tier of compensation may be provided if the user allows the collection and sharing of data at a first level, such as sharing of at least some spatial data category. A second tier of compensation, which may be higher than the first tier of compensation, may be provided if the user allows the collection and sharing of a data at second level, such as allowing the collection of more spatial data, temporal data and/or interaction data, or allowing the sharing of data with more entities (e.g., friends, family, co-workers, business relations, vendors, government entities, and other entities). In turn, third, fourth, and so on, levels of compensation may be provided for the collection and sharing of even greater amounts of data or the sharing of data with more entities.”)
One of ordinary skill in the art would have recognized that applying the known technique of Martinez to the known invention of Jayachandran as modified would have yielded predictable results and resulted in an improved invention. It would have been recognized that the application of the technique would have yielded predictable results because the level of ordinary skill in the art demonstrated by the references applied shows the ability to incorporate such data compensation features into a similar invention. Further, it would have been recognized by those of ordinary skill in the art that modifying the invention to include the step of paying a reward to the user when the company receives the personal data, wherein the reward increases as the number of companies allowed to read, a type of personal data, or the number of readings increases, and is paid to the user in a form of cash or mileage that is convertible to cash, results in an improved invention because applying said technique ensures that the user is fairly compensated for, thus improving the overall user engagement of the invention.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
United States Patent Application Publication No. 20210365574 to Blaikie discloses a system, method, and platform for monetizing data. A selection is received from a user to monetize a data object associated with the user. Data associated with the data object is compiled. A security token is generated referencing the data. The data object is monetized utilizing the security token in accordance with the selection.
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/JAY HUANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3619
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