DETAILED ACTION
1. The present application, filed on or after March 13, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
This is a CONTINUATION application which claims priority to the parent Application, U.S. Patent Application No. 17/695,755, now U.S. Patent No. 12,051,066.
Response to Amendment
2.. An RCE with accompanying amendment was filed May 18, 2026 (hereinafter “Amendment”) and has been entered into the record and fully considered. The Amendment was filed in response to a Final Rejection dated February 20, 2026.
Despite the Amendment to the Claims and Applicant’s remarks, the Rejections under §101 and §103 as set forth in the Final Rejection are hereby maintained on the same grounds.
An explanation of the maintained Rejections and a response to Applicant’s arguments are set forth below. Please see the “Conclusion” section of this Action below for important information regarding responding to this Action.
INTERVIEWS: While the previous interview was helpful in advancing prosecution, significant issues remain under both 101 and 103. That said, the Office notes that the suggestion to direct the Claims more toward paragraphs 0041-0043 does not appear to have been followed in the Amendment. Rather, it appears that dependent claims were cancelled and rolled up into their respective independent claims, a practice which does not advance prosecution in a material way.
Nevertheless, another follow up interview is welcome in order to attempt to shorten prosecution.
Please use the AIR form link found in the Conclusion section of this Action to schedule an interview.
Status of the Claims:
Claims 1 – 2, 4 – 6, 8 – 13, and 15 – 19 are pending in this Application.
Claims 3, 7, 14, and 20 have been cancelled.
The independent Claims are each similar in structure and scope and were amended in virtually an identical fashion.
The dependent Claims were not amended.
Features of cancelled Claims 7, 14, and 20 were incorporated into their respective independent Claims, namely Claim 1, Claim 8, and Claim 15.
Accordingly, the following explanation of the maintained rejections with respect to Claim 1 is considered explanatory of the Rejection as a whole.
With regard to the Amendment:
Claim 1 was amended as follows:
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Summary of the Amendment and Broadest Reasonable Interpretation:
Claim terminology is to be given its plain and ordinary meaning to a person of ordinary skill in the art, consistent with the specification. This is true, unless the terms are given a special meaning. See MPEP §2111.01
Here, no special meaning is detected. The Amendment seems to focus on “contextual data” or “contextual information” for the transaction and the comparison of this data or information to similar or related “historical” data. Thus, it seems clear from the specification that “contextual” information merely relates to certain common features or attributes of the transaction. Thus, the specification reads as follows:
“[0018] Examples of the disclosed technology may be utilized to improve the accuracy with which digital assets are transferred within blockchain networks. A machine learning model 230 is trained based on public blockchain data and external source data and used to analyze transaction context data for proposed transactions to generate confidence scores indicative of a validity of the destination blockchain address with respect to the proposed transaction. For example, if amounts and/or types of purchases associated with the destination blockchain address in historical transaction pattern data do not sufficiently correlate with the amount and/or type of purchase indicated in the transaction context data for a proposed transaction, then the confidence score for the proposed transaction that is generated based on the application of the machine learning model 230 may be relatively low.” (Emphasis Added)
See also 0044.
Therefore, no special meaning should be given to “contextual” information or data nor to its comparison with historical data of a correlated type. Rather, this term “context” or “contextual” is associated with transaction attributes, as explained above.
With regard to §101:
Respectfully, the amendments to the Claim are recited at a very high level. “Contextual” information such as the purpose of a transaction, a category, or the identity of the recipient are extremely common attributes of any financial transaction. The comparison of this data to previous transactions associated with the parties is precisely how fraud analyses are carried out.
These are high level, conceptual ideas which are very common and generic. The Claim has not advanced toward eligibility by reciting – with specificity - “how” the blockchain address is verified. How does the blockchain determine the “purpose” of the transaction or its “category.” What is meant by the latter term? Where and “how” are the historical data obtained for comparison? How is the comparison carried out? What kind of comparing or matching algorithms are used? As to the second portion of the analysis, in (ii), “how” does the system determine if there is sufficient data? What metric(s) are used?
Thus, Claim lacks the specificity required to integrate a practical application into the abstract idea of fraud detection in terms of blockchain addresses. The Claim lacks these details to help it rise above an “apply it” situation.
Respectfully, the Amendment does advance prosecution but not substantially.
Thus, the amendments to the Claim do not alter the analysis set for the Final Rejection regarding §101. The Claim merely recites a series of common computerized functions. These limitations are recited at a very high level of generality.
The Claim provides no specificity in terms of how this is accomplished or what algorithms are used or whether they are special or used or applied in any special way. Only the mere outcome or result of a confidence score being generated and the transaction being recorded on the blockchain is recited. These are common processes. No special functionality is recited. No new computerized components are recited.
The limitations are recited without specifying “how” a technical problem is solved. That is, the solution of a technical problem is not reflected in the Claim.
Taking the claim elements separately, the function performed by the computer elements at each step of the process is purely typical of processing identifiers for authentication purposes. Without greater specificity as to “how” certain functions solve a technical problem, the currently recited limitations can be achieved by any general purpose computer without special programming. In short, each step does no more than require a generic computer to perform generic computer functions. Considered as an ordered combination, the computer components of the Claim add nothing that is not already present when the steps are considered separately.
Claim 1 does not, for example, purport to improve the functioning of the computer elements nor does the claim reflect how an improvement in any other technology or technical field is achieved. Thus, Claim 1 amounts to nothing significantly more than instructions to “apply” the abstract idea of generating an AI chatbot to provide an estimate of a home for the purpose of some insurance product using some unspecified, generic algorithm and computer components. Such is not sufficient to integrate a practical application in the abstract idea.
Accordingly, the Rejection is maintained.
A follow up interview is encouraged.
With regard to §103:
Despite the Amendment, the same grounds of Rejection is maintained:
The Claims stand are rejected under 35 U.S.C. §103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Publication No. 2022/0414664 to Liu et al. (hereinafter “Liu) in view of U.S. Patent Publication No. 2020/0184479 to Benkreira et al. (hereinafter “Benkreira”) and further in view of U.S. Patent Publication No. 2023/0118380 to Krosinski (hereinafter “Krosinski”).
The primary reference to Liu contains ample teaching of transaction context and comparison to historical contextual information. Section 0142 contains teachings with respect to context or actions taken in view of a particular transaction. Sections 0037 – 0039 contain teachings related to the type of transaction (namely, the type and/or name of cryptocurrency, an amount, time of transaction, and an address. Even the teaching of a type of currency represents a teaching of contextual data. Given that Liu uses a graph structure to verify network addresses, the nodes and edges represent transaction “context” as well.
As one would expect, Liu teaches the comparison of this type of data with related historical data, as explained in 0034, 0069. and 0143. Sections 0193 and 0196 teach the comparison of contextual information with past transaction behavior to verify identity.
Thus, despite the Amendment, the Claims remain obvious in view of the combination of 3 references cited above and previously applied.
Response to Arguments
3. Applicant's arguments set forth in the Remarks section of the Amendment have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
With regard to section 101 rejection, Applicant argues as follows:
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The Office respectfully disagrees. The specific “architecture” is only recited at a high level. While an oracle is recited, it is not clear what the oracle does – whether on chain or off chain – and/or how it interacts with the smart contract or the machine learning model. There is no specificity as to how the ML model is trained. While moving slowly in the right direction, the Claim sadly still lacks the specificity required for eligibility.
With regard to 103, Applicant’s argues as follows:
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Who is to say exactly what is or isn’t an “accuracy metric or threshold?” The claim does not specify. Furthermore, Krosinski teaches the use of a “metric” throughout (see at least 0015 – 0019) and an identity metric at 0023.
Applicant’s arguments relative to “contextual” information or data are addressed in detail above. Liu does not have to use the word “comparison” in order to convey to a person of ordinary skill in the art that a comparison – or a similar form of address verification and analysis – is taking place. For example, Liu teaches as follows:
“[0196] A blockchain network may operate according to a set of rules. The rules may specify conditions under which a node may accept a transaction, a type of transaction that a node may accept, a type of compensation that a node receives for accepting and processing a transaction, etc. For example, a node may accept a transaction based on a transaction history, reputation, computational resources, relationships with service providers, etc. The rules may specify conditions for broadcasting a transaction to a node. For example, a transaction may be broadcast to one or more specific nodes based on criteria related to the node's geography, history, reputation, market conditions, docket/delay, technology platform. The rules may be dynamically modified or updated (e.g. turned on or off) to address issues such as latency, scalability and security conditions. A transaction may be broadcast to a subset of nodes as a form of compensation to entities associated with those nodes (e.g., through receipt of compensation for adding a block of one or more transactions to a blockchain).” (Emphasis Added)
The “rules” and “conditions” taught by Liu are clearly tantamount to the recited term “comparison.”
Therefore, the Rejections must be maintained.
Conclusion
4. Applicant should carefully consider the following in connection with this Office Action:
A. Search and Prior Art
The search conducted in connection with this Office Action, as well as any previous Actions, encompassed the inventive concepts as defined in the Applicant’s specification. That is, the search(es) included concepts and features which are defined by the pending claims but also pertinent to significant although unclaimed subject matter. Accordingly, such search(es) were directed to the defined invention as well as the general state of the art, including references which are in the same field of endeavor as the present application as well as related fields ((e.g. machine learning to detect fraud in connection with blockchain addresses involving cryptocurrency transactions). Indeed, there is a plethora of prior art in these fields.
Therefore, in addition to prior art references cited and applied in connection with this and any previous Office Actions, the following prior art is also made of record but not relied upon in the current rejection:
U.S. Patent Publication No. 2021/0126794 to Forrester et al. This reference relates to the concept of verifying blockchain addresses.
U.S. Patent Publication No. 2019/0370813 to Bravick et al. This reference relates to the concept of trust scores for blockchain addresses.
U.S. Patent Publication No. 2020/0027089 to Kuchar et al. This reference relates to the concept of a trust score based on blockchain data.
U.S. Patent Publication No. 2021/0192526 to Kuchar et al. This reference relates to the concept of using a graph data structure to detect fraud in blockchain transactions.
B. Responding to this Office Action
In view of the foregoing explanation of the scope of searches conducted in connection with the examination of this application, in preparing any response to this Action, Applicant is encouraged to carefully review the entire disclosures of the above-cited, unapplied references, as well as any previously cited references. It is likely that one or more such references disclose or suggest features which Applicant may seek to claim. Moreover, for the same reasons, Applicant is encouraged to review the entire disclosures of the references applied in the foregoing rejections and not just the sections mentioned.
C. Interviews and Compact Prosecution
The Office strongly encourages interviews as an important aspect of compact prosecution. Statistics and studies have shown that prosecution can be greatly advanced by way of interviews. Indeed, in many instances, during the course of one or more interviews, the Examiner and Applicant may reach an agreement on eligible and allowable subject matter that is supported by the specification.
Interviews are especially welcomed by this examiner at any stage of the prosecution process. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool (e.g. TEAMS). To facilitate the scheduling of an interview, the Examiner requests the use of the AIR form as follows:
USPTO Automated Interview Request http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
Other forms of interview requests filed in this application may result in a delay in scheduling the interview because of the time required to appear on the Examiner's docket. Thus, the use of the AIR form is strongly encouraged.
D. Communicating with the Office
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WILLIAM BUNKER whose telephone number is (571)272-0017. The examiner can normally be reached on M - F 8:30AM - 5:30PM, Pacific.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Abhishek Vyas, can be reached at 571-270-1836. Information regarding the status of an application, whether published or unpublished, may be obtained from the “Patent Center” system. For more information about the Patent Center system, see https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/
/William (Bill) Bunker/
U.S. Patent Examiner
AU 3691
(571) 272-0017 - office
william.bunker@uspto.gov
May 30, 2026
/ABHISHEK VYAS/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3691
Prosecution Insights