Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 03/23/2026 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
35 U.S.C 103
Applicant’s arguments filed with respect to the rejection(s) of claims 1-20 under U.S.C 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However upon further consideration and in light of Applicant’s amendments, new grounds of rejection are made in view of Madisetti (U.S Pub # 20180300382).
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.
Claims 1-5, 8-12, 15-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Scrivner (U.S Pub # 20210004297) in view Jevans (U.S Pub # 20220092587) and in further view of Madisetti (U.S Pub # 20180300382).
With regards to claim 1, Scrivner discloses a device, comprising: one or more processors configured to:
maintain a set of backup parameters associated with a blockchain that is maintained by a plurality of nodes of a blockchain network, wherein the set of backup parameters is associated with a first time, wherein the set of backup parameters include ([0027, 0072] blockchain network can include a snapshotting system and a node discovery system.):
first node configuration information of one or more nodes of the plurality of nodes at the first time, wherein the first node configuration information indicates a first version of blockchain operational information used by the one or more nodes to maintain the blockchain ([0133] snapshot can be associated with a given node configuration or blockchain network), and
first blockchain state information at the first time ([0072] snapshotting system keeps the state of each blockchain node);
identify, at a second time that is later than the first time, that the blockchain should be restored using the set of backup parameters associated with the first time ([0143] snapshot can be used to restore a failed blockchain node, or deploy a new blockchain ).
Scrivner does not disclose however Jevans discloses:
output, to the blockchain network, a restoration instruction that indicates the set of backup parameters associated with the first time, wherein based on the restoration instruction, each respective node of the plurality of nodes of the blockchain network replaces:
second blockchain state information of the respective node, associated with the second time, with the first blockchain state information associated with the first time ([0054] all nodes can roll-back to the latest agreed secure state of the blockchain).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the date the current invention was effectively filed to have modified Scrivner by Jevans to restore every node of a blockchain to a previous state.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to provide a consensus message to the plurality of entities to roll back the blockchain to a last secure state (Jevans [0021]).
Scrivner does not disclose however Madisetti discloses:
second node configuration information of the respective node, associated with the second time, with the first node configuration information associated with the first time ([0132] update to tuning parameters and previous tuning parameters), and
wherein replacing the second node configuration information includes replacing a second version of blockchain operational information, used by the respective node to maintain the blockchain at the second time, with the first version of blockchain operational information ([0131-132] If there exist timeouts or some other problems (message losses or network fragmentation/node failures) with implementation of the tuning update, the system can rollback to previous parameters sets that were check-pointed or stored. To rollback an announcement or update to tuning parameters, a supervisor can issue a RollbackTuningAnnouncement 406 which contains a Message ID 434, the number of the announcement message 436, which is rolled back, and the issuing supervisor node address which will then be propagated through the network).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the date the current invention was effectively filed to have modified Scrivner and Jevans by Madisetti to revert back to a previous configuration of a blockchain.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to use specific protocols for communication of tuning parameters in a secure, fault-tolerant and consistent manner that allows checkpointing and rollback (Madisetti [0029]).
Claims 8 and 15 correspond to claim 1 and are rejected accordingly.
With regards to claim 2, Scrivner further discloses:
wherein the first blockchain state information includes a plurality of records that have been recorded to the blockchain prior to the first time ([0122] record states).
Claims 9 and 16 correspond to claim 2 and are rejected accordingly.
With regards to claim 3, Scrivner further discloses:
wherein the second blockchain state information includes the plurality of records and at least one record that has been recorded to the blockchain after the first time ([0122] incremental chain state backups generated by using a same blockchain node).
Claims 10 and 17 correspond to claim 3 and are rejected accordingly.
With regards to claim 4, Scrivner further discloses:
wherein the first time is denoted by a first quantity of records that have been recorded to the blockchain prior to the first time, and wherein the second time is denoted by a second quantity of records that have been recorded to the blockchain prior to the second time, wherein the second quantity is greater than the first quantity ([0122] a snapshot can be synthetically generated by combining the chain state backups for a given node).
Claims 11 and 16 correspond to claim 4 and are rejected accordingly.
With regards to claim 5, Scrivner further discloses:
a first type of node configuration information associated with a first type of node of the plurality of types of nodes, and a second type of node configuration information associated with a second type of node of the plurality of types of nodes ([0035] support new types of nodes by updating configuration).
Claim 12 corresponds to claim 5 and is rejected accordingly.
Claims 6, 13, 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Scrivner (U.S Pub # 20210004297) in view of Jevans (U.S Pub # 20220092587) and in further view of Madisetti (U.S Pub # 20180300382) and Luedtke (U.S Pub # 20220156249).
With regards to claim 6, Scrivner does not disclose however Luedtke discloses:
wherein the first type of node includes a peer node, and wherein the second type of node includes an ordering node ([0347] peer and/or ordering nodes).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the date the current invention was effectively filed to have modified Scrivner, Jevans and Madisetti by Luedtke to utilize a blockchain that consists of different nodes.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to navigate nodes representing various entities (Luedtke [0329]).
Claims 13 and 19 correspond to claim 6 and are rejected accordingly.
Claims 7, 14, 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Scrivner (U.S Pub # 20210004297) in view of Jevans (U.S Pub # 20220092587) and in further view of Madisetti (U.S Pub # 20180300382) and Baek (U.S Pub # 20250193012).
With regards to claim 7, Scrivner does not disclose however Baek discloses:
wherein the blockchain network participates in a consensus mechanism to determine whether to perform a restoration operation based on the restoration instruction, wherein replacing the second node configuration information and the second blockchain state information is performed in response to determining, based on the consensus mechanism, that the restoration operation should be performed ([0039] consensus algorithm may restore damaged nodes).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the date the current invention was effectively filed to have Scrivner, Jevans and Madisetti by Baek to use a consensus algorithm to determine restoration of a blockchain node.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make this modification in order to audit for forgery and restore original ledger information by using a plurality of audit committees having different proof algorithms (Baek [0006]).
Claims 14 and 20 correspond to claim 7 and are rejected accordingly.
Conclusion
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/TONY WU/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2166
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