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 .
Status of Application
This is a final action in response to amended claims and Remarks submitted on October 21, 2025 relating to U.S. Patent Application 18/766,121, filed on July 8, 2024 which claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application 63/525,486, filed on July 7, 2023. Claims 1, 7-11, 14 and 20 have been amended. Claims 13 and 19 have been cancelled. Claims 1-12, 14-18 and 20 are pending and have been examined.
Response to Arguments
The Remarks submitted by Applicant on October 21, 2025 have been fully considered.
With respect to the Claim Objections, Applicant has amended dependent Claims 7-11, however, has not completely corrected the informalities. The Claim Objections are maintained.
With respect to the Section 101 Rejection, Applicant has amended independent Claims 1, 14 and 20 and asserts, citing to McRO for support, that they are directed to a specific improvement in distributed computer systems and not an abstract idea, mental process, or method of organizing human activity in that they recite a concrete technological mechanism implemented by smart contracts to automatically monitor cross-chain inventories and dynamically adjust bridge transaction fees in accordance with those inventories to incentivize users to withdraw from higher inventory host blockchains over lower inventory host blockchains. (Remarks, pp. 11-12). Examiner respectfully disagrees. The claims recite an abstract idea. The additional elements are recited at a high level of generality and are used as tools to implement the abstract idea. They do not provide a technical improvement such as an improvement to the functioning of a computer or to technology. They do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. (See Section 101 Rejection below). The Section 101 Rejection is maintained.
With respect to the Section 103 Rejection, pursuant to the agreement reached in the Interview with Applicant and Examiners on October 15, 2025, Applicant has included the subject matter from original Claim 13 into amended independent Claims 1, 14 and 20 in order to overcome the 103 rejection. The Section 103 Rejection is withdrawn.
Claim Objections
Amended dependent Claims 7-11 are objected to because of the following informalities: Each of the claims recites, in pertinent part, “The computer-implemented method of claims 1.” This appears to be an error insofar as each of the claims should recite, as all of the other dependent claims do: “The computer-implemented method of claim 1.”
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. § 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-12, 14-18 and 20 are rejected pursuant to 35 USC § 101 because the claimed invention is directed to an abstract idea without significantly more.
Step 1 - Statutory Class
Claims 1-12 and 15-18 are directed to a method. Claim 14 is directed to a system. Claim 20 is directed to a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium. Therefore, on its face, each of the claims is directed to a statutory class of invention.
Step 2A, Prong 1 – Abstract Idea
Claim 14 recites initiating a transaction for a user in a network, generating a message including at least a host symbol and host identification (ID), transmitting the message to a target, mapping the host symbol to a symbol that is shared across the network; updating a first balance in the host based on the message; updating a second balance the target by an amount based on the transaction; tracking balances of assets across the network; and adjusting, based on the tracked balances, a bridge transaction fee for the host based on a current inventory of shared tokens, the adjusting further comprising: reducing the bridge transaction fee for hosts having a highest inventory of the shared token, incentivizing users to withdraw the shared token to the host having the highest inventory of the shared token; and increasing the bridge transaction fee for the hosts having a lower inventory of the shared token, de-incentivizing users to withdraw the shared token to the hosts having the lower inventory of the shared token. The abstract idea recited in Claim 14 involves performing a transaction for a user between a host and a target in a network which constitutes commercial interactions falling under “Certain Methods of Organizing Human Activity” enumerated in MPEP 2106. The abstract elements recited in Claims 1 and 20 constitute the same abstract idea.
Step 2A, Prong 2 – Practical Application
Claim 14 recites one or more processors, a memory comprising instructions stored thereon, a host blockchain, a network, first smart contracts, a bridge, a target blockchain, second smart contracts and an inventory manager smart contract. The additional elements are recited at a high level of generality and are used as tools to implement the abstract idea. They do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application. They do not provide a technical improvement such as an improvement to the functioning of a computer or to technology because they only manipulate financial data. The claims do not invoke a particular machine as our guidance is clear that a generic computer is not the particular machine envisioned, they do not transform matter as they only manipulate data which is not matter.
Step 2B – Significantly more
As set forth in the discussion in Step 2A, Prong 2, above, the additional elements are recited at a high level of generality and are used as tools to implement the abstract idea. They do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or add significantly more to the abstract idea.
Dependent claims
Claim 2 (details of the transaction including at least a host symbol and host chain identification (ID), mapping the host symbol to a symbol that is shared across host blockchains in a network), Claim 3 (the transaction is at least one of a token deposit or a token withdrawal), Claim 4 (automatically filling a crypto wallet associated with the user with a gas token of the target blockchain when gas tokens in the crypto wallet drop below a predetermined threshold), Claim 5 (swapping the host blockchain asset stock for an amount of gas tokens to auto-fill a crypto wallet associated with the user when gas tokens in the crypto wallet drop below a predetermined threshold; and updating the second balance for the user in the second smart contracts of the target blockchain based on the swapping), Claim 6 (initiating the transaction in the host blockchain comprises: locking a token in the host blockchain when the transaction is for a token deposit, and unlocking the token in the host blockchain when the transaction is for a token withdrawal), Claim 7 (the details of the transaction included in the message comprise a nonce, a transaction type, a user address, a token symbol, the token amount, a quantity, a block timestamp of the token deposit or withdrawal, and custom data), Claim 8 (receiving, using the bridge, the message from the first smart contracts at the second smart contracts, wherein the bridge is a third-party bridge application), Claim 9 (ensuring that the first smart contracts and the second smart contracts only send and accept messages to each other), Claim 10 (providing a unique nonce to each message transmitted between the host blockchain and the target blockchain), Claim 11 (ensuring that messages between the host blockchain and the target blockchain are not altered by the bridge during transmission), Claim 12 (updating a list of blockchain assets of the user including an associated symbol and a host blockchain for each blockchain asset, wherein blockchain assets sharing the same symbol are treated as a single asset), Claim 15 (the transaction is at least one of a token deposit or a token withdrawal, and the message includes details of the transaction, the details of the transaction comprising a nonce, a transaction type, a user address, a token symbol, the token amount, a quantity, a block timestamp of the token deposit or withdrawal, and custom data), Claim 16 (automatically filling a crypto wallet associated with the user with a gas token of the target blockchain when gas tokens in the crypto wallet drop below a predetermined threshold), Claim 17 (swapping the host blockchain asset stock for an amount of gas tokens to auto-fill a crypto wallet associated with the user when gas tokens in the crypto wallet drop below a predetermined threshold; and updating the second balance for the user in the second smart contracts of the target blockchain based on the swapping) and Claim 18 (initiating the transaction in the host blockchain comprises: locking a token in the host blockchain when the transaction is for a token deposit, and unlocking the token in the host blockchain when the transaction is for a token withdrawal) further define and merely add specificity to the abstract idea. The dependent claims fail to add significantly more to the abstract idea.
As such, Claims 1-12, 14-18 and 20 are not patent eligible.
Conclusion
THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. 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 GEORGE PROIOS whose telephone number is (571)272-4573. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8-5.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Bennett M Sigmond can be reached at 303-297-4411. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/GEORGE N. PROIOS/Examiner, Art Unit 3694
/BENNETT M SIGMOND/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3694