DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
The present application is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Applicant(s) Response to Office Action
The response filed on 12/31/2025 has been entered and made of record.
Response to Amendment/Remarks
Claims 1-3, 5-6, 10-11, 16-17, and 19-20 have been amended. Claims 1-20 remain pending in the application.
Applicant's remarks and/or amendments to claims have overcome each and every claim objection and rejection under 35 USC 102 previously set forth.
Examiner thanks applicant for their thoughtful remarks which have been fully considered. Applicant’s remarks are moot in light of new grounds of rejection necessitated by applicant’s amendments. Applicant makes no specific remarks regarding the previously recited teachings of the dependent claims.
Examiner’s Note – Allowable Subject Matter
Claim 8 overcomes the prior art and would otherwise be allowable if incorporated into the base claim along with any intervening 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 for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102 of this title, 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(s) 1-2, 5-7, 9-11, 14, 16-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Grover (US 2022/0366088 A1) in view of LeCalvez (US 2021/0342825 A1).
Regarding claims 1, 16, and 20, Grover teaches:
“A system comprising: a microprocessor (Grover, ¶ 11-12 and 04 teaches implementation with a processor, memory and medium); and a computer readable medium, coupled with the microprocessor and comprising microprocessor readable and executable instructions that, when executed by the microprocessor (Grover, ¶ 11-12 and 04 teaches implementation with a processor, memory and medium), cause the microprocessor to: monitor, using a monitoring artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm, activity of a blockchain in a distributed ledger to identify an anomalous behavior in the distributed ledger (Grover, Fig. 1, ¶ 75-77 and 97 teaches monitoring blockchains using a machine learning model to detect anomalous transactions. Grover, ¶ 56-58 teaches real-time detection. Grover, ¶ 70-74 and 80, teaches using the blockchain auditor to detect voting consensus attack. Grover, Fig. 1, ¶ 75-77 teaches monitoring blockchains using a machine learning model to detect an anomalous delete where previously it was read/write transactions. Grover, ¶ 83-84 teaches looking patterns in the timing of votes to determine anomalous nodes within the network);
Grover does not, but in related art, LeCalvez teaches:
“wherein the anomalous behavior of the distributed ledger comprises one or more of: a denial-of-service attack on the mempool of the distributed ledger (LeCalvez, Fig. 9, ¶ 107 teaches determining a network attack on the blockchain resulting a multi month wait for a transaction being added to a block, effectively a denial of service, by detecting a sudden increase in unconfirmed transactions in the mempool)”.
Before applicant’s earliest effective filing it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Grover and LeCalvez, to modify the blockchain anomaly detection system of Grover to include the method to detect mempool DoS attacks as taught in LeCalvez. The motivation to do so constitutes applying a known technique to known devices and/or methods ready for improvement to yield predictable results.
Regarding claims 2 and 17, Grover in view of LeCalvez teaches:
“The system of claim 1 (Grover in view of LeCalvez teaches the limitations of the parent claims as discussed above), wherein the anomalous behavior of the distributed ledger comprises an anomalous consensus vote of the distributed ledger (Grover, ¶ 70-74 and 80, teaches using the blockchain auditor to detect voting consensus attack)”.
Regarding claim 5, Grover in view of LeCalvez teaches:
“The system of claim 1 (Grover in view of LeCalvez teaches the limitations of the parent claims as discussed above) wherein the anomalous behavior of the distributed ledger comprises the anomalous activity of the mempool of the distributed ledger (LeCalvez, Fig. 9, ¶ 107 teaches determining a network attack on the blockchain resulting a multi month wait for a transaction being added to a block, effectively a denial of service, by detecting a sudden increase in unconfirmed transactions in the mempool)”.
Regarding claim 6, Grover in view of LeCalvez teaches:
“The system of claim 5 (Grover in view of LeCalvez teaches the limitations of the parent claims as discussed above), wherein the anomalous activity of the mempool of the distributed ledger is an anomalous activity of at least one of: a type of transaction in the mempool (LeCalvez, Fig. 9, ¶ 107 teaches determining a network attack on the mempool by a sudden shift in demand for block space)”.
Regarding claims 7 and 18, Grover in view of LeCalvez teaches:
“The system of claim 1 (Grover in view of LeCalvez teaches the limitations of the parent claims as discussed above) wherein the anomalous behavior of the distributed ledger comprises the denial-of-service attack on the mempool of the distributed ledger (LeCalvez, Fig. 9, ¶ 107 teaches determining a network attack on the blockchain resulting a multi month wait for a transaction being added to a block, effectively a denial of service, by detecting a sudden increase in unconfirmed transactions in the mempool)”.
Regarding claim 9, Grover in view of LeCalvez teaches teaches:
“The system of claim 1 (Grover in view of LeCalvez teaches teaches the limitations of the parent claims as discussed above), wherein the anomalous behavior of the distributed ledger comprises the anomalous change of information stored in the blockchain of the distributed ledger (Grover, Fig. 1, ¶ 75-77 teaches monitoring blockchains using a machine learning model to detect an anomalous delete where previously it was read/write transactions)”.
Regarding claim 10, Grover in view of LeCalvez teaches:
“The system of claim 9 (Grover in view of LeCalvez teaches the limitations of the parent claims as discussed above) wherein the anomalous change of information stored in the blockchain of the distributed ledger is one of: change of a field in the blockchain of the distributed ledger (Gover, ¶ 67 teaches detecting that the field of the blockchain has been modified and is compromised)”.
Regarding claims 11 and 19, Grover in view of LeCalvez teaches:
“The system of claim 1 (Grover in view of LeCalvez teaches the limitations of the parent claims as discussed above), wherein the anomalous behavior of the distributed ledger comprises an anomalous voting time for a node in the distributed ledger (Grover, ¶ 83-84 teaches looking patterns in the timing of votes to determine anomalous nodes within the network)”.
Regarding claim 14, Grover in view of LeCalvez teaches:
“The system of claim 1 (Grover in view of LeCalvez teaches the limitations of the parent claims as discussed above), wherein the anomalous behavior in the distributed ledger is identified based on a pattern of the anomalous behavior of the distributed ledger that is stored in an anomalous blockchain pattern database (Grover, ¶ 46, and 76-77 teaches a pattern library within a pattern database for detecting anomalous behavior using the ML model)”.
Claim(s) 3-4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Grover in view of LeCalvez in view of Chao (US 2020/0076830 A1) in view of K (US 2025/0148435 A1).
Regarding claim 3, Grover in view of LeCalvez teaches:
“The system of claim 2 (Grover in view of LeCalvez teaches the limitations of the parent claims as discussed above)”.
Grover in view of LeCalvez does not, but in related art, Chau teaches:
“anomalous consensus vote of the distributed ledger (Chao, Figs. 4A, 4B, and ¶ 27 and 62-65 teach a mechanism to detect anomalous voting attacks against the majority of concensus algorithms)”.
Before applicant’s earliest effective filing it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Grover, LeCalvez and Chao, to modify the blockchain anomaly detection system of Grover and LeCalvez to include the method to detect anomalous voting for a majority of attacks against concensus voting as taught in Chao. The motivation to do so constitutes applying a known technique to known devices and/or methods ready for improvement to yield predictable results.
Grover, LeCalvez and Chao do not, but in related art, K teaches:
is based on one of the following: a proof of stake consensus algorithm (K, ¶ 2 teaches proof of stake), a designated proof of stake consensus algorithm (K, ¶ 2 teaches designated proof of stake), a proof of elapsed time consensus algorithm ((K, ¶ 2 teaches proof of elapse time algorithm)”.
Before applicant’s earliest effective filing it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Grover, LeCalvez, K, and Chao, to modify the blockchain anomaly detection system of Grover, Chao, and LeCalvez to include the recitation of common consensus algorithms as taught in K. The motivation to do so constitutes applying a known technique to known devices and/or methods ready for improvement to yield predictable results.
Regarding claim 4, Grover, LeCalvez, K, and Chao teaches:
“The system of claim 3 (Grover, LeCalvez, K, and Chao teaches the limitations of the parent claims as discussed above), wherein the anomalous behavior is different based on a particular consensus algorithm of the distributed ledger (Chao, Figs. 4A, 4B, and ¶ 27 and 62-65 teach a mechanism to detect anomalous voting attacks against the majority of consensus algorithms. One of ordinary skill would recognize that simply the difference between the consensus algorithms themselves would produce different anomalous outputs, i.e., different activities act different)”.
Claim(s) 12-13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Grover in view of LeCalvez in view of Cella (US 2022/0366494 A1).
Regarding claim 12, Grover in view of LeCalvez teaches:
“The system of clam 1 (Grover in view of LeCalvez teaches the limitations of the parent claims as discussed above), wherein the anomalous behavior of the distributed ledger is displayed in a user interface (Grover, ¶ 53 and 101 teaches displaying information about the anomalies within the blockchain),
Grover in view of LeCalvez does not, but in related art, Cella teaches:
“wherein a user can click on the anomalous behavior of the distributed ledger to view which nodes in the distributed ledger are part of the anomalous behavior of the distributed ledger (Cella, Fig. 33, ¶ 1491 teaches an administration framework to click on and control nodes in a blockchain)”.
Before applicant’s earliest effective filing it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Grover in view of LeCalvez and Cella, to modify the blockchain anomaly detection system of Grover in view of LeCalvez to include the method to display and control anomaly information on the distributed ledger as taught in Cella. The motivation to do so constitutes applying a known technique to known devices and/or methods ready for improvement to yield predictable results.
Regarding claim 13, Grover in view of LeCalvez in view of Cella teaches:
“The system of claim 12 (Grover in view of LeCalvez and Cella teaches the limitations of the parent claims as discussed above), wherein the user can click on an individual node of the nodes in the distributed ledger that are part of the anomalous behavior of the distributed ledger to view a history of the individual node (Cella, Fig. 33, ¶ 1491 teaches an administration framework to click on and control nodes in a blockchain)”.
Claim(s) 15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Grover in view of LeCalvez in view of Palanki (US 2025/0217584 A1).
Regarding claim 15, Grover in view of LeCalvez teaches:
“The system of claim 1 (Grover in view of LeCalvez teaches the limitations of the parent claims as discussed above)”.
Grover in view of LeCalvez does not, but in related art Palanki teaches:
“wherein information about the anomalous behavior of the distributed ledger is stored in an anomaly block the blockchain (Palanki ¶ 35 teaches storing anomaly information on a distributed ledger)”.
Before applicant’s earliest effective filing it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Grover in view of LeCalvez and Palanki, to modify the blockchain anomaly detection system of Grover in view of LeCalvez to include the method to store anomaly information on the distributed ledger as taught in Palanki. The motivation to do so constitutes applying a known technique to known devices and/or methods ready for improvement to yield predictable results.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, 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.
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/STEPHEN T GUNDRY/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2435