DETAILED ACTION
The present application is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . 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.
This Office Action is in response Applicant communication filed on 3/17/2026.
Claims
Claims 1, 9, and 17 have been amended.
Claims 1-20 are currently pending in the application.
Response to Arguments
101
The examiner withdraws the 101 rejection due to the claim amendments. The claims recite an improvement to an issue necessarily rooted in computer technology as disclosed in the specification section [0047]. The claims attempt to solve MEV attacks that occur in blockchain networks when miners mine new blocks on the blockchain.
103
The applicant argues that Destefanis/Carver do fail to disclose that “each digest of the plurality of digests not including transaction data for the one or more transaction requests, and that the transaction data is later received after being requested” and that Destefanis teaches away from Carver’s method by demonstrating that transaction data is already embedded in the published block (see applicant’s arguments/remarks page 10). The examiner respectfully disagrees. Destefanis discloses that mining nodes use proof-of-work to mine blockchain transactions using a hash data (e.g. digest) of the transactions that do not include the transaction data. Destefanis discloses in sections [0083] and [0114]-[0017] that the mining nodes do not have a full copy of the mempool and rely on the validator nodes to provide them with the material needed to mine new blocks. So the validator nodes provide the mining nodes with a hash of a set of transactions instead of the transaction itself. The mining nodes them complete a proof-of-work and propagates a block header to the validator nodes. Carver discloses that transaction data corresponding to the transaction digests is requested and received, which is then published to the blockchain in a new block. Carver discloses in sections [0067]-[0071] that transaction hashes (e.g. digest) are received from miners and then the transaction hashes are used to lookup transaction records (e.g. transaction data) associated with the transaction hash. The transactions are then finalized and a block is added to the blockchain.
The examiner has considered all of the applicant’s arguments but maintains the 103 rejection.
Rejections under 35 § U.S.C. 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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1, 2, 4-6, 8-10, 12-14, 16-18, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20200104809 A1 (“Destefanis”) and US 20190230179 A1 (“Carver”).
Per claims 1, 9, and 17, Destefanis discloses:
at least one processor (Section [0118]-[0120]);
communicating, with at least one processor, a plurality of digests representing one or more transaction requests to each mining node of a plurality of mining nodes in a blockchain network, each digest of the plurality of digests not including transaction data for the one or more transaction requests, each digest of the plurality of digests generated based on the one or more transaction requests without including the transaction data in each digest (e.g. The mining nodes 402 in this example do not have a full copy of the mempool and rely on the validator nodes 202 to provide them with the material needed to mine new blocks. In particular, one of the validator nodes 202 may invite the mining nodes 402 to participate in mining a new block using a set of unconfirmed transactions that the validator node 202 has access to in the mempool. The mining nodes 402 may choose to agree to participate in the mining activity by receiving the set of new unconfirmed transactions. In exchange for receiving a token from each mining node 402, the validator node 202 provides each of them with the set of transactions (or a hash of the set of transactions)) (Section [0083], [0114]-[0117]);
receiving, with the at least one processor from at least one mining node of the plurality of mining nodes, block data generated based on a proof-of-work protocol and at least a portion of digests of the plurality of digests (e.g. If the mining manages to succeed in mining the block, i.e. completing the proof-of-work, as indicated by operation 816, then in operation 818 the mining node propagates the block (or at least the block header). For example, the mining node may propagate the block header to one or more of the validator nodes, where the block may be assembled, validated, stored and propagated) (Section [0019], [0045], [0088], and [0014]-[0017]);
Although Destefanis discloses sending transaction hashes to mining nodes in a blockchain network and receiving block data from the mining nodes, Destefanis does not specifically disclose:
requesting, with the at least one processor, the transaction data for each transaction request of a plurality of transaction requests corresponding to the at least a portion of digests;
receiving, with the at least one processor, the transaction data for each transaction request of the plurality of transaction requests;
publishing, with the at least one processor, a new block to the blockchain network based on the transaction data and the block data.
However Carver, in analogous art of blockchain mining, discloses:
requesting, with the at least one processor, the transaction data for each transaction request of a plurality of transaction requests corresponding to the at least a portion of digests (e.g. Upon receipt of a transaction hash, via 608, a segment handler 604 forwards the transaction hash via 610 to the transaction handler 609 responsible for handling transactions for the segment. Upon receiving a transaction hash from a segment handler, the transaction handler 609 looks up the associated transaction record in its mem pool) (Section [0067]-[0070]);
receiving, with the at least one processor, the transaction data for each transaction request of the plurality of transaction requests (e.g. Upon successfully retrieving the transaction from its mem pool, the transaction handler performs an assignment of the transaction to the block segment being verified just as it assigns transactions to blocks being locally mined as described above) (Section [0067]-[0070]).
publishing, with the at least one processor, a new block to the blockchain network based on the transaction data and the block data (e.g. The transaction handlers then instruct all UTXO handlers to finalize the block. In response, the UTXO handlers mark UTXOs spent in the finalized block as permanently spent, and mark UTXOs assigned to the finalized block as permanently created. Persisting the block header and segments to disk in this manner thus adds the block to the blockchain. Depending on implementation, the block so written to the blockchain may then be considered final (and thus in effect immutable)) (Section [0071]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the validator node blockchain transaction processing of Destefanis to include the requesting of transaction data associated with the transaction digest, as taught by Carver, in order to achieve the predictable result of increasing the security of the transaction data by not allowing the validator nodes/mining nodes to store the transaction data locally.
Per claims 2, 10, and 18, Destefanis/Carver discloses all the limitations of claims 1, 9, and 17 above. Destefanis further discloses:
receiving, with the at least one processor, a plurality of transaction requests (e.g. In particular, one of the validator nodes 202 may invite the mining nodes 402 to participate in mining a new block using a set of unconfirmed transactions that the validator node 202 has access to in the mempool) (Section [0083]);
generating the plurality of digests based on the plurality of transaction requests (e.g. The mining nodes 402 may choose to agree to participate in the mining activity by receiving the set of new unconfirmed transactions. In exchange for receiving a token from each mining node 402, the validator node 202 provides each of them with the set of transactions (or a hash of the set of transactions)) (Section [0083]).
Per claims 4, 12, and 20, Destefanis/Carver discloses all the limitations of claims 1, 9, and 17 above. Destefanis further discloses:
wherein the at least one mining node is a single mining node (e.g. Reference is now made to FIG. 4, which diagrammatically shows a plurality of mining nodes 402 (shown individually as 402a, 402b, 402c) and the overlay network 302 containing a plurality of validator nodes 202) (Section [0081] and Fig. 4).
Per claims 5 and 13, Destefanis/Carver discloses all the limitations of claims 1 and 9 above. Carver further discloses:
wherein the transaction data is requested for each transaction request in response to receiving the block data generated based on the proof-of-work protocol (e.g. The transaction handler 609 responds by providing the requesting segment handler 604 with each raw transaction from its mem pool, together with a digest that has been computed for the raw transaction. The segment handler 604 receives each transaction (and its digest) and sequences the transactions into a logical sequence for the segment. Each segment handler operates similarly for the raw transactions that it receives from its associated transaction handler, and thus the segments for the block are mined concurrently (by the segment handlers)) (Section [0032] and [0063]).
The motivation to combine Carver with Destefanis is disclosed above with reference to claims 1, 9, and 17.
Per claims 6 and 14, Destefanis/Carver discloses all the limitations of claims 1 and 9 above. Destefanis further discloses:
allocating a reward to an address corresponding to the at least one mining node in response to receiving the block data generated based on the proof-of- work protocol (e.g. Each claim transaction takes as an input the output of the deposit transaction, i.e. the pooled output address, and allocates the deposit amount d to the participating mining node for that claim transaction. The remainder of the pooled value at the pooled output address (in this example, 2d) is allocated to the validator node. That is, each claim transaction is a refund of the deposit to the associated participating mining node as a reward for being successful in mining the block, and the forfeiture of the deposits of the unsuccessful mining nodes) (Section [0097]).
Per claims 8 and 16, Destefanis/Carver discloses all the limitations of claims 1 and 9 above. Destefanis further discloses:
in response to a transaction requestor cancelling a transaction request, issuing a penalty to the transaction requestor (e.g. If another block appears on the blockchain before the mining node is able to complete the proof-of-work for its own new block, then it abandons the effort to mine the new block. If the new block was completed by one of the other participating mining nodes, then the mining node will receives no refund and forfeit its deposit) (Section [0117]).
Claims 3, 11, and 19 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Destefanis/Carver, as applied to claims 2, 10, and 18 above, in further view of US 20190295162 A1 (“Wang”).
Per claims 3, 11, and 19, although Destefanis/Carver discloses receiving a plurality of transaction requests and generating a plurality of digests based on the plurality of transaction request, Destefanis/Carver do not specifically disclose:
determining a subset of transaction requests of the plurality of transaction requests based on a plurality of bids associated with the plurality of transaction requests, each digest of the plurality of digests corresponding to a transaction request of the subset of transaction requests.
However Wang, in analogous art of blockchain ledgers, discloses:
determining a subset of transaction requests of the plurality of transaction requests based on a plurality of bids associated with the plurality of transaction requests, each digest of the plurality of digests corresponding to a transaction request of the subset of transaction requests (e.g. In some embodiments, each transaction may be associated with a gas price, enabling the submitting entity to set an amount of gas that it is willing to expend per processing unit. This effectively allows the submitting entity to “bid” on the amount that it is willing to expend, and enables a processing entity to select profitable transactions to process) (Section [0058]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the blockchain transaction processing of Destefanis/Carver to include the selection of transaction with higher bids, as taught by Wang, in order to achieve the predictable result of allowing the blockchain transaction processing system to make more profits.
Claims 7 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Destefanis/Carver, as applied to claims 6 and 14 above, in further view of US 20210194690 A1 (“Fletcher”).
Per claims 7 and 15, although Destefanis/Carver discloses allocating rewards to the mining node that generated the data block for the transaction, Destefanis/Carver do not specifically disclose:
wherein the reward is allocated as a Layer 2 transaction on the blockchain network.
However Fletcher, in analogous art of blockchain ledgers, discloses:
wherein the reward is allocated as a Layer 2 transaction on the blockchain network (e.g. that is, a number of tokens may be added to an account on the primary blockchain that is controlled by the node who mined a block on the secondary blockchain, as a reward for mining that block; this updating of the account balance on the primary blockchain may only occur once the relevant block on the secondary blockchain has been confirmed) (Section [0043]-[0044]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the blockchain transaction reward processing of Destefanis/Carver to include a secondary blockchain network to distribute the rewards, as taught by Fletcher, in order to achieve the predictable result of improving the scalability, reduce fees, and speed up processing of the reward processing.
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 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 of a general nature or relating to the status of this application or concerning this communication or earlier communications from the Examiner should be directed to TIMOTHY SAX whose telephone number is 571-272-2935. The Examiner can normally be reached on M-F 8-4:30. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the Examiner’s supervisor, Patrick McAtee can be reached at (571) 272-7575.
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/TPS/
Examiner, Art Unit 3698
/PATRICK MCATEE/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 3698
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