DETAILED ACTION
Acknowledgements
This Office Action is in response to Applicant’s response/application filed on 02/13/2026.
The Examiner notes that citations to United States Patent Application Publication paragraphs are formatted as [####], #### representing the paragraph number.
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 Claims
Claims 1-20 are currently pending.
Claims 11-20 have been withdrawn from further consideration as being drawn to a nonelected group.
No claims are added or canceled.
Claims 1-10 have been examined.
Election/Restrictions
Applicant’s election without traverse of group I, claims 1-10 in the reply filed on 02/13/2026 is acknowledged.
Claims 11-20 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to a nonelected group, there being no allowable generic or linking claim.
Claim Objections
Claim 1 recites a term “VBA” the first time in the claim, but did not resolve this acronym before using it. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim 7 is objected to because of the following informalities: “multicall” should be “multi-call”. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112(b)
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 9 recites a limitation: “the indexer”. There is insufficient antecedent basis for this limitation in the claim. For examination purposes examiner has interpreted “the indexer” to be the “an indexer”.
Double Patenting
A rejection based on double patenting of the “same invention” type finds its support in the language of 35 U.S.C. 101 which states that “whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process... may obtain a patent therefor...” (Emphasis added). Thus, the term “same invention,” in this context, means an invention drawn to identical subject matter. See Miller v. Eagle Mfg. Co., 151 U.S. 186 (1894); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Ockert, 245 F.2d 467, 114 USPQ 330 (CCPA 1957).
A statutory type (35 U.S.C. 101) double patenting rejection can be overcome by canceling or amending the claims that are directed to the same invention so they are no longer coextensive in scope. The filing of a terminal disclaimer cannot overcome a double patenting rejection based upon 35 U.S.C. 101.
Claims 1-10 are provisionally rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as claiming the same invention as that of claims 1-10 of copending Application No. 18771799 (reference application). This is a provisional statutory double patenting rejection since the claims directed to the same invention have not in fact been patented.
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.
The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 4, 7, 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Pezeshki (US 11886425), in view of Roennow (US 11196573).
Regarding claim(s) 1, Pezeshki discloses:
sending a commit operation with payment from a blockchain name renter, to a first blockchain of a blockchain cluster; (By disclosing, “For example, to purchase a unique identifier such as a domain name, the user may be required to provide a form of identification to associate the purchased unique identifier with an owner. In some embodiments, the unique identifier for the owner is a cryptocurrency account address. In various embodiments, the user also configures a payment method. The payment method can include traditional payment methods such as credit card, debit card, check, and/or bank transfer, etc…. In some embodiments, the user designates which blockchain layer the purchase should be recorded on.” (Col 7 lines 19-54 of Pezeshki)) (Note: “without storing the commitment in the persistent storage of the chain” is a design choice and will not affect the claimed “sending” function. Thus, this limitation has no patentable weight.),
sending a registration operation from the renter, using VBA, including a commitment hash, secret, and at least one blockchain name to the first blockchain; processing the VBA to create a message, including an operation to register the at least one blockchain name in a registry;
(By disclosing, “For example, the user requests to purchase a unique identifier such as a domain name. A determination is made that the requested name is available for purchasing.” (Col 7 line 35-54 of Pezeshki); and “At 401, a request to create a new blockchain-based domain is received. In various embodiments, the request identifies the new domain name and the owner. In some embodiments, a hash identifier can be determined for the domain and the hash identifier can be used internally to reference the unique domain name. In some embodiments, the request further specifies which blockchain layer of the multi-layer blockchain-based name service the request should be stored.” (Col 10 lines 66- Col 11 line 13 of Pezeshki); and “As yet another example, in one embodiment, an owner of a domain minted on the layer-1 blockchain can sign a message with their private key [(secret)] authorizing the minting of the domain they own as an entry on the layer-2 blockchain.” (Col 8 lines 32-35 of Pezeshki)) (Note: “without storing ownership data in the persistent storage of the chain” is a design choice and will not affect the claimed “sending” function. Thus, this limitation has no patentable weight.);
registering the at least one blockchain name (By disclosing, “At 405, the appropriate layer blockchain and blockchain registries are updated. For example, a new domain is minted by updating the blockchain for the appropriate layer.” (Col 12 lines 7-30 of Pezeshki)); and
resolving the blockchain name (By disclosing, “At 503, the domain is resolved to a blockchain layer.” (Col 13 lines 1-32 of Pezeshki)).
Pezeshki does not disclose, but Roennow teaches:
encode the commitment details. (By disclosing, “To circumvent this, an embodiment is configured to use encrypting the transaction 211 with a random number. Once the encrypted transaction 211 has been accepted into the blockchain 200, the random number may be released to the blockchain 200 and the blockchain nodes 210-230 can read and trust the registration transaction 211” (Col 16 lines 6-14 of Roennow)).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the present application to modify the method of Pezeshki in view of Roennow to include techniques of encoding the commitment details. Doing so would result in an improved invention because this would improve the security by using encryption techniques.
Regarding claim(s) 2, Pezeshki discloses:
wherein registering the at least one blockchain name uses a blockchain interop protocol to register the blockchain name on an anchor chain, beginning with a transaction being sent to a non-anchor chain (By disclosing, “In some embodiments, the domain registry is implemented using non-inclusion proofs, such as sparse Merkle tree non-inclusions proofs. For example, for a particular blockchain registry, a Merkle root representing the state of a domain registry for another blockchain layer can be stored inside the registry. When an authorized user, such as a user represented by an authorized public key, attempts to mint a domain, the authorized public key must also submit a Merkle non-inclusion proof alongside the minting transaction to prove that the domain being minted was inside the state of the domain registry for the other blockchain layer. At 405, the appropriate layer blockchain and blockchain registries are updated. For example, a new domain is minted by updating the blockchain for the appropriate layer.(Col 11 line 63 -Col 12 line 30 of Pezeshki)).
Regarding claim(s) 4, Pezeshki discloses:
wherein identity records are stored in a counterfactual blockchain. (By disclosing, “At 405, the appropriate layer blockchain and blockchain registries are updated. For example, a new domain is minted by updating the blockchain for the appropriate layer.” (Col 12 lines 7-30 of Pezeshki)).
Regarding claim(s) 7, Pezeshki discloses:
wherein identity records of a single identity are registered both in a first blockchain and a second blockchain within a chain cluster, and wherein resolving the identity can happen with a single multi-call to the first blockchain. (By disclosing, “data associated with the multi-layer blockchain-based name service is stored on one or more blockchains.” (Col 5 lines 49-51 of Pezeshki); and “At 503, the domain is resolved to a blockchain layer. For example, the domain can be stored at different layers of a multi-layer blockchain-based name service, such as at a layer-1 blockchain, a layer-2 blockchain, or another blockchain layer, as appropriate. In various embodiments, the domain resolution is performed to identify which blockchain layer the domain is stored at so that the corresponding target records can be updated. In some embodiments, the resolution requires reading from a registry for every blockchain layer to determine which blockchain layer the target records are stored in.” (Col 13 lines 1-32 of Pezeshki)).
Regarding claim(s) 8, Pezeshki discloses:
wherein avatar and text records are updated on a name using update transactions (By disclosing, “For domains originally minted on the layer-2 blockchain, the domain information, such as ownership information [(avatar)] and target records [(text)], can be stored in a standard domain entry….In some embodiments, the target records can be updated with new values (for example, as provided by the owner) as part of the migration process.” (Col 17 lines 9-35 of Pezeshki)).
Claim(s) 3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Pezeshki (US 11886425), in view of Roennow (US 11196573), futher in view of Poddey (DE 102021212599 A).
Regarding claim(s) 3, Pezeshki does not disclose:
wherein there is a delay between the commitment and the registration transaction to prevent front-running.
However, Poddey teaches:
a delay between two transactions to prevent front-running. (By disclosing, “The fact that some miners are in collusion can delay certain transactions for an extended period of time, known as active censorship. The attack in question is known as censorship-based front running (cfr). An example would be placing a buy transaction, then blocking all sell transactions and only allowing buy transactions, finally selling and thus extracting the value before processing the deferred sales transactions.” ([0008] of Poddey)).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the present application to modify the method of Pezeshki and Roennow, in view of Poddey to include a delay between two transactions to prevent front-running. Doing so would result in an improved invention because this would prevent front running.
Claim(s) 5 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Pezeshki (US 11886425), in view of Roennow (US 11196573), futher in view of Kaizer (US 11924161).
Regarding claim(s) 5, Pezeshki does not disclose:
wherein a synthetic crypto asset is credited to the renter in direct proportion to the native crypto asset sent to the registrar during transactions and its use in subsequent registrations and renewals of blockchain names. (By disclosing, “FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram for a method 200 of allocating a token(s) to an entity to establish fractional control of a domain name according to various embodiments. According to some embodiments, an entity such as first entity 108 or second entity 110 may acquire fractional control of a domain name in exchange for a token(s) or cryptocurrency. For example, a domain name may be listed on blockchain 102 as available for fractional control in 10,000 increments, with each increment available for $1. According to this example, an entity that wishes to control 10% of the domain name may provide $1000 in tokens or cryptocurrency, as described below in reference to FIG. 4.” (Col 10 lines 57-Col 11 line 4 of Kaizer)).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the present application to modify the method of Pezeshki and Roennow, in view of Kaizer to include techniques of wherein a synthetic crypto asset is credited to the renter in direct proportion to the native crypto asset sent to the registrar during transactions and its use in subsequent registrations and renewals of blockchain names. Doing so would result in an improved invention because this would allow the user to use the credited crypto asset in subsequent transactions.
Claim(s) 6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Pezeshki (US 11886425), in view of Roennow (US 11196573), futher in view of Kaizer (hereinafter “Kai”) (US 11632236).
Regarding claim(s) 6, Pezeshki does not disclose, but Kai teaches:
wherein off-chain pricing is used, allowing for individualized pricing for name registrations and renewals using signed messages verified by smart contracts. (By disclosing, “The user may click on the add symbol to claim the latter such domain names. User interface 1400 also displays standard cryptocurrency wallet features, such as cash and cryptocurrency balances, records of cryptocurrency sent, to which entity, and when, and buttons to active cryptocurrency purchase and sending operations.” (Col 38 line 62 - Col 39 line13 of Kai); “The smart contract on identity management blockchain 750, which for such embodiments includes registry signature verification program 106, receives the request and verifies the signature before proceeding to 710.” (Col 28 line 66- Col 29 line 39 of Kai), and the registration can be renewed (Col 28 line 6-21 of Kai)).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the present application to modify the method of Pezeshki and Roennow, in view of Kai to include techniques of wherein off-chain pricing is used, allowing for individualized pricing for name registrations and renewals using signed messages verified by smart contracts. Doing so would result in an improved invention because this would leverage the advantages of smart contracts (e.g. automation, cost efficiency, etc.).
Claim(s) 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Pezeshki (US 11886425), in view of Roennow (US 11196573), further in view of Mandal (US 20230045867).
Regarding claim(s) 9, Pezeshki does not disclose, but Mandal teaches:
wherein the indexer generates zero-knowledge proofs to verify changes to name data, including ownership. (By disclosing, “ If a verifier wants to verify whether or not an entity is the owner, the verifier is able to observe the most recent block on the list of the blockchain and compare it to information provided by the current owner (such as via a zero knowledge proof) to verify current
ownership.” ([0016] of Mandal)).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the present application to modify the method of Pezeshki and Roennow, in view of Mandal to include techniques of wherein the indexer generates zero-knowledge proofs to verify changes to name data, including ownership. Doing so would result in an improved invention because this would leverage the advantages of zero-knowledge proofs (e.g. enhance privacy, security, and efficiency, etc.).
Claim(s) 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Pezeshki (US 11886425), in view of Roennow (US 11196573), further in view of Ling (CN 117640580).
Regarding claim(s) 10, Pezeshki does not disclose, but Ling teaches:
wherein a commitment is not used, and payment can be included with the registration transaction (By disclosing, “a registration transaction carrying the registration information of the blockchain address-IP address mapping, as shown in FIG. 5, includes at least one standard unlock input requiring a private key signature, and the input address is the mapped blockchain address in the registration information; The transaction comprises at least two outputs, one of which is directed to the blockchain address of the blockchain address-IP address mapping method identifier, such as defdefdefdefdefdefdefdefdefdefdefdef. the other one is the output of the bearing data for recording the registration information of the blockchain address-IP address mapping. The transaction may also include other inputs or outputs, such as the input of the registrar's payment or the change-making output of the registrar.” ([0037] of Ling)).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the effective filing date of the present application to modify the method of Pezeshki and Roennow, in view of Ling to include techniques of wherein a commitment is not used, and payment can be included with the registration transaction. Doing so would result in an improved invention because this would allow the information associated with the registration transaction to be easily retrieved.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
US 12184604 to DeLuca for disclosing:
a system for registering a domain name for access to a domain over a network comprises one or more memories and at least one processor coupled to the one or more memories. The system determines that a domain name requested for registration on a domain name registry by a user corresponds to a reserved name of an entity. The user is verified as corresponding to the entity based on detecting performance of an operation by the user on a computing device. The operation is enabled in response to verification of the entity. The domain name is registered on the domain name registry in response to the user corresponding to the entity. Embodiments of the present invention further include a method and computer program product for registering a domain name for access to a domain over a network in substantially the same manner described above.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DUAN ZHANG whose telephone number is (571)272-4642. The examiner can normally be reached Mon - Fri 10 AM-5 PM.
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/DUAN ZHANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3699