DETAILED ACTION
Claim Status
This is first office action on the merits in response to the application filed on 3/21/2025.
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Claims 1-20 are currently pending and have been examined.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement(s) (IDS) submitted on 3/21/2025 is(are) in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
The USPTO Internet website contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit www.uspto.gov/patent/patents-forms. The actual filing date of the application in which the form is filed determines what form (e.g., PTO/SB/25, PTO/SB/26, PTO/AIA /25, or PTO/AIA /26) should be used. A web-based eTerminal Disclaimer may be filled out completely online using web-screens. An eTerminal Disclaimer that meets all requirements is auto-processed and approved immediately upon submission. For more information about eTerminal Disclaimers, refer to www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/applying-online/eterminal-disclaimer.
Claims 1-20 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-20 of U.S. Patent No. 12,315,009. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because it recites the additional features of based on said determining, sorting, by the pool of hashing processors, the plurality of events based on each respective cryptographic identifier associated with each respective event of the plurality of events; based on said sorting, determining, by the pool of hashing processors, events of the plurality of events to include in a subset of the plurality of events, wherein those events associated with a predetermined list of cryptographic identifiers are selectively excluded from the subset; determining, by the pool of hashing processors, an association of events in the mempool with the predetermined list of cryptographic identifiers; and propagating, by the pool of hashing processors, the block data structure including the subset within the mempool. Since U.S. Patent No. 12,315,009 and the claims at issue of the present application perform similar functions, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to modify claims 1-20 of U.S. Patent No. 12,315,009 by removing the additional features. It is well settled that omission of an element and its function is an obvious expedient if the remaining elements perform the same function as before. In re Karison, 136 USPQ 184 (CCPA 1963) Also note Ex parte Rainu, 168 USPQ 375 (Bd. App. 1969). Thus, omission of a reference element whose function is not needed would be obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art.
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.
Claim 17-20 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The broadest reasonable interpretation of a claim drawn to a storage medium typically covers form of non-transitory tangible medial and transitory propagating signal per se in when specification is silent. See MPEP 2111.01. When the broadest reasonable interpretation of claim covers a signal per se, the claim must be rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as covering non-statutory subject matter. See In re Nuijted, 500 F.3d 1346, 1356-57 (Fed cir 2007) (transitory embodiments are not directed to statutory subject matter) and Interim Examination Instructions for Evaluating Subject Matter Eligibility Under 35 U.S.C 101, Aug 24, 2009; p. 2. 7.
Applicant advised to amend the claim reciting "non-transitory computer readable media” to overcome rejection under 35 U.S.C. 101.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
Under the Step 1 of the Section 101 analysis, Claims 1-10 are drawn to a method which is within the four statutory categories (i.e., a process), Claims 12-16 are drawn to a system which is within the four statutory categories (i.e. a machine), and Claims 17-20 are drawn to a computer-readable storage medium which is within the four statutory categories (i.e., a manufacture).
Since the claims are directed toward statutory categories, it must be determined if the claims are directed towards a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea). Based on consideration of all of the relevant factors with respect to the claim as a whole, claims 1-20 are determined to be directed to an abstract idea. The rationale for this determination is explained below:
Regarding Claims 1, 11, and 17:
Claims 1, 11, and 17 are drawn to an abstract idea without significantly more. The claims recite “receiving, by the pool of miners from a mempool, a plurality of events, wherein the mempool is a collective memory of nodes in a distributed consensus network, wherein the pool of miners has associated memory that contributes a portion of the collective memory of the mempool; determining, by the pool of miners, an association of events in the plurality of events with a predetermined list of cryptographic identifiers; based on said determining, by the pool of miners, of an association of events in the plurality of events with the predetermined list of cryptographic identifiers, discarding, by the pool of miners, those events from the portion of the collective memory of the mempool associated with the pool of miners; and generating, by the pool of miners, a block data structure on a blockchain data structure, wherein the block data structure includes each event from the plurality of events that was not discarded from the portion of the collective memory of the mempool associated with the pool of miners.”
Under the Step 2A Prong One, the limitations, as underlined above, are processes that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, cover Certain Methods Of Organizing Human Activity such as fundamental economic principles or practices (including hedging, insurance, mitigating risk). For example, but for the “miners”, “mempool”, “memory”, “nodes”, “distributed consensus network”, “cryptographic identifiers”, “block”, and “blockchain” language, the underlined limitations in the context of this claim encompass the human activity or mental processes. The series of steps belong to a typical mitigating risk, because the events are associated with cryptographic identifiers.
Under the Step 2A Prong Two, this judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. In particular, the claim only recites additional elements – “A method of operating a pool of miners, the method comprising:”, “A system of operating a pool of miners comprising:”, “A computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by a computing system, cause the computing system to perform a process comprising:”, “miners”, “mempool”, “memory”, “nodes”, “distributed consensus network”, “cryptographic identifiers”, “block”, and “blockchain”. The additional elements are recited at a high-level of generality (i.e., performing generic functions of an interaction) such that it amounts no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component, merely implementing an abstract idea on a computer, or merely using a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea. Additionally, regarding the specification and claims, there is no improvement in the functioning of a computer or an improvement to other technology or technical field present, there is no applying or using the judicial exception to effect a particular treatment or prophylaxis for a disease or medical condition present, there is no implementing the judicial exception with or using the judicial exception in conjunction with a particular machine or manufacture that is integral to the claim present, there is no effecting a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing present, and there is no applying or using the judicial exception in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the judicial exception to a particular technological environment present such that the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception. Accordingly, these additional elements, individually or in combination, do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because they do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. The claims are directed to an abstract idea.
Under the Step 2B, the claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception. As discussed above with respect to integration of the abstract idea into a practical application, the additional elements in the process amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using generic computer components. Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept. The claims are not patent eligible.
Regarding Claims 2-10, 12-16, and 18-20:
Dependent claims 6 and 15 only further elaborate the abstract idea and do not recite additional elements.
Dependent claims 2-5, 7-10, 12-14, 16, and 18-20 include additional limitations, for example, “miners” and “cryptographic identifier” (Claims 2 and 18); “block” and “miners” (Claims 3 and 19); “automated web crawler” and “blockchain explorer” (Claims 4 and 13); “mechanical turks” (Claims 5 and 14); “cryptographic identifier” (Claims 7 and 16); “cryptographic identifier”, web crawler”, and “website” (Claim 8); “cryptographic identifier” (Claims 9 and 20); “cryptographic object” and “cryptographic identifier” (Claim 10); and “miners” and “mining ASICs” (Claim 12), but none of these limitations are deemed significantly more than the abstract idea because, as stated above, they require no more than generic computer structures or signals to be executed, and do not recite any Improvements to the functioning of a computer, or Improvements to any other technology or technical field.
Thus, taken alone, the additional elements do not amount to significantly more than the above-identified judicial exception (the abstract idea). Furthermore, looking at the limitations as an ordered combination adds nothing that is not already present when looking at the elements taken individually. There is no indication that the combination of elements improves the functioning of a computer or improves any other technology, and their collective functions merely provide conventional computer implementation or implementing the judicial exception on a generic computer.
Therefore, whether taken individually or as an ordered combination, claims 2-10, 12-16, and 18-20 are nonetheless rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 as being directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-3, 6, 9-11, 15, and 17-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Herlihy (US 20170236120 A1).
Regarding Claims 1, 11, and 17, Herlihy teaches A method of operating a pool of miners, the method comprising (Herlihy: Abstract): A system of operating a pool of miners comprising (Herlihy: Abstract; Paragraph(s) 0022, 0026): A computer-readable storage medium storing instructions that, when executed by a computing system, cause the computing system to perform a process comprising (Herlihy: Paragraph(s) 0164):
receiving, by the pool of miners from a mempool, a plurality of events, wherein the mempool is a collective memory of nodes in a distributed consensus network, wherein the pool of miners has associated memory that contributes a portion of the collective memory of the mempool (Herlihy: Paragraph(s) 0143, 0045-0048, 0022, 0026, 0036, 0041, 0097, 0153, 0053, 0065, 0104 teach(es) the ledger information in a given message may include a transaction submitted by clients of the distributed ledger, a block of transactions proposed by proposers in the distributed ledger, or a message used by a consensus protocol of the distributed ledger to reach agreement among the nodes on successive next blocks in a blockchain; Each node has a local memory pool (mempool) that stores transactions the node has received but has not yet seen included in a committed block. A node validates each transaction before adding it to its mempool. Validation verifies that each of the transaction's inputs have valid signatures, that its account has sufficient balance, and that the nonce is correct); determining, by the pool of miners, an association of events in the plurality of events with a predetermined list of cryptographic identifiers (Herlihy: Paragraph(s) 0036, 0081, 0090, 0045-0048 teach(es) a peer-to-peer network in which nodes gossip information including transactions submitted by clients, blocks of transactions proposed by proposers, and various messages used by the consensus protocol used to reach agreement among nodes on successive next blocks in the chain (blockchain). Honest validators vote only for blocks that satisfy certain validity conditions, for example that each block includes a cryptographic hash of the previous block making it essentially impossible to change a block already committed into the blockchain); based on said determining, by the pool of miners, of an association of events in the plurality of events with the predetermined list of cryptographic identifiers, discarding, by the pool of miners, those events from the portion of the collective memory of the mempool associated with the pool of miners (Herlihy: Paragraph(s) 0047, 0062 teach(es) When a node receives a newly committed block, the node removes from its mempool all transactions included in the block and transactions invalidated by the new state (for example, if the nonce of one of the transaction's inputs is no longer correct); the node then communicates these changes to each peer broadcast routine to suppress unnecessary late gossiping); and generating, by the pool of miners, a block data structure on a blockchain data structure, wherein the block data structure includes each event from the plurality of events that was not discarded from the portion of the collective memory of the mempool associated with the pool of miners (Herlihy: Paragraph(s) 0045-0048, 0053, 0065, 0104 teach(es) Validation verifies that each of the transaction's inputs have valid signatures, that its account has sufficient balance, and that the nonce is correct. The balance and nonce validations are performed against the state achieved by applying the acceptor's mempool transactions to the last committed block).
Regarding Claims 2 and 18, Herlihy teaches all the limitations of claims 1 and 17 above; and Herlihy further teaches further comprising: sorting, by the pool of miners, the plurality of events based on each respective cryptographic identifier associated with each respective event of the plurality of events (Herlihy: Paragraph(s) 0121, 0130 teach(es) transactions could be inserted into a forest in which each k-input transaction has at most k children, representing the dependencies discussed above, and transactions ordered by a deterministic traversal of all trees in the forest, with each transaction ordered before any of its children); based on said sorting, determining, by the pool of miners, events of the plurality of events to include in a subset of the plurality of events, wherein those events associated with the predetermined list of cryptographic identifiers are selectively excluded from the subset (Herlihy: Paragraph(s) 0036, 0081, 0090, 0045-0048 teach(es) a peer-to-peer network in which nodes gossip information including transactions submitted by clients, blocks of transactions proposed by proposers, and various messages used by the consensus protocol used to reach agreement among nodes on successive next blocks in the chain (blockchain). Honest validators vote only for blocks that satisfy certain validity conditions, for example that each block includes a cryptographic hash of the previous block making it essentially impossible to change a block already committed into the blockchain); and discarding, by the pool of miners, events including cryptographic identifiers associated with the predetermined list of cryptographic identifiers from the plurality of events (Herlihy: Paragraph(s) 0047, 0062 teach(es) When a node receives a newly committed block, the node removes from its mempool all transactions included in the block and transactions invalidated by the new state (for example, if the nonce of one of the transaction's inputs is no longer correct); the node then communicates these changes to each peer broadcast routine to suppress unnecessary late gossiping).
Regarding Claims 3 and 19, Herlihy teaches all the limitations of claims 2 and 18 above; and Herlihy further teaches wherein the block data structure is a first block data structure, the method further comprising: subsequent to generation of the first block data structure, sorting, by the pool of miners, a remaining plurality of events to include in a second subset to include within a second block data structure; and generating, by the pool of miners, the second block data structure including the second subset (Herlihy: Paragraph(s) 0121, 0130 teach(es) transactions could be inserted into a forest in which each k-input transaction has at most k children, representing the dependencies discussed above, and transactions ordered by a deterministic traversal of all trees in the forest, with each transaction ordered before any of its children).
Regarding Claims 6 and 15, Herlihy teaches all the limitations of claims 1 and 11 above; and Herlihy further teaches wherein the predetermined list is based on governmental entity list (Herlihy: Paragraph(s) 0062 teach(es) When a node has a legitimate reason for censoring a transaction (for example, it spends from an account on a government blacklist), the node cannot simply drop the transaction).
Regarding Claims 9 and 20, Herlihy teaches all the limitations of claims 1 and 17 above; and Herlihy further teaches wherein each of the plurality of events include at least two cryptographic identifiers including a first cryptographic identifier and a second cryptographic identifier each associated with users (Herlihy: Paragraph(s) 0068 teach(es) a transaction received from multiple peers should be included in the outgoing order once only, and later duplicates are dropped).
Regarding Claim 10, Herlihy teaches all the limitations of claim 9 above; and Herlihy further teaches wherein each event shifts a unique cryptographic object between the first cryptographic identifier and the second cryptographic identifier (Herlihy: Paragraph(s) 0068, as stated above with respect to claim 9).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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 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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 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.
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.
Claim(s) 4, 7-8, 13, and 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Herlihy (US 20170236120 A1) in view of Kuchar (US 20190279215 A1; already of record in IDS).
Regarding Claims 4 and 13, Herlihy teaches all the limitations of claims 1 and 11 above; but Herlihy does not explicitly teach wherein the predetermined list is based on an automated web crawler operating on a blockchain explorer.
However, Kuchar from same or similar field of endeavor teaches wherein the predetermined list is based on an automated web crawler operating on a blockchain explorer (Kuchar: Paragraph(s) 0046, 0053 teach(es) the data acquisition module may be configured to automatically acquire data (e.g., crawl/scrape websites)).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings of Herlihy to incorporate the teachings of Kuchar for wherein the predetermined list is based on an automated web crawler operating on a blockchain explorer.
There is motivation to combine Kuchar into Herlihy because Kuchar’s teachings of crawl/scrape websites would facilitate generating a list using such scraped data or information (Kuchar: Paragraph(s) 0046, 0053).
Regarding Claims 7 and 16, Herlihy teaches all the limitations of claims 1 and 11 above; but Herlihy does not explicitly teach wherein the predetermined list is based on a criminality score of the cryptographic identifier.
Kuchar from same or similar field of endeavor teaches wherein the predetermined list is based on a criminality score of the cryptographic identifier (Kuchar: Paragraph(s) 0053-0055 teach(es) the data processing module may identify fraudulent blockchain addresses based on behavior across a social media platform, such as scams that request funds from multiple social media users, new accounts that directly ask other users for funds, and fake initial coin offering scams; the data processing module may label a blockchain address as fraud if the blockchain address is included in one or more blacklists; For blockchain addresses that are assigned one or more trust scores and labeled as fraud, the fraud label for the blockchain address may be dispositive on the issue of fraud for the blockchain address).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings of Herlihy to incorporate the teachings of Kuchar for wherein the predetermined list is based on a criminality score of the cryptographic identifier.
There is motivation to combine Kuchar into Herlihy because Kuchar’s teachings of trust scores would facilitate to generate a predetermined list such as blacklist (Kuchar: Paragraph(s) 0053-0055).
Regarding Claim 8, Herlihy teaches all the limitations of claim 1 above; but Herlihy does not explicitly teach generating the predetermined list of cryptographic identifiers based on a web crawler parsing text of websites providing information related to cryptographic identifiers.
Kuchar further teaches further comprising: generating the predetermined list of cryptographic identifiers based on a web crawler parsing text of websites providing information related to cryptographic identifiers (Kuchar: Paragraph(s) 0046, 0053 teach(es) the data acquisition module may be configured to automatically acquire data (e.g., crawl/scrape websites)).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings of Herlihy to incorporate the teachings of Kuchar for generating the predetermined list of cryptographic identifiers based on a web crawler parsing text of websites providing information related to cryptographic identifiers.
There is motivation to combine Kuchar into Herlihy because Kuchar’s teachings of crawl/scrape websites would facilitate generating a list using such scraped data or information (Kuchar: Paragraph(s) 0046, 0053).
Claim(s) 5 and 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Herlihy (US 20170236120 A1) in view of So (WO 2019142049 A1).
Regarding Claims 5 and 14, Herlihy teaches all the limitations of claims 1 and 11 above; but the combination does not explicitly teach teaches wherein the predetermined list is based on operations performed by mechanical turks.
So from same or similar field of endeavor teaches wherein the predetermined list is based on operations performed by mechanical turks (So: Paragraph(s) 0463 teach(es) mechanical turk services).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings of Herlihy to incorporate the teachings of So for teaches wherein the predetermined list is based on operations performed by mechanical turks.
There is motivation to combine So into Herlihy because So’s teachings of mechanical turk services would facilitate generating a list using such scraped data or information (So: Paragraph(s) 0463).
Claim(s) 12 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Herlihy (US 20170236120 A1) in view of Padmanabham (US 20200250747 A1).
Regarding Claim 12, Herlihy teaches all the limitations of claim 11 above; but Herlihy does not explicitly teach wherein the pool of miners comprises mining ASICs.
Padmanabham from same or similar field of endeavor teaches wherein the pool of miners comprises mining ASICs (Padmanabham: Paragraph(s) 0687-0688 teach(es) Application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC) miners have taken over with the ASIC machines mining at unprecedented speeds while consuming much less power than FPGA or GPU mining hardware).
It would have been prima facie obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to have modified the teachings of Herlihy to incorporate the teachings of Padmanabham for wherein the pool of miners comprises mining ASICs.
There is motivation to combine Padmanabham into Herlihy because Padmanabham’s teachings of ASIC miners would facilitate speeding the mining processes (Padmanabham: Paragraph(s) 0687-0688).
Conclusion
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/CLAY C LEE/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3699