DETAILED ACTION
This action is in response to the application filed on February 12, 2025. Claims 1-24 are pending. Of such, claims 1-23 represent a method and claim 24 represent a server directed to a improved blockchain method and system.
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 .
Specification
Applicant is reminded of the proper content of an abstract of the disclosure.
A patent abstract is a concise statement of the technical disclosure of the patent and should include that which is new in the art to which the invention pertains. The abstract should not refer to purported merits or speculative applications of the invention and should not compare the invention with the prior art.
The abstract of the disclosure is objected to because the abstract submitted on February 12, 2025 discloses a different invention. The abstract supplied recites an invention about collecting anonymized drive information for an autonomous vehicle road navigation model while this disclosure is about post-quantum signature aggregation in blockchain blocks. A corrected abstract of the disclosure is required and must be presented on a separate sheet, apart from any other text. See MPEP § 608.01(b).
See MPEP § 608.01(b) for guidelines for the preparation of patent abstracts.
The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities:
On page 26, the Specification discloses “latticed-based signature scheme”, should be corrected to “lattice-based signature scheme”.
On page 28 of the Specification, the disclosure includes the following URL’s which are impermissible according to MPEP § 608.01. (falcon-sign.info/falcon.pdf & eprint.iacr.org/2018/828.pdf)
On page 32, the Specification discloses a reference for Equation 1 (twice) however the disclosure does not include an Equation 1.
On page 34, the Specification discloses “as outlined in sep 8” should be corrected to “step 8”.
On page 35, the Specification discloses “signature aggregation may be performed out-chain” should be corrected to “off-chain”.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Objections
Claims 9, 11, and 12 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claim 9 – Claim 8 discloses a “hash-and-sign lattice-based cryptographic digital signature scheme” and Claim 9 refers back to claim 8 however drops the term “digital” when referencing the hash-and-sign lattice-based cryptographic signature scheme”.
Claim 11, discloses the term “cryptographically-verifiable computing algorithm” and claim 12 discloses the same term however unhyphenated.
Claim 22, discloses “the method of claim 1, comprising…” should be corrected to “the method of claim 1, further comprising”.
Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
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.
Claims 1-22 and 24 are 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 1 – It is unclear whether the claim requires the aggregated signature to be in the block at all. The aggregated signature is never affirmatively placed in the block. The only positive recitation of block content is that the block comprises the transaction data. The aggregated signature appears only in a passive trailing wherein clause (maintained separate from the transaction data in the generated block).
Claim 1 discloses the limitation “the aggregated signature is maintained separately from the transaction data”. It is unclear whether it is a separate field, separate section, separate from each transaction data or from the transaction data region as a whole. It is unclear to the examiner what the structural relationship is.
Claim 1 discloses aggregating signatures “into a block of a blockchain” and continues to discloses “generating a block of a blockchain” it is unclear if it is the same block or a different block.
Claim 11 discloses “a cryptographically-verifiable computing algorithm” as being an optional component, however, claim 12 which depends on claim 11, recites “the cryptographically verifiable computing algorithm”. There would be a lack of antecedent basis if the cryptographically-verifiable computing algorithm was not selected.
Claim 13 discloses “the transaction” and “the transaction data” it is unclear which transaction.
Claim 24 is represented in an improper dependent form, Claim references both a server and a method. Examiner recommends rewriting Claim 24 in a proper independent form.
Claims 2-10, 12, and 14-22 are rejected due to their dependency on claim 1.
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 1-24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the identified claim limitation(s) that recite(s) an abstract idea without significantly more.
Claim 1 recites mathematical calculations intended to “aggregating the signature data associated with the plurality of received transactions to generate an aggregated signature”, Combining a plurality of signature values into a single value is a mathematical calculation. The specification confirms the operation is mathematical, describing aggregation as “summing all the signatures” as a “linear combinations … where the coefficients are derived from a random oracle”. The limitations as drafted, is a process that, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, that merely covers mathematical calculations using mathematical formulas but for exception of the recitation of generic computer components.
If a claim limitation, under its broadest reasonable interpretation, covers mathematical concepts but for the recitation of generic computer components, then it falls within the “Mathematical Concepts” grouping of abstract ideas. Accordingly, the claim recites an abstract idea.
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application. The additional elements of “generating a block of a blockchain, the block comprising the transaction data” does not integrate the exception into a practical application. Generating a conventional blockchain block is recited at a high level of generality and merely provides the technological environment in which the mathematical operation is performed. Accordingly, this additional element does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it does not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea. Further the claims do not recite an improvement to the functioning of a blockchain or other technology as the limitations are strictly associated with the mathematical properties of aggregating signatures. The claim is directed to an abstract idea.
The claim does 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 element of using a blockchain to perform the computation amounts to no more than mere instructions to apply the exception using a generic computer component. Mere instructions to apply an exception using a generic computer component cannot provide an inventive concept. The claim is not patent eligible. Claims 23 and 24 represents a method and system, respectively, of the limitations presented in Claim 1. These are abstract for the same reasons as Claim 1, and do not integrate the abstract ideas into a practical application or add significantly more to the abstract ideas recited in Claim 1.
Claims 2-22 are dependent on independent claim 1 and similarly do not present any additional limitations that would integrate the judicial exception into a practical application. Furthermore, no additional elements are added that impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea other than generic computer components. For this reason, claims 2-22 are also rejected based on their dependency on claim 1 and not for resolving the deficiencies identified in the rejection of claims 1, 23 and 24 above.
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.
Claims 1-3, 5-6, 8, 17-18, and 21-24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Yuan et al. (NPL: Blockchain-Based Infrastructure for Artificial Intelligence with Quantum Resistant), hereinafter referred to as Yuan.
Regarding Claim 1, Yuan discloses:
A method of aggregating a plurality of signatures together, each signature being associated with a different transaction, into a block of a blockchain (On page 627, Yuan discloses “Aggregate signature allows multiple independent signatures to be aggregated into a short signature in a non-interactive way… we apply the aggregate signatures into blockchain systems,”), the method comprising: receiving a plurality of different transactions, each transaction comprising transaction data and associated signature data (On page 630, Yuan discloses “Sign: Alice invokes algorithm SamplePre(Ai, Bi, s, u) obtain signature e, where u = Hi(M)”) aggregating the signature data associated with the plurality of received transactions to generate an aggregated signature (On page 628, Yuan discloses “we apply the aggregate signatures into blockchain systems, which can significantly solve the capacity problem and also improve the efficiency of miner’s verification.” And further discloses on page 630, “eagg = e+e0, eagg is the aggregate signature for message sequence” ); generating a block of a blockchain, the block comprising the transaction data (On page 631, Yuan discloses “The blockchain throughput…
s
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V
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v
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v
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)
where V is the block capacity of the blockchain, vh is the block head size, and Tc is the interval between two blocks, vs is the size of a single transaction”); and wherein the aggregated signature is maintained separate from the transaction data in the generated block (On page 628, Yuan discloses aggregating the t per-transaction signatures into a single block-level aggregate signature “eagg = e+e0, eagg is the aggregate signature for message sequence” the block retaining the transaction data while the individual signatures are replaced by the aggregate.).
Regarding Claim 2, Yuan discloses:
The method of claim 1, wherein each transaction is associated with a public key, pki, and private key, ski, pair, the public and private key pair being selected using a digital signature scheme, and the signature data, si, associated with a transaction (On page 630, Yuan discloses “Generator runs algorithm TrapGen (q,n) to output an approximate uniform matrix A along with a short basis B” where A represents the public key and B represents the private key) is generated by encrypting the transaction data, Txi, associated with the transaction, with the private key, ski, associated with the transaction (On page 630, Yuan discloses “Sign: Alice invokes algorithm SamplePre(Ai, Bi, s, u) obtain signature e, where u = Hi(M)” where the signing represents the encryption) .
Regarding Claim 3, Yuan discloses:
The method of claim 2, wherein aggregating the signature data associated with the plurality of received transactions to generate the aggregated signature comprises using an aggregation algorithm in combination with the public key, pki, and the signature data, si, associated with each transaction and the plurality of transaction data, to generate the aggregated signature (On page 630, Yuan discloses “aggregate t single message-signature pairs (Mi, ei ) for message sequence (M1, ….Mi)”).
Regarding Claim 5, Yuan discloses:
The method of claim 2, wherein the digital signature scheme is a multi-use signature scheme (On page 630, Yuan discloses “(A, B) to be saved as seed lattice basis in the wallet.”)
Regarding Claim 6, Yuan discloses:
The method of claim 2, wherein the digital signature scheme is a post-quantum digital signature scheme (On page 629, Yuan discloses “the security of our quantum resistant blockchain for the post quantum age…Av=0(modq),
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”).
Regarding Claim 7, Yuan discloses:
The method of claim 6, wherein the post-quantum digital signature scheme is a lattice-based cryptographic digital signature scheme (On page 629, Yuan discloses the following lattice based post-quantum schemes “
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”).
Regarding Claim 8, Yuan discloses:
The method of claim 7, wherein the lattice-based cryptographic digital signature scheme is a hash-and-sign lattice-based cryptographic digital signature scheme (On page 630, Yuan discloses “Sign: Alice invokes algorithm SamplePre(Ai, Bi, s, u) obtain signature e, where u = Hi(M)” representing the hash then sign process) .
Regarding Claim 17, Yuan discloses:
The method of claim 1, wherein a size of the aggregated signature is less than the sum of the sizes of each signature data associated with each transaction. (On page 631, Yuan discloses “compressed into one signature size under the limit of aggregate signature.”)
Regarding Claim 18, Yuan discloses:
The method of claim 1, wherein a size of the aggregated signature is sublinear with respect to the total number of transactions (On page 630, Yuan discloses the aggregate “eagg = e + e0” is a single lattice vector of fixed dimension m; aggregation is vector addition in the fixed-dimension space, so the aggregate’s storage is constant which is sublinear)
Regarding Claim 21, Yuan discloses:
wherein generating the block of the blockchain comprises updating a pre-generated block including the plurality of received transactions, by replacing signature data comprised in the pre-generated block with the aggregated signature (On page 630, Yuan discloses replacing the t per-transaction signatures with a single aggregate “eagg = e + e0 .”)
Regarding Claim 22, Yuan discloses:
running an aggregated signature verification algorithm using the aggregated signature, the plurality of transactions, and a plurality of public keys associated with the plurality of transactions. (On page 630, Yuan discloses “Aggregate Verify” wherein the aggregate signature is validated associated with a plurality of keys and transactions).
Regarding Claim 23, Yuan discloses:
A method of verifying a transaction in a block of a blockchain using an aggregated signature, the aggregated signature being associated with a plurality of transactions in the block of the blockchain (On page 630, Yuan discloses “Aggregate Verify” wherein the aggregate signature is validated associated with a plurality of keys and transactions), the aggregated signature being stored in the block of the blockchain separate from the plurality of transactions in the block (On page 628, Yuan discloses aggregating the t per-transaction signatures into a single block-level aggregate signature “eagg = e+e0, eagg is the aggregate signature for message sequence” the block retaining the transaction data while the individual signatures are replaced by the aggregate.), and the method comprising: receiving the aggregated signature; and verifying the validity of the transaction by executing an aggregated signature verification algorithm to verify the validity of the aggregated signature (On page 630, Yuan discloses a two step “Aggregate Verify” system to validate the aggregate signature or it is invalid).
Claim 24 is directed to a system having functionality corresponding to the method of Claim 1
and is rejected by a similar rationale, mutatis mutandis.
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.
Claims 4 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yuan et al. (NPL: Blockchain-Based Infrastructure for Artificial Intelligence with Quantum Resistant), hereinafter referred to as Yuan, in view of Katsumata et al. (US 11635952), hereinafter referred to as Katsumata.
Regarding Claim 4, Yuan discloses the limitations of Claim 2.
However, Yuan does not explicitly disclose the use of an external aggregator
Katsumata discloses:
wherein aggregating the signature data associated with the plurality of received transactions to generate the aggregated signature, comprises: sending the public key, pki, the signature data, si, and the transaction data associated with the plurality of transactions, to an aggregator configured to generate the aggregated signature using an aggregation algorithm; and receiving the generated aggregated signature. (In Col 6, Lines 23-27, Katsumata discloses “a device within the one or more networks 130 may collate the first and second digital signatures 142, 152 and generate the combined digital signature 160 through summation without needing access to the secret key of the distributor 110”)
One in ordinary skill in the art of cryptography would have been motivated, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Yuan’s approach by utilizing Katsumata’s approach of using an external aggregator to aggregate the signatures as the motivation would be to allow the aggregation to be delegated and without the need of a secret key thus reducing risk of trust (See Katsumata, Col 6).
Regarding Claim 9, Yuan discloses the limitations of Claim 8.
However, Yuan does not explicitly disclose the use of a falcon scheme
Katsumata discloses:
The method of claim 8, wherein the hash-and-sign lattice-based cryptographic signature scheme is the Falcon signature scheme (In Col 16, Lines 51-55, Katsumata discloses “One example of a suitable lattice-based hash-then-sign digital signature scheme is the FALCON scheme described by Thomas Prest et al. in the FALCON technical report, published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology in 2019”).
One in ordinary skill in the art of cryptography would have been motivated, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Yuan’s approach by utilizing Katsumata’s approach of using a Falcon scheme as the motivation would be to allow a standard technique to obtain compact post-quantum signatures (See Katsumata, Col 16).
Claims 10-14 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yuan et al. (NPL: Blockchain-Based Infrastructure for Artificial Intelligence with Quantum Resistant), hereinafter referred to as Yuan, in view of Albrecht et al. (NPL: Lattice-Based SNARKs: Publicly Verifiable, Preprocessing, and Recursively Composable), hereinafter referred to as Albrecht.
Regarding Claim 10, Yuan discloses the limitations of Claim 1.
However, Yuan does not explicitly disclose the concept of proofs. Albrecht discloses:
wherein the aggregated signature comprises a plurality of aggregated signature components (On page 8, Albrecht discloses “The aggregated signature i.e. the SNARK proof, can be verified in time sublinear in the number of signers and signatures n by first preprocessing the part of the verification equation” and further discloses on page 28, figure 3, open returns π = (u0, u1)).
One in ordinary skill in the art of cryptography would have been motivated, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Yuan’s approach by utilizing Albrecht’s approach of using proof’s with the lattice signatures as the motivation would be to allow a compact, publicly-verifiable aggregate for the block. (See Albrecht, Section 1.4).
Regarding Claim 11, Yuan discloses the limitations of Claim 10.
However, Yuan does not explicitly disclose the concept of proofs. Albrecht discloses:
wherein the plurality of aggregated signature components comprise any one or more of: at least a portion of a composite expression, a composite expression, one or more outputs of a cryptographically- verifiable computing algorithm. (On page 16, Albrecht discloses “π←Prove(pp,(f,y,z),x): The proving algorithm generates a proof π on input the public parameters pp, a statement (f,y,z), and a witness x.”)
One in ordinary skill in the art of cryptography would have been motivated, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Yuan’s approach by utilizing Albrecht’s approach of using proof’s with the lattice signatures as the motivation would be to allow a compact, publicly-verifiable aggregate for the block. (See Albrecht, Section 1.4).
Regarding Claim 12, Yuan discloses the limitations of Claim 11.
However, Yuan does not explicitly disclose the concept of proofs. Albrecht discloses:
wherein the cryptographically verifiable computing algorithm comprises any one of: a) a probabilistic checkable proof; b) a zero-knowledge proof algorithm. (On page 15, Albrecht discloses “non-interactive zero-knowledge proof of knowledge (NIZK) with online extractors”)
One in ordinary skill in the art of cryptography would have been motivated, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Yuan’s approach by utilizing Albrecht’s approach of using proof’s with the lattice signatures as the motivation would be to allow a compact, publicly-verifiable aggregate for the block. (See Albrecht, Section 1.4).
Regarding Claim 13, Yuan discloses the limitations of Claim 8.
However, Yuan does not explicitly disclose the concept of proofs. Albrecht discloses:
wherein aggregating the signature data associated with the plurality of received transactions to generate the aggregated signature, comprises: determining, at least one composite expression for the received plurality of transactions based on any one or more of: the public key, pki associated with the transaction, the transaction data, Txi associated with the transaction, at least one hash function; and determining, using the at least one determined composite expression as an input to a cryptographically verifiable computing algorithm, at least one component of the aggregated signature. (On page 40, Albrecht discloses “An aggregator can aggregate the n signatures issued at each time j by computing a SNARK proof for the knowledge of short (ui,j)i ∈ Zn satisfying Ai · ui,j ≡ vj mod q.”)
One in ordinary skill in the art of cryptography would have been motivated, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Yuan’s approach by utilizing Albrecht’s approach of using proof’s with the lattice signatures as the motivation would be to allow a compact, publicly-verifiable aggregate for the block. (See Albrecht, Section 1.4).
Regarding Claim 14, Yuan discloses the limitations of Claim 13.
However, Yuan does not explicitly disclose the concept of proofs. Albrecht discloses:
wherein the cryptographically verifiable computing algorithm is a zero-knowledge proof algorithm, and the at least one determined composite expression is used as a private witness.(On page 40, Albrecht discloses “SNARK proof for the knowledge of short (ui,j)” wherein the signatures are the witness)
One in ordinary skill in the art of cryptography would have been motivated, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Yuan’s approach by utilizing Albrecht’s approach of using proof’s with the lattice signatures as the motivation would be to allow a compact, publicly-verifiable aggregate for the block. (See Albrecht, Section 1.4).
Regarding Claim 16, Yuan discloses the limitations of Claim 8.
However, Yuan does not explicitly disclose the concept of proofs. Albrecht discloses:
wherein aggregating the signature data associated with the plurality of received transactions to generate the aggregated signature, comprises: determining, for each transaction, a first parameter, qi, such that s1,i = Hash(Txi) - pki s2,i + qi p, where pki is the public key associated with the transaction, Txi is the transaction data associated with the transaction, si,1 is a first component of the signature data associated with the transaction, si,2 is a second component of the signature data associated with the transaction, Hash(Txi) is a hash value of the transaction data with Hash() a hash function, and p a prime number (On pages 33 and 38, Albrecht discloses a two component GPV hash-and-sign signature and transforming a modq relation into a native relation over the ring R and further discloses “To remove the modular reduction step, let r ∈ R be such that f(x,c) +q ·r = y.”); and executing a zero-knowledge proof algorithm using as a private witness a set of the first parameter, the first signature component and the second signature component for the plurality of received transactions {s1,i , s2,i, qi} (On page 40, Albrecht discloses “SNARK proof for the knowledge of short (ui,j)” wherein the signatures are the witness), and using as a public instance a set of the public keys and the hash values of the transaction data for the plurality of received transactions {pki, Hash(Txi)} to output the aggregated signature (On page 40, Albrecht discloses “An aggregator can aggregate the n signatures issued at each time j by computing a SNARK proof for the knowledge of short (ui,j)i ∈ Zn satisfying Ai · ui,j ≡ vj mod q.”)
One in ordinary skill in the art of cryptography would have been motivated, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Yuan’s approach by utilizing Albrecht’s approach of using proof’s with the lattice signatures as the motivation would be to allow a compact, publicly-verifiable aggregate for the block. (See Albrecht, Section 1.4).
Claim 15 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yuan et al. (NPL: Blockchain-Based Infrastructure for Artificial Intelligence with Quantum Resistant), hereinafter referred to as Yuan, in view of Albrecht et al. (NPL: Lattice-Based SNARKs: Publicly Verifiable, Preprocessing, and Recursively Composable), hereinafter referred to as Albrecht, in further view of Hoffstein et al. (US 20220385479), hereinafter referred to as Hoffstein.
Regarding Claim 15, Yuan discloses:
wherein aggregating the signature data associated with the plurality of received transactions to generate the aggregated signature, comprises (On page 630, Yuan discloses “Sign: Alice invokes algorithm SamplePre(Ai, Bi, s, u) obtain signature e, where u = Hi(M)”):
However, Yuan does not explicitly disclose the two transactions. Hoffstein discloses:
determining, for each transaction, a first parameter, ri, by calculating ri=hash(pki, Txi), where pki is the public key associated with the transaction, and Txi is the transaction data associated with the transaction (Hoffstein discloses in Table 4, “
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” wherein each per signature is a hash evaluated message); determining a first component, a1, of the aggregated signature, A, by calculating, for each transaction, a first product ri*si,1, where si,1 is a first component of the signature data associated with a transaction, and summing the first product over all transactions to calculate the first aggregate signature component (Hoffstein discloses in Table 4, “
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”, wherein the first aggregated quantity z is the weighted sum of the individual signature component); determining a second component, a2, of the aggregated signature, A, by calculating, for each transaction, a second product ri*pki*si,2, where si,2 is a second component of the signature data associated with a transaction, and summing the second product over all transactions to calculate the second aggregate signature component (Hoffstein discloses in Table 4, “
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”, wherein the second aggregated quantity Y is the weighted sum of the second signature component);
One in ordinary skill in the art of cryptography would have been motivated, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Yuan’s approach by utilizing Hoffstein’s approach of compressing the per transaction signatures the motivation would be to allow for compacting and reducing the proportion of signatures in block size in a constantly increasing environment. (See Hoffstein, ¶ 14).
However, Yuan does not explicitly disclose a third component. Albrecht discloses:
and determining, using the second aggregate signature component, a2, as an input to a cryptographically verifiable computing algorithm, a third component, π, of the aggregated signature, A. (On page 40, Albrecht discloses “An aggregator can aggregate the n signatures issued at each time j by computing a SNARK proof for the knowledge of short (ui,j)i ∈ Zn satisfying Ai · ui,j ≡ vj mod q.”)
One in ordinary skill in the art of cryptography would have been motivated, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Yuan’s approach by utilizing Albrecht’s approach of using proof’s with the lattice signatures as the motivation would be to allow a compact, publicly-verifiable aggregate for the block. (See Albrecht, Section 1.4).
Claims 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yuan et al. (NPL: Blockchain-Based Infrastructure for Artificial Intelligence with Quantum Resistant), hereinafter referred to as Yuan, in view of Hoffstein et al. (US 20220385479), hereinafter referred to as Hoffstein.
Regarding Claim 19, Yuan discloses the limitations of Claim 18.
However, Yuan does not explicitly disclose logarithmic scaling
Hoffstein discloses:
The method of claim 18, wherein the size of the aggregated signature scales logarithmically with respect to the total number of transactions. (In ¶ 14, Hoffstein discloses “The first part is a post-quantum size signature that grows very slowly, scaling by on the order of log K bits for K signatures.”)
One in ordinary skill in the art of cryptography would have been motivated, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Yuan’s approach by utilizing Hoffstein’s approach of compressing the per transaction signatures the motivation would be to allow for compacting and reducing the proportion of signatures in block size in a constantly increasing environment. (See Hoffstein, ¶ 14).
Regarding Claim 20, Yuan discloses the limitations of Claim 18.
However, Yuan does not explicitly disclose logarithmic scaling
Hoffstein discloses:
The method of claim 18, wherein the total number of transactions is greater than a threshold number of transactions for which the size of the aggregated signature is less than a sum of the sizes of each signature data associated with each transaction. (In ¶ 17, Hoffstein discloses “even for a modest number of signatures (e.g., a few hundred), the aggregate signature size of MMSAT represents an improvement over traditional signature schemes such as elliptic curve-based signatures (ECDSA), e.g. it is 19-times smaller than Bimodal Lattice Signature Scheme (BLISS) and 1.9 times smaller than ECDSA for 1000 signatures at 128-bit security.”)
One in ordinary skill in the art of cryptography would have been motivated, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Yuan’s approach by utilizing Hoffstein’s approach of compressing the per transaction signatures the motivation would be to allow for compacting and reducing the proportion of signatures in block size in a constantly increasing environment. (See Hoffstein, ¶ 14).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Yavuz; Attila (US 11588645 ) discloses a method for forward-secure digital signatures with signature and partial public key aggregation capabilities
Ding et al. (US 20200358619) discloses a method for hashing digital signatures and performing proof of work on blocks in a blockchain.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SHADI H KOBROSLI whose telephone number is (571)272-1952. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9am-5pm ET.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Rupal Dharia can be reached at 571-272-3880. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/SHADI H KOBROSLI/Examiner, Art Unit 2492 /RUPAL DHARIA/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2492
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