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 .
DETAILED ACTION
1. The following is a non-Final Office Action in response to applicant’s arguments/filing filed on April 3, 2025
Claims 1-6 are pending
Foreign Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant's claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119(a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in the instant Application, filed on 4/3/2025.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 4/3/2025 was filed prior to the mailing date. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 4/20/2026 was filed prior to the mailing date. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Drawings
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s drawings submitted on 4/25/2025.
Oath/Declaration
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s oath submitted on 4/3/2025
Application Data Sheet
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s application data sheet submitted on 4/3/2025.
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.
Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which applicant regards as the invention. Specifically, the claim recites the phrase, “configured from first content”. It is unclear what is meant by the term, “first content”.
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 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 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.
1..) Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20230169498, Sado in view of US 20260180808, Bieber
In regards to claim 1, Sado teaches a method of securing media content by using lazy minting of a blockchain, an interplanetary file system (IPFS), and a digital watermark, performed by a computing device, the method comprising: uploading content to an IPFS-based shared network(US 20230169498, Sado, para. 0117, The digital wallet is stocked with non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that are uploaded to the interplanetary file system (IPFS) or other storage server.); obtaining content identification information according to IPFS uploading of the content(US 20230169498, Sado, para. 0043, Addressing of NFT assets/files on the network-accessible storage may include traditional hypertext transport protocol (HTTP) addressing or a content addressing protocol, such as, InterPlanetary File System (IPFS). Content addressing is a system where the address of a file on a server includes data based on the content itself, e.g., a hash/fingerprint[i.e. note: information that identifies the content] of the content.); applying the content identification information to the content(US 20230169498, Sado, para. 0028, Content matching may include fingerprinting the file and comparing the fingerprint with fingerprints or partial fingerprints in a content database.); and Sado does not teach determining non-fungible token (NFT) address information by minting the content to which the content identification information is applied However, Bieber teaches determining non-fungible token (NFT) address information by minting the content to which the content identification information is applied(US 20260180808, Bieber, para. 0043, it is possible to generate and mint a trusted NFT on a blockchain where the uniquely identifying information is available only after the NFT has been minted to the blockchain. At a high-level, this is achieved by minting an NFT containing a dummy electronic storage address, and replacing this with a second electronic storage address corresponding to the address of the metadata file after the NFT has been minted). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify the teaching of Sado with the teaching of Bieber because a user would have been motivated to validate a NFT, taught by Bieber, in order to safeguard the minting of fraudulent NFTs in the system taught by Sado(Bieber, para. 0014)
2.) Claims 2 and 6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20230169498, Sado in view of US 20260180808, Bieber and further in view of US 20220343328, Fowler
In regards to claim 2, the combination of Sado and Bieber teach the method of securing media content by using lazy minting of a blockchain, an IPFS, and a digital watermark according to claim 1. The combination of Sado and Bieber do not teach before the uploading, the method further comprising generating content for proof of ownership by applying temporary NFT address information obtained through lazy minting to the content, wherein the content for proof of ownership is uploaded to the IPFS However, Fowler teaches before the uploading, the method further comprising generating content for proof of ownership by applying temporary NFT address information obtained through lazy minting to the content, wherein the content for proof of ownership is uploaded to the IPFS(US 20220343328, Fowler, para. 0121, Minting generally refers to the actual recording or adding of the NFT to the blockchain, which may occur at the time of subject matter association (e.g., NFT creation) or when the NFT is first sold after creation (e.g., “lazy minting”)… wherein the NFT is created by simply uploading subject matter data to the platform, designating a storage option for the data and contract (e.g., IPFS), determining the desired number of NFTs for the subject matter, and clicking the appropriate button. Of course, all the necessary fees must also be paid. In return, the creator/owner may get some sort of proof of NFT ownership (i.e., “proof of ownership”) delivered to one or more digital wallets, such as the cryptocurrency wallet.). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify the teaching of the combination of Sado and Bieber with the teaching of Fowler because a user would have been motivated to use a plurality of geofences, taught by Fowler, in order to customize customer rewards for specific locations in the system taught by the combination of Sado and Bieber(Fowler, para. 0008)
In regards to claim 6, the combination of Sado, Bieber and Fowler teach the method of securing media content by using lazy minting of a blockchain, an IPFS, and a digital watermark according to claim 2, wherein the determining of the NFT address information by minting the content to which the content identification information is applied comprises determining a final NFT address by performing minting based on identification information generated by uploading the content for proof of ownership to the IPFS(US 20260180808, Bieber, para. 0003 and 0043: [0003]- It is often stated that NFTs are able to provide a certificate of authenticity or proof of ownership, due to the immutability of the record on the blockchain. [0043]-it is possible to generate and mint a trusted NFT on a blockchain where the uniquely identifying information is available only after the NFT has been minted to the blockchain. At a high-level, this is achieved by minting an NFT containing a dummy electronic storage address, and replacing this with a second electronic storage address corresponding to the address of the metadata file after the NFT has been minted). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify the teaching of the combination of Sado and Bieber with the teaching of Fowler because a user would have been motivated to use a plurality of geofences, taught by Fowler, in order to customize customer rewards for specific locations in the system taught by the combination of Sado and Bieber(Fowler, para. 0008)
3.) Claims 3 and 4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20230169498, Sado in view of US 20260180808, Bieber and further in view of US 20220343328, Fowler and further in view of US 20230252431, Mecci
In regards to claim 3, the combination of Sado, Bieber and Fowler teach the method of securing media content by using lazy minting of a blockchain, an IPFS, and a digital watermark according to claim 2. The combination of Sado, Bieber and Fowler do not teach wherein the content identification information comprises address information on an IPFS network configured according to hash conversion of the content for proof of ownership However, Mecci teach wherein the content identification information comprises address information on an IPFS network configured according to hash conversion of the content for proof of ownership (US 20230252431, Mecci, para. 0036 and 0040, [0036]-The Resolver is a smart contract that is used for resolving domain names and storing owner’s domain name records such as cryptocurrency addresses, chat IDs, and IPFS hashes for decentralized websites.[0040]- Web page or web application Proof of ownership 212 may further strengthen by the use of digital rights management methods and technologies like digital watermarks on a web page,). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify the teaching of the combination of Sado, Bieber and Fowler with the teaching of Mecci because a user would have been motivated to use a Proof of Ownership established using NFTs, as taught by Mecci, in order to enable digital rights management for use on webpages and/or ecommerce applications taught by the combination of Sado and Bieber(Mecci, para. 0037)
In regards to claim 4, the combination of Sado, Bieber and Fowler teach the method of securing media content by using lazy minting of a blockchain, an IPFS, and a digital watermark according to claim 2. The combination of Sado, Bieber and Fowler do not teach wherein the content for proof of ownership comprises invisible code information applied to an object of the content However, Mecci teaches wherein the content for proof of ownership comprises invisible code information applied to an object of the content (US 20230252431, Mecci, para. 0040, Web page or web application Proof of ownership 212 may further strengthen by the use of digital rights management methods and technologies like digital watermarks on a web page). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify the teaching of the combination of Sado, Bieber and Fowler with the teaching of Mecci because a user would have been motivated to use a Proof of Ownership established using NFTs, as taught by Mecci, in order to enable digital rights management for use on webpages and/or ecommerce applications taught by the combination of Sado and Bieber(Mecci, para. 0037)
4.) Claim 5 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over US 20230169498, Sado in view of US 20260180808, Bieber and further in view of US 20220343328, Fowler and further in view of US 20090132825, Mohanty
In regards to claim 5, the combination of Sado, Bieber and Fowler teach the method of securing media content by using lazy minting of a blockchain, an IPFS, and a digital watermark according to claim 2. The combination of Sado, Bieber and Fowler do not teach wherein the content for proof of ownership is configured by inserting the temporary NFT address information and invisible code information configured from first content into the content However, Mohanty teaches wherein the content for proof of ownership is configured by inserting the temporary NFT address information and invisible code information configured from first content into the content(US 20090132825, Mohanty, para. 0018, The invisible-robust watermarking system hides some ownership information permanently in a host media in the form of a pseudorandom number, logo image, signature, or other suitable form, as a proof of ownership.). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to modify the teaching of the combination of Sado, Bieber and Fowler with the teaching of Mohanty because a user would have been motivated to use invisible watermarks, taught by Mohanty, in order to safeguard data, taught by the combination Sado, Bieber and Fowler, from security attacks(Mohanty, para. 0004 and 0019)
CONCLUSION
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GREGORY LANE whose telephone number is (571)270-7469. The examiner can normally be reached on 571 270 7469 from 8:00 AM to 6:00 PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Taghi Arani, can be reached on 571 272 3787. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/GREGORY A LANE/Examiner, Art Unit 2438
/TAGHI T ARANI/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2438
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