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
This action is in response to the communication filed on 05/12/2025.
Claims 1-20 are under examination.
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 claims at issue 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); and 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 a nonstatutory double patenting ground provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with this 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 §§ 706.02(l)(1) - 706.02(l)(3) 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 USPTO Internet website contains terminal disclaimer forms which may be used. Please visit www.uspto.gov/forms/. The 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 http://www.uspto.gov/patents/process/file/efs/guidance/eTD-info-I.jsp.
Claims 1-20 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-19 of U.S. Patent No. 12,301,725. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the subject matter claimed in the instant application is fully disclosed in the patent and is covered by the patent since the patent and the application are claiming common subject matter, as follows: A method for facilitating decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs), comprising: using one or more computer processors: receiving, from each of a plurality of parties, one or more inputs; based on the one or more inputs, establishing a contract between and among the parties, wherein the contract provides governance for a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO);generating a hash of the contract; adding cryptographic signatures to the hash from each of the parties, thereby establishing a cryptographically signed hash which validates a finalized contract, wherein the cryptographically signed hash comprises the hash and the cryptographic signatures; and providing the cryptographically signed hash to each of the parties.
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 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.
Claims 1, 5, 7, 9-15 and 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nguyen (US 11,244,032 B1), Covaci et al. (US 2021/0075610 A1) and Tang et al. (10,425,230 B1).
Regarding claim 1, Nguyen discloses A method for facilitating decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) [col. 16, lines 63-65, DAO], comprising: using one or more computer processors: contract provides governance for a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) [col. 10, lines 12-59, using the smart contract to govern a sale of an electronic asset including NFT, col. 16, lines 60-61, ,The governance of policies in the system can be done in a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) manner].
Nguyen does not explicitly disclose receiving, from each of a plurality of parties, one or more inputs; based on the one or more inputs, establishing a contract between and among the parties.
However Covaci et al. teaches receiving, from each of a plurality of parties, one or more inputs; based on the one or more inputs, establishing a contract between and among the parties [par. 0034, Parties of a smart contract may refer to two or more computing entities that agree (e.g., pursuant to user input provided through associated user input devices) on the terms to the execution of a smart contract ].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Covaci et al. into the teaching of Nguyen with the motivation of allowing for multiple parties to jointly generate or jointly agree upon the parameters for generation of a smart contract as taught by Covaci et al. [Covaci et al.: abs.].
They do not explicitly disclose generating a hash of the contract; adding cryptographic signatures to the hash from each of the parties, thereby establishing a cryptographically signed hash which validates a finalized contract, wherein the cryptographically signed hash comprises the hash and the cryptographic signatures; and providing the cryptographically signed hash to each of the parties.
However, Tang et al. teaches generating a hash of the contract; adding cryptographic signatures to the hash from each of the parties, thereby establishing a cryptographically signed hash which validates a finalized contract, wherein the cryptographically signed hash comprises the hash and the cryptographic signatures [col. 12, lines 13-19, “When the contract is ready to be signed, a hash is taken of the contract document. This hash is used to generate a smart contract where the signing party wallets and hash are fed in as inputs. The signer then uses his or her signing application to digitally sign the contract hash. When all signatures are received for a document, the smart contract marks the document as signed and final”]; and providing the cryptographically signed hash to each of the parties [see fig. 4, col. 15, lines 6-10, “the results of each process step 390-394) results in a transaction being stored at one or more addresses in the blockchain, such as the document digital wallet 360, the second user's digital wallet 351, and/or the first user's digital wallet 352”].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Tang et al. into the teaching of Nguyen and Covaci et al. with the motivation of using blockchain for use in verifying and authenticating the identity and e-signatures of a digitally signed document as taught by Tang et al. [Tang et al.: abs.].
Regarding claim 5, the rejection of claim 3 is incorporated.
Nguyen further discloses the finalized contract facilitates smart voting whereby one of the parties programs its software agent to follow, or delegate a proxy vote to, another of the parties or any combination of the parties [col. 6, lines 8-10, In a DAO manner, the community organizes voting for selection of a policy, claim 1, crowd voting, blind voting, col. 7, lines 46-55, computer software].
Tang et al. further discloses receiving the one or more inputs from each of the parties comprises receiving the one or more inputs from software agents of the parties [see fig 3, step 312, then step 393 and step 394, col. 14, line 50 - col. 15, line 5, “In response to the first user signing the document hash #ABCD 312… another hash value is generated as the Hash from Second User's signing of Refreshed Hash of First User's signing of document # ABCD 358”, col. 9, lines 49-50, electronic signature computer application code (software agent of the party)].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Tang et al. into the teaching of Nguyen and Covaci et al. with the motivation of using blockchain for use in verifying and authenticating the identity and e-signatures of a digitally signed document as taught by Tang et al. [Tang et al.: abs.].
Regarding claim 7, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated.
Tang et al. further discloses providing the cryptographically signed hash to one of an immutable log, an immutable ledger, a blockchain, and any combination thereof, to provide auditable proof of the finalized contract [col. 12, lines 60-64, “each signer (i.e., second user and first user) may send a transaction via his or her digital wallet to an address of a document or smart contract in the blockchain acknowledging (or signing) the document hash”, col. 26, lines 26-28, A record of transactions including document hash values associated with the document wallet stored in the blockchain].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Tang et al. into the teaching of Nguyen and Covaci et al. with the motivation of using blockchain for use in verifying and authenticating the identity and e-signatures of a digitally signed document as taught by Tang et al. [Tang et al.: abs.].
Regarding claim 9, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated.
Nguyen further discloses the finalized contract is not self-executing but is self-validating and non-repudiable [col. 10, lines 49-56, “the authenticity of a particular NFT can be verified independently of the content creator by auditing transaction records associated with the NFT within the blockchain to confirm consistency with the smart contract underlying the NFT. For example, the presence of transactions reflecting residual royalty payments that a smart contract indicates should have occurred upon transfers of the NFT can be relied upon to verify the authenticity of the NFT”].
Regarding claim 10, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated.
Tang et al. further discloses providing a signed hash of every transaction associated with the DAO to a superset of all audit trail locations provided by the parties, the audit trail locations comprising one of an immutable log, an immutable ledger, a blockchain, and any combination thereof [col. 12, lines 60-64, “each signer (i.e., second user and first user) may send a transaction via his or her digital wallet to an address of a document or smart contract in the blockchain acknowledging (or signing) the document hash”, col. 26, lines 26-28, A record of transactions including document hash values associated with the document wallet stored in the blockchain, col. 3, line 53, immutable; col. 7, lines 52-55, “the enterprise auditing system 149A may have an enterprise auditing client 149B that acts as a node in a blockchain platform to allow the auditing client 149B to check the blockchain”].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Tang et al. into the teaching of Nguyen and Covaci et al. with the motivation of using blockchain for use in verifying and authenticating the identity and e-signatures of a digitally signed document as taught by Tang et al. [Tang et al.: abs.].
Regarding claim 11, Nguyen discloses A method for facilitating decentralized autonomous organizations (DAOs) and associated tokens [col. 16, lines 63-65, DAO, col. 10, lines 13-28, the smart contract governs a sale of an electronic asset including non-fungible token], comprising: using one or more computer processors: contract provides governance for a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) [col. 10, lines 12-59, using the smart contract to govern a sale of an electronic asset including NFT, col. 16, lines 60-61, ,The governance of policies in the system can be done in a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) manner]; wherein one of the finalized contract and an additional contract allows the parties to purchase and sell tokens associated with the DAO using software agents of a purchasing party and a selling party [col. 10, lines 13-28, the smart contract governs a sale of an electronic asset including non-fungible token, col. 10, lines 40-43, the smart contracts defining NFTs that can be minted within platforms specify fee distribution obligations with respect to specific types of transactions involving NFTs, col. 1, lines 62-67, “Once a smart contract is called within a blockchain, the code of the smart contract acts as a programmatically defined autonomous agent with its own persistent variables that executes by computer systems within the blockchain when the smart contract is referenced by a message and/or transaction”].
Nguyen does not explicitly disclose receiving, from each of a plurality of parties, one or more inputs; based on the one or more inputs, establishing a contract between and among the parties.
However Covaci et al. teaches receiving, from each of a plurality of parties, one or more inputs; based on the one or more inputs, establishing a contract between and among the parties [par. 0034, Parties of a smart contract may refer to two or more computing entities that agree (e.g., pursuant to user input provided through associated user input devices) on the terms to the execution of a smart contract ].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Covaci et al. into the teaching of Nguyen with the motivation of allowing for multiple parties to jointly generate or jointly agree upon the parameters for generation of a smart contract as taught by Covaci et al. [Covaci et al.: abs.].
They do not explicitly disclose generating a hash of the contract; adding cryptographic signatures to the hash from each of the parties, thereby establishing a cryptographically signed hash which validates a finalized contract, wherein the cryptographically signed hash comprises the hash and the cryptographic signatures; providing the cryptographically signed hash to each of the parties.
However, Tang et al. teaches generating a hash of the contract; adding cryptographic signatures to the hash from each of the parties, thereby establishing a cryptographically signed hash which validates a finalized contract, wherein the cryptographically signed hash comprises the hash and the cryptographic signatures [col. 12, lines 13-19, “When the contract is ready to be signed, a hash is taken of the contract document. This hash is used to generate a smart contract where the signing party wallets and hash are fed in as inputs. The signer then uses his or her signing application to digitally sign the contract hash. When all signatures are received for a document, the smart contract marks the document as signed and final”]; and providing the cryptographically signed hash to each of the parties [see fig. 4, col. 15, lines 6-10, “the results of each process step 390-394) results in a transaction being stored at one or more addresses in the blockchain, such as the document digital wallet 360, the second user's digital wallet 351, and/or the first user's digital wallet 352”].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Tang et al. into the teaching of Nguyen and Covaci et al. with the motivation of using blockchain for use in verifying and authenticating the identity and e-signatures of a digitally signed document as taught by Tang et al. [Tang et al.: abs.].
Regarding claim 12, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated.
Nguyen further discloses the additional contract is between one of the parties and the DAO [col. 6, lines 2-8, “utilizing a second smart contract to verify the originality of the AI-generated multimedia. The verification policy can be based on an AI model, or crowd voting or a human validator, blind voting or aggregation of those. The selection of this policy or other policies can be done in a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) manner or in a centralized manner”].
Regarding claim 13, the rejection of claim 11 is incorporated.
Nguyen further discloses the additional contract is between one of the parties and the DAO [col. 9, lines 66-67, smart contract that governs a sale of an electronic asset; col. 20, lines 9-13, “if the AI-generated multimedia is transferred, the buyer 364 pays a cost 366, and the creator (e.g., the first user 102A), the AI programmer 346, and/or the AI API provider 348 receive royalty payments”].
Regarding claim 14, the rejection of claim 11 is incorporated.
Nguyen further discloses the software agents of the purchasing party and the selling party each sending cryptographic signatures over a hash associated with a token sale to one or more immutable repositories, the one or more immutable repositories including one of an immutable log, an immutable ledger, a blockchain, and any combination thereof [col. 9, lines 1-8, “Digital signatures ensure that transactions originated from senders (signed with private keys) and not imposters. This covers different approaches to the processing, including hash trees and hash graphs. At its core, a blockchain system records the chronological order of transactions with all nodes agreeing to the validity of transactions using the chosen consensus model. As a result, transactions are irreversible and agreed to by all members in the network”, col. 13, lines 61-65, “Issuance of the NFTs 134 via the platform enables verification of the authenticity of the NFTs 134 independently of the content owner by confirming that transactions written to one or more of the immutable ledgers 102 are consistent with the smart contracts 108 underlying the NFTs”].
Regarding claim 15, the rejection of claim 14 is incorporated.
Nguyen further discloses the one or more immutable repositories includes all immutable repositories specified by the parties who own tokens [col. 14, lines 2-6, “the first user 102A, the second user 102B, and/or the third user 102C may utilize wallet applications 132 on their devices (e.g., the one or more client devices 104A, 104B, and 104C) to store the NFTs 134 distributed using the platform”, col. 14, lines 10-11, “moving the NFTs between different immutable ledgers].
Regarding claim 19, Nguyen discloses A method for facilitating nonfungible token (NFT) ownership and exchange [col. 16, lines 63-65, DAO, col. 10, lines 13-28, the smart contract governs a sale of an electronic asset including non-fungible token], comprising: using one or more computer processors: contract facilitates ownership and exchange of one or more nonfungible tokens (NFTs) [col. 10, lines 12-59, using the smart contract to govern a sale of an electronic asset including NFT, col. 16, lines 60-61, ,The governance of policies in the system can be done in a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) manner]; wherein one of the finalized contract and an additional contract allows the parties to purchase and sell the one or more NFTs using software agents of a purchasing party and a selling party [col. 10, lines 13-28, the smart contract governs a sale of an electronic asset including non-fungible token, col. 10, lines 40-43, the smart contracts defining NFTs that can be minted within platforms specify fee distribution obligations with respect to specific types of transactions involving NFTs, col. 1, lines 62-67, “Once a smart contract is called within a blockchain, the code of the smart contract acts as a programmatically defined autonomous agent with its own persistent variables that executes by computer systems within the blockchain when the smart contract is referenced by a message and/or transaction”].
Nguyen does not explicitly disclose receiving, from each of a plurality of parties, one or more inputs; based on the one or more inputs, establishing a contract between and among the parties.
However Covaci et al. teaches receiving, from each of a plurality of parties, one or more inputs; based on the one or more inputs, establishing a contract between and among the parties [par. 0034, Parties of a smart contract may refer to two or more computing entities that agree (e.g., pursuant to user input provided through associated user input devices) on the terms to the execution of a smart contract ].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Covaci et al. into the teaching of Nguyen with the motivation of allowing for multiple parties to jointly generate or jointly agree upon the parameters for generation of a smart contract as taught by Covaci et al. [Covaci et al.: abs.].
They do not explicitly disclose generating a hash of the contract; adding cryptographic signatures to the hash from each of the parties, thereby establishing a cryptographically signed hash which validates a finalized contract, wherein the cryptographically signed hash comprises the hash and the cryptographic signatures; and providing the cryptographically signed hash to each of the parties.
However, Tang et al. teaches generating a hash of the contract; adding cryptographic signatures to the hash from each of the parties, thereby establishing a cryptographically signed hash which validates a finalized contract, wherein the cryptographically signed hash comprises the hash and the cryptographic signatures [col. 12, lines 13-19, “When the contract is ready to be signed, a hash is taken of the contract document. This hash is used to generate a smart contract where the signing party wallets and hash are fed in as inputs. The signer then uses his or her signing application to digitally sign the contract hash. When all signatures are received for a document, the smart contract marks the document as signed and final”]; and providing the cryptographically signed hash to each of the parties [see fig. 4, col. 15, lines 6-10, “the results of each process step 390-394) results in a transaction being stored at one or more addresses in the blockchain, such as the document digital wallet 360, the second user's digital wallet 351, and/or the first user's digital wallet 352”].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Tang et al. into the teaching of Nguyen and Covaci et al. with the motivation of using blockchain for use in verifying and authenticating the identity and e-signatures of a digitally signed document as taught by Tang et al. [Tang et al.: abs.].
Regarding claim 20, it recites limitations like claim 1. The reason for the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein.
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nguyen (US 11,244,032 B1), Covaci et al. (US 2021/0075610 A1) and Tang et al. (10,425,230 B1) as applied to claims 1, 5, 7, 9-15 and 19-20 above, and further in view of Hunter (US 10,831,452 B1).
Regarding claim 2, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated.
Tang et al. discloses the finalized contract.
They do not explicitly disclose a contextual serialization of data required to move data between separate data stores.
However, Hunter teaches a contextual serialization of data required to move data between separate data stores [col. 15, lines 15-28, “the smart contract may include or otherwise be associated with a set of norm vertices encoded as a serialized graph in various data serialization formats, where the smart contract may encode a part or all the norm vertices by encoding the graph edges connecting the norm vertices The serialized graph may include a representation of an array of subarrays… the array of norm vertices (or other data structures in program state) may be stored in a data serialization format such as JSON, XML, YAML, XDR”, col. 19, lines 53-59, storing the serialized array of norm vertices in a decentralized tamper-evident data store].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Hunt into the teaching of Nguyen, Covaci et al. and Tang et al. with the motivation to increase the efficiency and performance of the data distribution amongst the nodes of the decentralized tamper-evident data store as taught by Hunt [Hunt: col. 19, lines 53-59].
Claims 3-4 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nguyen (US 11,244,032 B1), Covaci et al. (US 2021/0075610 A1) and Tang et al. (10,425,230 B1) as applied to claims 1, 5, 7, 9-15 and 19-20 above, and further in view of Mullins et al. (US 11,295,359 B1).
Regarding claim 3, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated.
Tang et al. further discloses providing a cryptographic signature in response to one of an action of a second party of the plurality of parties and a second software agent acting on behalf of the second party [see fig 3, step 312, then step 393 and step 394, col. 14, line 50 - col. 15, line 5, “In response to the first user signing the document hash #ABCD 312, a refreshed hash value is generated from the first user's signing of the document hash #ABCD 357 and is stored in the document digital wallet as a transaction in ledger 365 from the first user's digital wallet 352. When the second user signs the refreshed hash value of the first user's signing of the document hash #ABCD, another hash value is generated as the Hash from Second User's signing of Refreshed Hash of First User's signing of document # ABCD 358. The hash of the second user's signing of the document hash #ABCD 358 may be stored at 394 via the second user's digital wallet 351 in the ledger 365 of the document digital wallet 360. The generation of a new or refreshed hash value after each user signs the document or document hash prevents a subsequent user from submitting a signature on an old copy of the document”, col. 9, lines 49-50, electronic signature computer application code (software agent of the party)].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Tang et al. into the teaching of Nguyen and Covaci et al. with the motivation of using blockchain for use in verifying and authenticating the identity and e-signatures of a digitally signed document as taught by Tang et al. [Tang et al.: abs.].
They do not explicitly disclose a first software agent, acting on behalf of a first party of the plurality of parties, automatically providing a cryptographic signature.
However Mullins et al. teaches a first software agent, acting on behalf of a first party of the plurality of parties, automatically providing a cryptographic signature [col. 14, lines 25-28, the payment service system 108 may determine that the merchant consents to a blockchain-enforced contract corresponding to the invoice and automatically signs the contract with a private key associated with the merchant].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Mullins et al. into the teaching of Nguyen, Covaci et al. and Tang et al. with the motivation for the creation and execution of blockchain transactions through blockchain-enforced contracts as taught by Mullins et al. [Mullins et al.: col. 2, lines 33-34].
Regarding claim 4, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated.
Tang et al. discloses receiving the one or more inputs from each of the parties comprises receiving the one or more inputs from software agents of the parties, the method further comprising processing one or more actions initiated by one of the software agents in response to one or more actions of another of the software agents [see fig 3, step 312, then step 393 and step 394, col. 14, line 50 - col. 15, line 5, “In response to the first user signing the document hash #ABCD 312, a refreshed hash value is generated from the first user's signing of the document hash #ABCD 357 and is stored in the document digital wallet as a transaction in ledger 365 from the first user's digital wallet 352. When the second user signs the refreshed hash value of the first user's signing of the document hash #ABCD, another hash value is generated as the Hash from Second User's signing of Refreshed Hash of First User's signing of document # ABCD 358. The hash of the second user's signing of the document hash #ABCD 358 may be stored at 394 via the second user's digital wallet 351 in the ledger 365 of the document digital wallet 360. The generation of a new or refreshed hash value after each user signs the document or document hash prevents a subsequent user from submitting a signature on an old copy of the document”, col. 9, lines 49-50, electronic signature computer application code (software agent of the party)].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Tang et al. into the teaching of Nguyen and Covaci et al. with the motivation of using blockchain for use in verifying and authenticating the identity and e-signatures of a digitally signed document as taught by Tang et al. [Tang et al.: abs.].
They do not explicitly disclose processing one or more actions initiated automatically by one of the software agents.
However, Mullins et al. teaches processing one or more actions initiated automatically by one of the software agents [col. 14, lines 25-28, the payment service system 108 may determine that the merchant consents to a blockchain-enforced contract corresponding to the invoice and automatically signs the contract with a private key associated with the merchant].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Mullins et al. into the teaching of Nguyen, Covaci et al. and Tang et al. with the motivation for the creation and execution of blockchain transactions through blockchain-enforced contracts as taught by Mullins et al. [Mullins et al.: col. 2, lines 33-34].
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nguyen (US 11,244,032 B1), Covaci et al. (US 2021/0075610 A1) and Tang et al. (10,425,230 B1) as applied to claims 1, 5, 7, 9-15 and 19-20 above, and further in view of Tran et al. (US 2021/0256070 A1).
Regarding claim 6, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated.
Nguyen, Covaci et al. and Tang et al. disclose the final contract is legally enforceable.
They do not explicitly disclose the finalized contract is human readable.
Tran et al. discloses the finalized contract is human readable [par. 0078, The contract can be in the form of bytecodes for machine interpretation or can be the markup language for human consumption].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Tran et al. into the teaching of Nguyen, Covaci et al. and Tang et al. with the motivation for human consumption as taught by Tran et al. [Tran et al.: par. 0078].
Claims 8 and 16-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Nguyen (US 11,244,032 B1), Covaci et al. (US 2021/0075610 A1) and Tang et al. (10,425,230 B1) as applied to claims 1, 5, 7, 9-15 and 19-20 above, and further in view of Sandberg-Maitland et al. (US 2019/0305938 A1).
Regarding claim 8, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated.
Tang et al. discloses the DAO.
They do not explicitly disclose the method facilitates the DAO without the use of a blockchain consensus algorithm.
However, Sandberg-Maitland et al. teaches the method facilitates the DAO without the use of a blockchain consensus algorithm [par. 0011, “solution to a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) and related distributed systems based on blockchain technology”, par. 0020, “The invention described will work with both consensus-based and non consensus-based blockchains because it provides a new highly secure environment in which chosen voters or validators can come to agreement on the common updated state of all blockchain replicas”].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Sandberg-Maitland et al. into the teaching of Nguyen, Covaci et al. and Tang et al. with the motivation such that it is designed to work with public or private blockchain implementations that can be either consensus-based or not as taught by Sandberg-Maitland et al. [Sandberg-Maitland et al.: par. 0012].
Regarding claim 16, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated.
Tang et al. discloses the DAO.
They do not explicitly disclose the method facilitates, without the use of a distributed ledger, governance for the DAO.
However, Sandberg-Maitland et al. teaches the method facilitates, without the use of a distributed ledger, governance for the DAO [par. 0011, “solution to a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) and related distributed systems based on blockchain technology”, par. 0020, “The invention described will work with both consensus-based and non consensus-based blockchains because it provides a new highly secure environment in which chosen voters or validators can come to agreement on the common updated state of all blockchain replicas” (non-consensus don’t need verification using ledgers)].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Sandberg-Maitland et al. into the teaching of Nguyen, Covaci et al. and Tang et al. with the motivation such that it is designed to work with public or private blockchain implementations that can be either consensus-based or not as taught by Sandberg-Maitland et al. [Sandberg-Maitland et al.: par. 0012].
Regarding claim 17, the rejection of claim 11 is incorporated.
Nguyen further discloses the tokens comprise one or more non-fungible tokens (NFTs) [col. 10, lines 13-28, the smart contract governs a sale of an electronic asset including non-fungible token].
They do not explicitly disclose the method facilitates the purchase and sale of the NFTs without the use of a blockchain consensus algorithm.
However, Sandberg-Maitland et al. teaches the method facilitates the transaction without the use of a blockchain consensus algorithm [par. 0011, “solution to a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) and related distributed systems based on blockchain technology”, par. 0020, “The invention described will work with both consensus-based and non consensus-based blockchains because it provides a new highly secure environment in which chosen voters or validators can come to agreement on the common updated state of all blockchain replicas”].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Sandberg-Maitland et al. into the teaching of Nguyen, Covaci et al. and Tang et al. with the motivation such that it is designed to work with public or private blockchain implementations that can be either consensus-based or not as taught by Sandberg-Maitland et al. [Sandberg-Maitland et al.: par. 0012].
Regarding claim 18, the rejection of claim 11 is incorporated.
Nguyen further discloses the purchase and sale of the tokens [col. 10, lines 13-28, the smart contract governs a sale of an electronic asset including non-fungible token].
They do not explicitly disclose the method facilitates, without the use of a distributed ledger, the purchase and sale of the tokens.
However, Sandberg-Maitland et al. teaches the method facilitates, without the use of a distributed ledger, the transaction [par. 0011, “solution to a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO) and related distributed systems based on blockchain technology”, par. 0020, “The invention described will work with both consensus-based and non consensus-based blockchains because it provides a new highly secure environment in which chosen voters or validators can come to agreement on the common updated state of all blockchain replicas” (non-consensus don’t need verification using ledgers)].
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art to incorporate the teaching of Sandberg-Maitland et al. into the teaching of Nguyen, Covaci et al. and Tang et al. with the motivation such that it is designed to work with public or private blockchain implementations that can be either consensus-based or not as taught by Sandberg-Maitland et al. [Sandberg-Maitland et al.: par. 0012].
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to Applicant’s disclosure:
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/JASON CHIANG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2431
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