DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The Information Disclosure Statement (IDS) submitted on 07/30/2025 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the IDS statement has been 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).
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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, 5, 6, 8-11, 17-19, 22, 24, 27, 30, 34, 41, 44-49 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-23 of U.S. Patent No. 12332976. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because the claims of the patent read on the claims of the instant application. For example, the combination of claims 1, 2, 6 and 7 of the parent are claiming to the same subject matter of claim 1 of the instant application.
Claim 1 is rejected on the ground of nonstatutory obviousness-type double patenting as being unpatentable over combination of claims 1, 2, 6 and 7 of U.S. Patent No. 12332976. Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because claim 1 of the instant application and the combination of claims 1, 2, 6 and 7 of the Patent are basically claiming to a same subject matter.
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.
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 1, 5, 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over BETTATI; Andrea et al. US 20240193567 (hereinafter BETTATI) in view of Bacon; Chris et al. US 20240020683 (hereinafter Bacon).
As per claim 1, Betta BETTATI teaches: A computer-implemented method of securely controlling an electronic asset, the method comprising:
binding an asset non-fungible token (NFT) pertaining to the electronic asset with a representation of an identity of an authorized user node, the authorized user node being paired with the electronic asset (“at a key generator subsystem: generating a public-private encryption key pair for a device, and transmitting the generated public key (representation of an identity of an authorized user node) to be registered on a blockchain; at one or more processors: encrypting a digital asset via the public key of the device, and linking or associating the encrypted digital asset to a non-fungible token (NFT), in which the NFT is associated with a smart contract written on the blockchain” BETTATI: Abs.)
registering the representation of the identity and the asset NFT on a blockchain associated with the electronic asset (“the digital wallet of the frame producer may be associated to its own digital signature, and hence identity. When registering the digital frame on a blockchain, the public key of the digital frame may be associated with the digital signature of the digital frame producer. As an example, this represents a further deterrent against registering a virtual, fake device, which would allow a malware user to access a decrypted code, knowing both the public and private keys. By making the producer signature publicly visible, the blockchain ensures a trustless secure way to avoid an attempt of fraud.” BETTATI: para. 109).
computationally performing a task relating to the electronic asset, and the representation of the identity, in response to receiving a task request from the authorized user node and securely controlling the electronic asset (the system receives and responses to a request to access a NFT-linked digital asset encrypted with public key of the authorized device. BETTATI: para. 12-15)
wherein the task includes at least one of: (i) granting access to the electronic asset by the authorized user node in response to the authorized user node satisfying at least one pre-defined condition and (ii) denying the access to the electronic asset by the authorized user node in response to the authorized user node not satisfying the at least one pre- defined condition (“[(iii) the device, in which the device is further configured to: request access to the NFT-linked digital asset; receive the NFT-linked digital asset when the requirements of the smart contract are met; and decrypt the NFT-linked digital asset using its private key (pre-defined condition).” BETTATI para. 239).
BETTATI does not teach, however; Bacon discloses: the representation of the identity including an identification (ID) NFT (“The wallet application 1032, in this example, may include NFT data with regard to one or more NFTs associated with the user device 1002. The NFT data may include, in some cases, an NFT identifier, a public key associated with the wallet (e.g., a wallet identifier or address), a transaction identifier associated with ownership of the NFT, an NFT collection identifier, a smart contract identifier, or other such data regarding the NFT and/or its ownership by the user device 1002. In some cases, the NFT data may include additional data regarding the NFT itself, such as associated media (e.g., image or video), attributes, or a textual description.” Bacon: para. 52. Also, see para. 58);
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine BETTATI with the teachings of Bacon to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied in order to enhance the reliability of the NFT and therefore secure access to system resources.
As per claim 5, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. BETTATI teaches:
the at least one pre- defined condition includes at least one of: (i) possession by the authorized user node of the ID NFT and (ii) satisfaction by the authorized user node of at least one predefined permission requirement (“The system then, in response to a request for access from a requesting device, retrieves the access control rules and assesses whether the requesting device and/or its present context meets the condition or combination of conditions specified in one of the access control rules. Access to the resource is then granted or denied based on that assessment. In this manner, the system gates access to the resource based on the condition or combination of conditions. “Bacon: para. 32).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine BETTATI with the teachings of Bacon to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied in order to prevent unauthorized access to system resources.
As per claim 18, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. BETTATI does not explicitly teach; however, Bacon discloses: recording, on a ledger of the blockchain, a chain-of-custody event associated with the electronic asset, the chain-of-custody event being: (i) an ownership event, (ii) an access event, (iii) a transfer event, (iv) a modification event, (v) an execution event, (vi) a print event, or (vii) another type of chain-of-custody event (“In this context, NFTs may indicate a history of purchases or certain product items and, in some cases, record current ownership of those product items. An NFT may be as simple as a record of purchase (receipt) for various common items from a grocery store. In some cases, the NFT may be a record of ownership of a non-perishable real-world item, such as real estate, a financial instrument, an automobile, etc.” Bacon: para. 30)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine BETTATI with the teachings of Bacon to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied in order to verify the chain of ownership of a digital asset.
Claims 6, 8 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over BETTATI in view of Bacon and further in view of Ward; James et al. US 20220305378 (hereinafter Ward).
As per claim 6, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. The combination of BETTATI and Bacon does not explicitly teach; however, Ward discloses: the electronic asset is: (i) a digital three-dimensional (3D) printing file, (ii) a digital manufacturing file, (iii) an encrypted asset file stored in a secure cloud environment, (iv) a software-defined manufacturing schematic, (v) an encrypted firmware package, (vi) field-deployable 3D printing instructions, (vii) a software binary, (viii) a drone flight path, (ix) maintenance instructions, or (x) a battlefield simulation (“By completing the account wallet creation, a digital representation of the user-created character is captured and minted as an NFT that is immutable and tamper-proof. The user-created character NFT is stored on the blockchain and may be stored in a distributed file system, such as InterPlanetary File System (IPFS). The digital user-created character data associated with the NFT is sent to a manufacturer (e.g., a 3D printer, a mass manufacturer, or a hand-built manufacturing operation) that produces a true physical representation of the digital character according to the user-customized characteristics of the digital character.” Ward: para. 41).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine BETTATI with the teachings of Ward to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied to enhance the utilization of the method.
As per claim 8, the rejection of claim 6 is incorporated herein. The combination of BETTATI and Bacon does not explicitly teach; however, Ward discloses: method of Claim 6, further comprising at least one of:
(i) tracking the access to the digital 3D printing file, (ii) logging the access to the digital 3D printing file, and (iii) cryptographically signing the access to the digital 3D printing file, to ensure traceability of usage of the digital 3D printing file and prevent unauthorized replication of the digital 3D printing file (“The user can manufacture the character to create a figurine, and the figurine can be associated with an NFT that, when used within a game, unlocks the digital character within the game. The figurine can be transferred to a second user's possession, and the second user can unlock the character within the game using the NFT. Even if the figurine later changes possession to a third user, the third user is unable to unlock the character within the game” Ward: Para. 34).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of BETTATI and Bacon with the teachings of Ward to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied to ensure authorized use of the system resources.
Claim 9 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over BETTATI in view of Bacon and further in view of NOHARA, TAKAHIRO et al. WO 2022224585 (hereinafter Nohara).
As per claim 9, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. The combination of BETTATI and Bacon does not explicitly teach; however, Nohara discloses:
revoking the granted access in response to the ID NFT being (i) transferred, (ii) expired, or (iii) revoked according to smart contract logic (“the information processing device 100 identifies the user ID of the user who has issued the ticket issuance request, and if the user ID and NFT owner information are linked, authenticates the user as the owner of the NFT…. the information processing apparatus 100 determines the expiration date of the privilege, the conditions under which the privilege can be used, and the like. When the information processing device 100 determines that the privilege is valid (step S405; Yes), it approves the use of the privilege (step S406). On the other hand, when the information processing apparatus 100 determines that the privilege is not valid (step S405; No), it transmits an error message to the effect that the privilege cannot be used (step S407) Nohara.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of BETTATI and Bacon with the teachings of Nohara to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied to limit the term of use of NFT.
Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over BETTATI in view of Bacon and further in view of Bolcer; Greg et al. US 20230342758 (hereinafter Bolcer).
As per claim 10, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. The combination of BETTATI and Bacon does not explicitly teach; however, Bolcer discloses: the asset NFT is a licensed NFT, and wherein the at least one pre-defined condition includes at least one license condition, the at least one license condition being embedded in metadata of the licensed NFT (“0020] The content providers 101 can stake their NFTs. Staking locks up an NFT for some period of time in exchange for the possibility of revenue as calculated by a value ranking algorithm in the library generator 105. Revenue and revenue splits may be determined from actual usage. The content providers 101 can stake an NFT (available for monetization) or unstake an NFT (making it no longer available, for example, after current licenses run out).” Bolcer: Para. 20. Also, see para 33 for an example).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combination of BETTATI and Bacon with the teachings of Bolcer to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied to prevent unauthorized use of resources.
Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over BETTATI in view of Bacon in view of Bolcer and further in view of Liu; Henry J. et al. US 20150158252 (hereinafter Liu).
As per claim 11, the rejection of claim 10 is incorporated herein. The combination of BETTATI, Bacon and Bolcer does not explicitly teach; however, Liu discloses: the electronic asset is a digital manufacturing file, and wherein the at least one license condition includes at least one of: (i) a limited number of authorized print executions and (ii) a limited number of file conversions (Liu: para. 54, 56, 76 and “A themed set or group of models may be defined so as to enable the customer to make a certain number of prints within the group for a set price.” Para. 76).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to the combination of BETTATI, Bacon and Bolcer with the teachings of Liu to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied to enhance the utility of the method.
Claim 17 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over BETTATI in view of Bacon and further in view of Blechman; Elaine US 20200258605 (herein after Blechman).
As per claim 17, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. The combination of BETTATI, Bacon does not explicitly teach; however, Blechman discloses:
implementing a compliance layer, the compliance layer configured to verify whether the access to the electronic asset by the authorized user node complies with at least one government data handling standard, the at least one government data handling standard including at least one of: a FedRAMP standard, an IL-5 standard, an IL-6 standard, and another government data handling standard (Blechman: para. 91).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of BETTATI and Bacon with the teachings of Blechman to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied to provide access to resources according to government standards.
Claim 19 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over BETTATI in view of in view of Bacon and further in view of Andon; Christopher et al. US 20200273048 (hereinafter Andon).
As per claim 19, the rejection of claim 18 is incorporated herein. The combination of BETTATI and Bacon does not teach, however; Andon discloses: the electronic asset is a digital fabrication asset, and wherein the print event is a G-code file generation event, a slicing event, or a physical printer start event (Andon Para. 111).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of BETTATI and Bacon with the teachings of Andon to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied to enhance the utility of the method.
Claim 22 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over BETTATI in view of Bacon and further in view of Berry; Anna Kristen Pinge US 20230396610 (hereinafter Berry).
As per claim 22, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. the combination of BETTATI, Bacon does not explicitly teach; however, Berry discloses: the electronic asset is a restricted digital asset; and the at least one pre-defined condition includes quorum approval from at least one supervisory NFT, the quorum approval encoded in a multi-signature smart contract (“The permissions may be public or restricted to an arbitrary extent. And lastly, a consortium distributed ledger is a distributed ledger where the consensus process is controlled by a pre-selected set of nodes; for example, a distributed ledger may be associated with a specified number of member institutions, each of which operate in such a way that a quorum of the members must sign every event object in order for the event object to be valid. The right to access such a distributed ledger may be public or restricted to the participants. Consortium distributed ledgers may be considered partially decentralized.” Berry: para, 50).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of BETTATI and Bacon with the teaching of Berry to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied when approval by quorum of entities is required.
Claim 24 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over BETTATI in view of Bacon and further in view of Lajeunesse; Nicholas Peter et al. US 20220398335 (hereinafter Lajeunesse).
As per claim 24, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. the combination of BETTATI, Bacon does not explicitly teach; however, Lajeunesse discloses: the electronic asset is a digital fabrication asset, and further comprising:
implementing a smart contract module, the smart contract module configured to decrement a metering value in response to the digital fabrication asset (i) being used for manufacturing or (ii) converted to a machine-executable format (“secure 3D print files may be limited to a certain number of prints. An end-user's printer might not be trusted to maintain an accurate count of prints performed to date. In addition, for customers using multiple printers, a single printer might not be trusted to have knowledge of the global print count for all printers. Accordingly, when a secure 3D print file includes a print count restriction, authorization may require a connection to an auth service (e.g., over the Internet), so that the auth service can maintain an accurate, authoritative record of prints performed against the print count restriction.” Lajeunesse: para. 60).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of BETTATI and Bacon with the teachings of Lajeunesse to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied to prevent unauthorized use of resources.
Claim 27 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over BETTATI in view of Bacon and further in view of ガルバジェス.グレガーJP-2010533405-A (hereinafter ガルバジェス).
As per claim 27, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. the combination of BETTATI, Bacon does not explicitly teach; however, ガルバジェス discloses: the electronic asset is a digital manufacturing file, wherein the authorized user node includes a verified device, and further comprising at least one of: (i) encrypting the digital manufacturing file and streaming the encrypted digital manufacturing file to the verified device through a secure session and (ii) executing the digital manufacturing file in a sandboxed environment on the verified device(“The system 10 for secure communication was the system 10 that was formed when the contents were encrypted as data flowing to the authenticated device: the closed system created on the public network 300 The network 200 combines two randomly chosen encryption algorithms, during the closed network communication session established between the said closed network 200 and the authenticated device, and Streamed by an encryption algorithm made from sending the encrypted streamed content to the authenticated device through a closed connection established between the said closed network 200 and the authenticated device Said closed network 200 to encrypt the content;” ガルバジェス: claim 15).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of BETTATI and Bacon with the teachings of ガルバジェス to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied to secure data transmission.
Claims 30 and 34 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over BETTATI in view of Bacon and further in view of Goldston; Mark et al. US 20210279305 (hereinafter Goldston).
As per claim 30, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. the combination of BETTATI, Bacon does not explicitly teach; however, Goldston discloses: implementing a smart contract engine, the smart contract engine configured to, based on metadata encoded in the asset NFT, determine at least one of: an access permission for the electronic asset, a usage quota for the electronic asset, and a royalty split for the electronic asset (“Upon authorizing a transfer, a sender may specify different levels of permission for different recipients. In some instances, certain recipients may have set levels of permissions. Permissions can identify parameters such as access types (review, modify, etc.), number of times access is permitted, durations or time windows in which access is permitted, further sharing rights, and so on. Assuming recipient 611 has the appropriate permissions, recipient 611 may modify the content or the metadata and, using application 617, save and updated container file locally or in data store 622, or otherwise transfer the updated container file to the content creators 610 or other content centers. These different levels of permission can apply to recipients 611 who are purchasers or potential purchasers of rights via an NFT transaction.” Goldston: para. 149).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of BETTATI and Bacon with the teachings of Goldston to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied to allow setting permission type or level to access the digital asset.
As per claim 34, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. the combination of BETTATI, Bacon does not explicitly teach; however, Goldston discloses: implementing a smart contract engine, the smart contract engine configured to enforce tiered access rights based on at least one of: (i) clearance levels, (ii) asset classifications, and (iii) contextual parameters, the tiered access rights associated with the electronic asset (different levels and types of access permission can be set. Goldston: para. 149).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of BETTATI and Bacon with the teachings of Goldston to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied to allow setting permission type or level to access the digital asset.
Claim 41 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over BETTATI in view of Bacon and further in view of Jakobsson; Bjorn Markus US 20230043223 (hereinafter Jakobsson).
As per claim 41, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. the combination of BETTATI, Bacon does not explicitly teach; however, Jakobsson discloses: the granted access is subject to at least one restriction, the at least one restriction including at least one of: a predefined time interval, a geographic restriction, a location restriction, a financial restriction, a behavioral restriction, an amenity restriction, an export restriction, a licensing restriction, a number of uses restriction, an authorized device restriction, and geofencing (Jakobsson: para 231, Also, “In accordance with many embodiments of the invention, NFTs may include a number of rules and policies 1610. Rules and policies 1610 may include, but are not limited to access rights information 1340. In some embodiments, rules and policies 1610 may also state terms of usage, royalty requirements, and/or transfer restrictions. An NFT 1600 may also include an identifier 1630 to affirm ownership status. In accordance with many embodiments of the invention, ownership status may be expressed by linking the identifier 1630 to an address associated with a blockchain entry.” Jakobsson: para. 329).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of BETTATI and Bacon with the teachings of Jakobsson to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied to implement restrictions for types of access permission to digital assets).
Claim 44 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over BETTATI in view of Bacon and further in view of Benedetto; Warren US 20230182025 (hereinafter Benedetto).
As per claim 44, the rejection of claim 1 is incorporated herein. the combination of BETTATI, Bacon does not explicitly teach; however, Benedetto discloses: a scoring engine to track a computational value pertaining to the electronic asset, wherein the computational value corresponds to at least one of: (i) a score associated with an owner node or the authorized user node, (ii) a worth of the electronic asset, (iii) a risk level associated with the performing of the task involving the electronic asset, and (iv) an anomaly score associated with the access to the electronic asset (“When a game item is unlocked, the use of the game item in the video game is monitored and when the unlocked game item is used to achieve a significant event, the value of the digital asset is incremented (as illustrated in block 223) and the use data is updated to the NFT of the digital asset, as illustrated in block 224a.” Benedetto: para. 48. Also, “generating a non-fungible token (NFT) for the digital asset earned by the player during the gameplay and computing a value to associate with the digital asset, the value computed as a function of an intrinsic value of the significant event that resulted in the player earning the digital asset, the NFT of the digital asset associated with the player and used to monitor use of the digital asset, wherein the intrinsic value is defined based on rarity of occurrence of the significant event.” Benedetto: claim 1).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of BETTATI and Bacon with the teachings of Benedetto to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied to monitor changing value of a digital asset.
Claim 45 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over BETTATI in view of Bacon in view of Benedetto and further in view of Jakobsson; Bjorn Markus US 20230009304 (hereinafter Jakobsson304).
As per claim 45, the rejection of claim 44 is incorporated herein. The combination of BETTATI, Bacon and Benedetto does not teach, however; Jakobsson304 discloses: the anomaly score is based on at least one parameter, the at least one parameter including at least one of: (i) frequency of the access to the electronic asset, (ii) a user identify of the authorized user node, (iii) a device type of the authorized user node, and (iv) a location of the authorized user node (Tokens may contain executable code that can protect corresponding assets from abuse. Examples of abuse may include, but are not limited to unintended and/or unexpected asset modification, unexpected asset offline, change in ownership status, illicit duplication of token and/or asset, attempt to use of asset outside license terms, token access counter exceeding a threshold (e.g., when an advertisement is “viewed” a set number of times), and a token and/or asset under attack, e.g., DDoS and/or repeated authentication failures. Tokens may include code to take actions upon detection of potential abuse. Jakobsson304: para. 0369).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of BETTATI and Bacon and Benedetto with the teachings of Jakobsson304 to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied to monitor the anomalies in data communication.
Claim 46 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over BETTATI in view of Bacon in view of Benedetto and further in view of Fellows; Simon David Lincoln US 20220225101 (hereinafter Fellows).
As per claim 46, the rejection of claim 44 is incorporated herein. The combination of BETTATI, Bacon and Benedetto does not teach, however; Fellows discloses: configuring an artificial intelligence (AI) module to train a model for the anomaly score based upon at least one of: behavioral anomalies, predefined patterns, and access heuristics (“The analyser module cooperates with the AI models trained on cyber threats to determine whether an anomaly such as the abnormal behavior and/or suspicious activity is either 1) malicious or 2) benign when the potential cyber threat under analysis is previously unknown to the cyber security appliance 100. The analyser module cooperates with the AI models trained on a normal behavior of entities in the network under analysis. The analyser module cooperates with various AI-trained classifiers. With all of these sources, when they input information that indicates a potential cyber threat that is i) severe enough to cause real harm to the network under analysis and/or ii) a close match to known cyber threats, then the analyser module can make a final determination to confirm that a cyber threat likely exists and send that cyber threat to the assessment module to assess the threat score associated with that cyber threat. Certain model breaches will always trigger a potential cyber threat that the analyser will compare and confirm the cyber threat.”. Fellows: para. 163)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of BETTATI and Bacon and Benedetto with the teachings of Fellows to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied to monitor classify anomalies in data communication.
Claim 47 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over BETTATI in view of Bacon in view of Benedetto and further in view of Shufer; Ilan US 20220225101 (hereinafter Shufer).
As per claim 47, the rejection of claim 44 is incorporated herein. The combination of BETTATI, Bacon and Benedetto does not teach, however; Shufer discloses: triggering at least one automated security action responsive to the anomaly score exceeding a predetermined threshold (“The calculation of the anomaly score 156 is based on, for each normalized quality indicator 142 corresponding to the functional area 104 in question, how the normalized quality indicator 142 departs from the estimated normal behavior for the normalized quality indicator 142 as weighted by the anomaly indicative value 134 for the normalized quality indicator 142. The processing can include performing remedial actions regarding each functional area 104 of the software project 102 for which the anomaly score 156 is greater than a threshold (922)”. Shufer: Para. 48).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of BETTATI and Bacon and Benedetto with the teachings of Shufer to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied for the system to take remedial action automatically.
Claim 48 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over BETTATI in view of Bacon in view of Benedetto and further in view of Kerseboom; Jan Willem Olger et al. US 20210295324 (hereinafter Kerseboom).
As per claim 48, the rejection of claim 44 is incorporated herein. The combination of BETTATI, Bacon and Benedetto does not teach, however; Kerseboom discloses: an artificial intelligence (AI) module to train a model for the worth of the electronic asset based upon descriptive data relating to the electronic asset (Kerseboom: para. 138).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of BETTATI and Bacon and Benedetto with the teachings of Kerseboom to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied automatically determine the worth of an electronic asset.
Claim 49 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over BETTATI in view of Bacon in view of Benedetto and further in view of Chhibber; Abhishek et al. US 20230041015 (hereinafter Chhibber)
As per claim 49, the rejection of claim 44 is incorporated herein. The combination of BETTATI, Bacon and Benedetto does not teach, however; Kerseboom discloses: an artificial intelligence (AI) module to train a model for the score associated with the owner node or the authorized user node based upon behavioral data (“In various embodiments, user device scores 230 are generated on a regular basis and not in response to receiving transaction request 102. In such embodiments, user device scores 230 may include a “trust score” that is indicative of a degree to which federated machine leaning model has determined that the current usage pattern and device information has not materially deviated from prior patterns. Accordingly, such a trust score does not represent an indication of whether a transaction request 102 itself is fraudulent,”. Chhibber: Para. 54
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of BETTATI and Bacon and Benedetto with the teachings of Chhibber to meet the preceding limitations. One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to make such modification since such techniques were known at the time of the instant invention and would have been applied automatically determine degree of trustworthiness of a user node.
Conclusion
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/GHODRAT JAMSHIDI/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2493