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 .
Election/Restrictions
Claims 6-12 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR1.142 (b), as being drawn to a nonelected invention, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Applicant timely traversed the restriction (election) requirement in the reply filed on 05/13/2026. The traversal is on the ground(s) that no undue burden exists on examining the species together because the groups A and B are not mutually exclusive. This is not found persuasive because the groups were shown to be distinct for the reasons given in the Restriction Requirement mailed on 04/15/2026 and have acquired a separate status in the art because of their recognized divergent subject matter, restriction for examination purposes as indicated is still deemed proper and is therefore made FINAL.
Status of Claims
Claims 1-5 and 13-18 have been examined.
Claims 6-12 have been withdrawn by the Applicant.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-5 and 13-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
In the instance case, claims 1-5 and 15-18 are directed to a non-transitory computer-readable medium, claim 13 is directed to an information processing apparatus and claim 14 is directed to a method. Therefore, these claims fall within the four statutory categories of invention.
The claims are directed to processing a transaction which is an abstract idea. Claims recite “receive a transaction…; execute processing request…; determine whether to add…; in case of adding….set a first wallet…” which is grouped within the “certain methods of organizing human activity” grouping of abstract ideas in prong one of step 2A of the Alice/Mayo test (MPEP 2106) because the claims involve a series of steps of receiving a transaction, processing the transaction by determining whether to add information in the database and in case of adding, creating an account for a fee which is a process that deals with commercial or legal interactions. Accordingly, the claims recite an abstract idea (See MPEP 2106.05).
This judicial exception is not integrated into a practical application because, when analyzed under prong two of step 2A of the Alice/Mayo test (See MPEP 2106), the additional elements of the claims such as, smart contract, blockchain, information processing apparatus, processor, and memory devices, merely use a computer as a tool to perform an abstract idea. Specifically, smart contract, blockchain, information processing apparatus, processor, and memory devices perform the steps of receiving a transaction, processing the transaction by determining whether to add information in the database and in case of adding, creating an account for a fee. The use of a processor/computer as a tool to implement the abstract idea does not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application because it requires no more than a computer performing functions that correspond to acts required to carry out the abstract idea. The additional elements do not involve improvements to the functioning of a computer, or to any other technology or technical field (MPEP 2106.05(a)), the claims do not apply or use the abstract idea to effect a particular treatment or prophylaxis for a disease or medical condition (Vanda Memo), the claims do not apply the abstract idea with, or by use of, a particular machine (MPEP 2106.05(b)), the claims do not effect a transformation or reduction of a particular article to a different state or thing (MPEP 2106.05(c)), and the claims do not apply or use the abstract idea in some other meaningful way beyond generally linking the use of the abstract idea to a particular technological environment, such that the claim as a whole is more than a drafting effort designed to monopolize the exception (MPEP 2106.05(e) and Vanda Memo). Therefore, the claims do not, for example, purport to improve the functioning of a computer. Nor do they effect an improvement in any other technology or technical field. Accordingly, the additional elements do not impose any meaningful limits on practicing the abstract idea, and the claims are directed to an abstract idea.
The claims do not include additional elements that are sufficient to amount to significantly more than the judicial exception because, when analyzed under step 2B of the Alice/Mayo test (See MPEP 2106), the additional elements of smart contract, blockchain, information processing apparatus, processor, and memory devices, to perform the steps amounts to no more than using a computer or processor to automate and/or implement the abstract idea of processing a transaction. As discussed above, taking the claim elements separately, smart contract, blockchain, information processing apparatus, processor, and memory devices perform the steps of receiving a transaction, processing the transaction by determining whether to add information in the database and in case of adding, creating an account for a fee. These functions correspond to the actions required to perform the abstract idea. Viewed as a whole, the combination of elements recited in the claims merely recite the concept of processing a transaction. Therefore, the use of these additional elements does no more than employ the computer as a tool to automate and/or implement the abstract idea. The use of a computer or processor to merely automate and/or implement the abstract idea cannot provide significantly more than the abstract idea itself (MPEP 2106.05(I)(A)(f) & (h)). Therefore, the claim is not patent eligible.
Dependent claims 2-5 and 15-18 further describes the abstract idea of processing a transaction. Specifically claims 2-5 and 15-18 further describing the different type of transaction and processing according to type of the transaction which is a part of the abstract idea. The dependent claim does not include additional elements that integrate the abstract idea into a practical application or that provide significantly more than the abstract idea. Therefore, the dependent claim is also not patent eligible.
Statement regarding Prior art for claims 1-5 and 13-18
Regarding claims 1-5 and 13-18, Kasimov U.S. Patent Application No. 20240305489 discloses: receive a transaction related to a token; execute processing requested by the received transaction; determine whether to add a block to a blockchain according to the executed processing. (See paragraphs 0034, 0052-59);
JP 7571480B2 discloses: hashing, by the computing device, the transaction data to produce a next transaction hash value; encrypting, by the computing device, the next transaction hash value utilizing a private key of the computing device to produce a next transaction signature; generating, by the computing device, a next block of a blockchain of the object distributed ledger to include transaction data and the next transaction signature (See page 5 paragraph 6).
KAMIYA JP20240126904A discloses token with usage information (See Page 3).
However, prior art does not disclose neither singly nor in combination discloses in a case of adding the block, set a first wallet, which is owned by the information processing apparatus, or a second wallet, which is owned by an issuer of the transaction, as a payer of a fee for adding the block.
Conclusion
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/ZESHAN QAYYUM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3697
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