DETAILED ACTION
Status of Claims
This Office Action is in response to claims filed on 11/20/2025.
Claims 1-14 are pending and are examined hereon.
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 .
Priority
This application is a continuation or continuation-in-part or divisional application of 16/665,641, PCT/US18/30383, and Provisional Application 62/492,521. See MPEP § 201.06 (divisional), MPEP § 201.07 (continuation), or MPEP § 201.08 (continuation-in-part). In accordance with MPEP § 609.02 A. 2 and MPEP § 2001.06(b) (last paragraph), the examiner has reviewed and considered the prior art cited in the prior-filed applications. Also in accordance with MPEP §2001.06(b) (last paragraph), all documents cited or considered ‘of record’ in the prior-filed applications are now considered cited or ‘of record’ in this application. Additionally, applicant is reminded that a listing of the information cited or ‘of record’ in the prior-filed applications need not be resubmitted in this application unless applicant desires the information to be printed on a patent issuing from this application. See MPEP §609.02 A. 2. Finally, applicant is reminded that the prosecution history of the prior-filed applications is relevant in this application. See e.g., Microsoft Corp. v. Multi-Tech Sys., Inc., 357 F.3d 1340, 1350, 69 USPQ2d 1815, 1823 (Fed. Cir. 2004) (holding that statements made in prosecution of one patent are relevant to the scope of all sibling patents).
Applicant has not complied with one or more conditions for receiving the benefit of an earlier filing date under 35 U.S.C. 120 as follows:
The later-filed application must be an application for a patent for an invention which is also disclosed in the prior application (the parent or original nonprovisional application or provisional application). The disclosure of the invention in the prior-filed application and in the later-filed application must be sufficient to comply with the requirements of 35 U.S.C. § 112. See Transco Products, Inc. v. Performance Contracting, Inc., 38 F.3d 551, 32 USPQ2d 1077 (Fed. Cir. 1994).
The disclosure of the prior-filed Provisional Application 62/492,521 (including any material incorporated by reference), fail to provide adequate support in the manner required by 35 U.S.C. § 112 for one or more claims of this application. The above-listed applications fail to provide support for claims 1 and 12. The applications at least do not disclose, “the series of packagings and the codings collectively defining a blockchain that can be stored and used for authentication at any point in the supply chain… wherein aggregation of a group of packagings to be stored in an outer container occurs by forming the blockchain for the group of packagings and cryptographically securing the blockchain for marking on the outer container.” (Claim 1), “wherein the blockchain is stored in a distributed ledger system.” (Claim 12).
Therefore, as claims 1 and 12 of the present application are not supported by the disclosure of prior-filed Provisional Application 62/492,521, the current claims 1 and 12 of the present application do not receive priority to the filing dates of Provisional Application 62/492,521.
For the above reasons, the claims affected and their dependents are being compared to the prior art based on a filing date of 05/01/2018 (the filing date of the App. Noc PCT/US18/30383).
Although 37 CFR 1.55(g)(1) permits the filing of priority papers up to and including the date for payment of the issue fee, it is advisable that such papers be filed promptly after filing the application.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Glendenning et al. (US 2015/0183257 A1) in view of Phan et al. (US 2015/0269570 A1) in view of Shulman et al (US 20170032382 A1).
With respect to claim 1, Glendenning discloses an authentication system for pharmaceutical products, comprising:
product manufacturing equipment that uses embossing technology to form and mark the pharmaceutical products with a coding; (Figs. 3, 8A; Pars. [0018]-[0019], [0044], “A standard embossing station 50 on the machine, such as that previously designed for embossing batch codes, can be used to emboss the diffractive grating structure (FIG. 3). This station 50 has been used to emboss the diffractive features onto the blister packages 24. Such an embossing station 50 can include heating units to help control the embossing process.” [0045])
a packaging line that places the pharmaceutical products in one or more packaging defining one or more packaging levels; (Fig. 3; Pars. [0028] “a standard embossing station on a commercial blister packing machine used in a pharmaceutical company for the packaging of tablets,” [0044], “This takes place as part of a normal in-line pharmaceutical tablet packaging process on a blister-packaging machine.” [0069]-[0073])
in-line reading equipment (“scan device”) to determine a product sequence defined by physical attributes and locations of pharmaceutical products in the packaging (“blister pack”); (Figs. 1-2B; Pars. [0020], [0042], “each blister pack 24 includes cavities 30 for receiving pharmaceuticals and one or more security features such as: the hidden security feature 20 revealed by directing a laser beam from a laser pointer 22 through the blister pack 24 as schematically shown; a 2D barcode 32; a hologram 34; and microtext 36, each of which may be embossed into the blister pack 24 and detected by an appropriate scan device 38, in accordance with known packaging and verification techniques.” [0077], “A preferred lateral size of this barcode will be between 5 microns and 500 microns. These height differences can be read with an accurate 3D scanner, such as an interferometer, a pOCT reader (optical coherence tomography), a confocal microscope, etc., to reveal the encoded information.”)
wherein the packaging line uses the product sequence, (Pars. [0076], “create a hologram 78 which upon projection by a laser displays a barcode (one or two dimensional), the barcode has open or cryptographically secured information about the product 12, for example, it might contain the name of the product 12, a tool number, a batch number, etc. Microtext 36 within the area of the hologram 78 may consist of small areas (e.g., 2 to 100 microns in size) that simply do not contain a holographic grating. In a preferred embodiment, the microtext 36 will be an alphanumeric sequence that acts as a digital signature for verification of the content of the barcode.” [0054], “The barcode itself can contain encrypted information allowing for a range of security enhancements.”)
which is then used by the packaging line to mark the packaging of the one or more packaging levels with a coding (“security features”), (Figs. 1, 4; Pars. [0018], “a packaging with a genuine pharmaceutical and with a hidden security feature formed integrally by material defining the packaging.” [0019], [0042], “each blister pack 24 includes cavities 30 for receiving pharmaceuticals and one or more security features such as: the hidden security feature 20… as schematically shown; a 2D barcode 32; a hologram 34; and microtext 36, each of which may be embossed into the blister pack) with this coding marked on the packaging including the encrypted product sequence; (Par. [0054], “The barcode itself can contain encrypted information allowing for a range of security enhancements.”)
scanning equipment (“mobile phone”) at a point in a supply chain downstream from the packaging line, the scanning equipment including a camera that images the coding of the pharmaceutical products and of the one or more packaging levels and a processor that compares the codings to one another to authenticate whether the pharmaceutical products are genuine, wherein the scanning equipment is configured to authenticate the pharmaceutical products by reading only a subset of the codings (“irregularity or defect is included with the hologram”) of the pharmaceutical products and wherein authentication is achieved by comparing the codings of the subset of pharmaceutical products to the coding marked on the packaging to determine whether the pharmaceutical products are genuine, (Fig. 1; Pars. [0050] “The use of the hidden security features 20 enables easy checks at any point in the supply chain 10… The conventional mobile phone authentication method described in the background (“A similar system uses a barcode that can be scanned by mobile phone to link to a website for verification.”) allows for supply chain 10 checks… Allowing consumers 18 the possibility to check a genuine product 12 themselves means that even internet-purchased blister packages 24 of drugs can be checked for authenticity. This, and allowing checks at different supply chain points…” [0055], [0077], “These height differences can be read with an accurate 3D scanner, such as an interferometer, a pOCT reader (optical coherence tomography), a confocal microscope, etc., to reveal the encoded information… Regardless of what type of irregularity or defect is included with the hologram 78 as part of the Level 3 verification, the combination of security features enables further verification and authentication processes at various locations in the supply chain 10 for pharmaceutical products 12.”)
wherein the product manufacturing equipment marks the pharmaceutical products by the embossing technology (Figs. 3, 8A; Pars. [0018]-[0019], [0044], “A standard embossing station 50 on the machine, such as that previously designed for embossing batch codes, can be used to emboss the diffractive grating structure (FIG. 3). This station 50 has been used to emboss the diffractive features onto the blister packages 24. Such an embossing station 50 can include heating units to help control the embossing process.” [0045]),
the encryption of the product sequence is achieved (Par. [0054], “The barcode itself can contain encrypted information allowing for a range of security enhancements.”), and
the authentication of whether the pharmaceutical products are genuine is achieved without causing the scanning equipment to communicate with a central data repository away from the supply chain, (Pars. [0055], “Because the verification is within the blister pack 24 itself, no database access or database management is needed for performing the authentication or verification of the blister pack 24. More specifically, verification codes and data do not need to be sent to external databases for verifying the authenticity of a blister pack 24 and its contents.”) and
wherein the system is configured to produce a series of packagings each having a coding, the series of packagings and the codings collectively can be stored and used for authentication at any point in the supply chain, (Abstract, Figs. 1-10; Pars. [0028] “a standard embossing station on a commercial blister packing machine used in a pharmaceutical company for the packaging of tablets,” [0044], “This takes place as part of a normal in-line pharmaceutical tablet packaging process on a blister-packaging machine.” [0055], [0076], “create a hologram 78 which upon projection by a laser displays a barcode (one or two dimensional), the barcode has open or cryptographically secured information about the product 12,” [0077]),
wherein aggregation of a group of packagings (“blister packs”) to be stored in an outer container occurs by forming for the group of packagings (Fig. 1; Pars. [0042], “the product packaging 24 shown schematically is a blister pack 24, which may be transferred with additional blister packs 24 inside an outer packaging box 26. As described above, local laws and regulations requiring serialization of pharmaceutical packaging may require a unique barcode 28 to be located on the outer packaging box 26 as shown.” [0057]-[0060]) and
cryptographically securing for marking on the outer container (Par. [0076], “the barcode has open or cryptographically secured information about the product 12, for example, it might contain the name of the product 12, a tool number, a batch number, etc.”).
with respect to elements of “the subset comprising between three to five of the pharmaceutical products,” which describe a subset of the codings. However, as the recited characteristics of these items are not processed to carry out any positively recited steps or functions, these limitations recite nonfunctional descriptive material. When descriptive material is not functionally related to the substrate, the descriptive material will not distinguish the invention from prior art in terms of patentability. It has been held that where the printed matter is not functionally related to the substrate, the printed matter will not distinguish the invention from the prior art in terms of patentability …. [T]he critical question is whether there exists any new and unobvious functional relationship between the printed matter and the substrate.
Although, Glendenning discloses “barcode has open or cryptographically secured information about the product 12,” (Figs. 1-2B, 4-10; Pars. [0076]), Glendenning does not explicitly disclose:
uses a hashing algorithm to encrypt the product sequence,
the encryption of the product sequence is achieved using public-private key,
the codings defining a blockchain that can be stored and used for authentication at any point in the supply chain,
forming the blockchain for the group of packagings and the blockchain for marking.
However, Phan discloses:
uses a hashing algorithm to encrypt the product sequence, (Fig. 3; Pars. [0020], [0024], [0045] “encrypt the first label 155,” [0046], “all other label data may be the same, thus making a hash of the label data the same for each copy.”)
the encryption of the product sequence is achieved using public-private key, (Pars. [0023], [0045], “authentication server 110 can encrypt the first label 155,”) and
the series defining a blockchain that can be stored (Figs. 1-3; Pars. [0004], “the first transaction ID, the manufacturer-digital signature, and the first public key are recorded in a first block of a digital block chain.” [0027], [0038]) and
used for authentication at any point in the supply chain (Fig. 4; Pars. [0024], [0065], “the authentication module 525 and the notification module 530, can verify the authenticity of the item and notify the first owner accordingly.”),
forming the blockchain for the group of packagings and the blockchain for marking (Figs. 1-3; Pars. [0027], [0038], [0041], [0044], “The authentication server 110… can cause the first transaction ID, the manufacturer's signature and the first public key to be recorded in the digital transaction chain (and in the digital block chain as a block chain insert),” [0049], “first label 155 is affixed to an outside portion of item 150, where it can be easily scanned and the label data can be easily retrieved.”).
Therefore, 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 to simply substituting the barcode with cryptographically secured information about the product that is encrypted (Pars. [0054], “The barcode itself can contain encrypted information,” [0076]) of Glendenning in view of Phan in order to prevent counterfeit of products by securing information about products using cryptographic encryption methods (Glendenning, Par. [0076]) and to maintain products data in an immutable data records of Blockchains that enable a secure, reliable storage of very high data integrity that it is essentially impossible to manipulate or erase or otherwise tamper with and that can provide notification to stakeholders of the products when authentication request of the products information fails such as counterfeit (Phan, Pars. [0016], [0053]). ("Express suggestion to substitute one equivalent technique for another need not be present to reader such substitution obvious"; In re Fout, 213 USPQ 532 (CCPA 1982), In re Siebentritt, 152 USPQ 618 (CCPA 1967); Ex Parte Smith, 83 USPQ2d 1509 (Bd. Pat. App. & Int. 2007); KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 82 USPQ2d 1385 (U.S. 2007)).
Neither Glendenning nor does Phan explicitly disclose wherein de-aggregation of a group of packagings stored in an outer container includes only destruction of markings or codings of the outer container but not of the group of packagings.
However, Shulman discloses wherein de-aggregation of a group of packagings stored in an outer container (“Tags”) includes only destruction of markings or codings of the outer container but not of the group of packagings (Fig. 3; Pars. [0021], “In another embodiment of the invention, the code contained on the tag is affixed to the product and the tag has a covering that must be removed in order to enable scanning. Preferably, removing the covering requires destruction of the cover and cannot be repaired. In this way, the tag on the product must be tampered with in order to create a duplicate and users of the system, to include retailers and customers receiving the goods will see the defaced product and know it has been tampered with. Tampered tags can then be reported to the manufacturer to take appropriate action.” [0049], “Jenda Tags, the unique physical tags, are sent via secure shipment method to a manufacturer for attachment to their products. The shipment can be in a method that is tamper evident and indicate if the package has been opened, damaged, or been manipulated in any way.”).
Therefore, 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 to simply substituting removing of the aluminum foil coating from the blistering packaging in the specific area of the hidden feature, by rubbing or peeling away the foil coating (Figs. 1-2A; Pars. [0026] “FIG. 2A is a perspective view of one embodiment of a blister pack according to the invention wherein the Aluminum foil coating is removed from the blister packaging in the specific area of the hidden feature, by rubbing or peeling away the foil coating.”) of Glendenning, Phan in view of Shulman in order to prevent counterfeit of products by removing sensitive information of the product (Glendenning, Abstract “Pharmaceutical tablets and dosage forms are stored in a blister pack or other type of packaging which include additional anti-counterfeiting measures that are difficult to simulate and easy to reveal with a laser pointer.”) and to prevent counterfeiting thereby enhancing security by deactivation of a product identification which involve disassociation of the product identification with a genuine product and communicating a message in response to an authentication request to indicate that the product is no longer authentic (Shulman, Pars. [0021], [0049] “The deactivation of a tag code may involve disassociation of the code with a genuine product and communicating a message in response to an authentication request to indicate that the product is not authentic and possibly to suggest that the customer should contact law enforcement.” [0050]). ("Express suggestion to substitute one equivalent technique for another need not be present to reader such substitution obvious"; In re Fout, 213 USPQ 532 (CCPA 1982), In re Siebentritt, 152 USPQ 618 (CCPA 1967); Ex Parte Smith, 83 USPQ2d 1509 (Bd. Pat. App. & Int. 2007); KSR International Co. v. Teleflex Inc., 82 USPQ2d 1385 (U.S. 2007)).
With respect to claims 2-3, Glendenning, Phan in view of Shulman discloses all the limitations as described above. Additionally, Glendenning discloses wherein the product sequence is encrypted into the coding for the one or more packaging levels using an algorithm (encryption) (Figs. 1, 2B, 4-10; Par. [0054], “The barcode itself can contain encrypted information allowing for a range of security enhancements.”).
Although, Glendenning discloses “barcode has open or cryptographically secured information about the product 12,” (Figs. 1-2B, 4-10; Pars. [0076]), Glendenning does not explicitly disclose:
uses a hashing algorithm,
using a symmetrical encryption.
However, Phan discloses:
uses a hashing algorithm (Fig. 3; Pars. [0020], [0024], [0046], “all other label data may be the same, thus making a hash of the label data the same for each copy.”),
using a symmetrical encryption (Pars. [0023], “The public key is used to encrypt a message (referred to as plaintext) or to verify a digital signature; whereas the private key is used to decrypt the encrypted message (referred to as ciphertext) or to create a digital signature.” [0045], “authentication server 110 can encrypt the first label 155,”).
Therefore, 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 to simply substituting the barcode with cryptographically secured information about the product that is encrypted (Pars. [0054], “The barcode itself can contain encrypted information,” [0076]) of Glendenning in view of Phan in order to prevent counterfeit of products by securing information about products using cryptographic encryption methods (Glendenning, Par. [0076]) and to maintain products data in an immutable data records of Blockchains that enable a secure, reliable storage of very high data integrity that it is essentially impossible to manipulate or erase or otherwise tamper with and that can provide notification to stakeholders of the products when authentication request of the products information fails such as counterfeit (Phan, Pars. [0016], [0053]).
With respect to claim 4, Glendenning, Phan in view of Shulman discloses all the limitations as described above. Additionally, Glendenning discloses wherein the scanning equipment further includes at least one of:
a smart phone including the camera and the processor; (Par. [0076], “A measurement device, such as a mobile phone, or a camera linked with a computer, will be able to read these features.”)
a parallel Optical Coherence Technology (pOCT) scanner; (Par. [0077], “These height differences can be read with an accurate 3D scanner, such as an interferometer, a pOCT reader (optical coherence tomography), a confocal microscope, etc.,”) and
a time-of-flight camera (Fig. 1, 2B, 6-7; Par. [0078], “The multiple level hologram verification can be used as an alternative to, or in addition to, the hidden security features 20 revealed with a laser pointer 22.”)
With respect to claim 5, Glendenning, Phan in view of Shulman discloses all the limitations as described above. Additionally, Glendenning discloses
wherein the physical attributes defining the product sequence are generated by the product manufacturing equipment, (Fig. 1; Pars. [0042], [0076], “create a hologram 78 which upon projection by a laser displays a barcode (one or two dimensional), the barcode has open or cryptographically secured information about the product 12, for example, it might contain the name of the product 12, a tool number, a batch number, etc. Microtext 36 within the area of the hologram 78 may consist of small areas (e.g., 2 to 100 microns in size) that simply do not contain a holographic grating. In a preferred embodiment, the microtext 36 will be an alphanumeric sequence that acts as a digital signature for verification of the content of the barcode.”)
the product sequence being randomized by placement of the pharmaceutical products containing the physical attributes in the locations within the packaging (Par. [0047], “In addition to the hidden security feature, the tooling and embossing process used allows for complex holograms 60, for example showing different images in different viewing orientations, to be produced and embossed. This process also allows for further types of diffractive structures to be produced in the steel and embossed, including random structures and Moiré structures.”).
With respect to claim 6, Glendenning, Phan in view of Shulman discloses all the limitations as described above. Additionally, Glendenning discloses wherein the packaging levels include blister packs into which the pharmaceutical products are loaded, and one or more outer boxes in which the blister packs are loaded (Figs. 1-2, 4).
With respect to claim 7, Glendenning, Phan in view of Shulman discloses all the limitations as described above. Glendenning discloses wherein the packaging levels include a pill bottle into which the pharmaceutical products are loaded (Fig. 7; Pars. [0021], [0061]).
With respect to claim 8, Glendenning, Phan in view of Shulman discloses all the limitations as described above. Additionally, Glendenning discloses wherein the step of authenticating whether the pharmaceutical products are genuine with the processor automatically provides tamper evidence, thereby avoiding a need for tamper-evidencing structures to be included with the packaging (Pars. [0018]-[0021], “The process of verifying the authenticity of the pharmaceutical with the laser beam is performed within 1 second without reliance on communication with external databases during the verifying of the authenticity. Therefore, the method provides sufficient protections from counterfeiting efforts while also enabling simple and inexpensive authentication to be performed at all locations in a supply chain, even when in poorer countries or regions.” [0050]).
With respect to claim 9, Glendenning, Phan in view of Shulman discloses all the limitations as described above. Additionally, Glendenning discloses wherein the coding on the packaging includes overt information in combination with the encrypted product sequence to help foil counterfeit attempts of the packaging (Figs. 1-2, 4-10; Par. [0053], “The hidden security feature can be concealed as part of an overt hologram 60 or combined with an embossed barcode. This may lead the counterfeiter to copy the overt feature without realizing that the covert feature is present in the same area of the package.” [0054]).
With respect to claim 10, Glendenning, Phan in view of Shulman discloses all the limitations as described above. Additionally, Glendenning discloses wherein the coding on packaging may be reapplied in the supply chain when the pharmaceutical products are repackaged down the supply chain, while maintaining traceable records that can be authenticated for each of the pharmaceutical products that has been repackaged (Pars. [0018]-[0021], [0050], [0057], “the majority of dosage form deliveries do not use blister packs 24 but where dosage forms are shipped in bulk and re-packaged along the supply chain 10. Although there is a certain trend in the United States to introduce blister packs 24, bulk-deliveries and re-packaging will still be possible after introduction of new serialization policies,”).
With respect to claim 11, Glendenning, Phan in view of Shulman discloses all the limitations as described above. Additionally, Glendenning discloses wherein additional security features separate from the coding are applied to the packaging (Pars. [0062], “It will also be understood that the holographic or hidden security feature 20 may be combined with additional security features on the dosage form and/or the packaging.” [0066]).
With respect to claim 12, Glendenning, Phan in view of Shulman discloses all the limitations as described above.
Although, Glendenning discloses “barcode has open or cryptographically secured information about the product 12,” (Figs. 1-2B, 4-10; Pars. [0076]), Glendenning does not explicitly disclose:
wherein the blockchain is stored in a distributed ledger system and
the authentication system uses cryptographic encryption of a hash formed by the product sequence and
encrypted and decrypted using public-private key.
However, Phan discloses:
wherein the blockchain is stored in a distributed ledger system (Fig. 1; Pars. [0018]- [0019], “The live audit trails provide a comprehensive electronic record of ownership of an item traced back to the manufacturer and can be stored on one or more private or public computing devices or computing networks, such as cloud storage devices.” [0029], [0066]) and
the authentication system uses cryptographic encryption of a hash formed by the product sequence (Fig. 3; Pars. [0020], [0024], [0046], “all other label data may be the same, thus making a hash of the label data the same for each copy.” [0045], “authentication server 110 can encrypt the first label 155,” [0065]) and
encrypted and decrypted using public-private key (Par. [0023]).
Therefore, 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 to simply substituting the barcode with cryptographically secured information about the product that is encrypted (Pars. [0054], [0076]) of Glendenning, Phan in view of Shulman in order to prevent counterfeit of products by securing information about products using cryptographic encryption methods (Glendenning, Par. [0076]) and to maintain products data in an immutable data records of Blockchains that enable a secure, reliable storage of very high data integrity that it is essentially impossible to manipulate or erase or otherwise tamper with and that can provide notification to stakeholders of the products when authentication request of the products information fails such as counterfeit (Phan, Pars. [0016], [0053]).
With respect to claim 13, Glendenning, Phan in view of Shulman discloses all the limitations as described above. Additionally, Glendenning discloses:
wherein the authentication system combines the product sequence and further open information regarding the pharmaceutical products or packaging into a value by an algorithm, (Pars. [0042], [0060]-[0062], “It will also be understood that the holographic or hidden security feature 20 may be combined with additional security features on the dosage form and/or the packaging.” [0068])
the value is a digit code (“microtext 36 will be an alphanumeric sequence,”) such that only a selected subset are in the authentication system as possible correct, thereby allowing for a further check of authenticity. (Figs. 1-10; Pars. [0055], [0076], “create a hologram 78 which upon projection by a laser displays a barcode (one or two dimensional), the barcode has open or cryptographically secured information about the product 12… the microtext 36 will be an alphanumeric sequence that acts as a digital signature for verification of the content of the barcode.” [0077])
Although, Glendenning discloses “barcode has open or cryptographically secured information about the product 12,” (Figs. 1-2B, 4-10; Pars. [0076]), Glendenning does not explicitly disclose:
a hash value by a hashing algorithm,
the hash value is encrypted using a private key and decrypted with a public key, and
the hash value is a 7-digit hash code such that only a selected subset of over 10 million hashes are saved in the authentication system as possible correct hashes, thereby allowing for a further check of authenticity.
However, Phan discloses:
a hash value by a hashing algorithm, (Fig. 3; Pars. [0020], [0024], [0046], “all other label data may be the same, thus making a hash of the label data the same for each copy.”)
the hash value is encrypted using a private key and decrypted with a public key, (Fig. 3; Pars. [0020], [0024]-[0023], [0046], “all other label data may be the same, thus making a hash of the label data the same for each copy.” [0045], “authentication server 110 can encrypt the first label 155,” [0065]) and
the hash value is hash code such that only a selected subset of hashes are saved in the authentication system as possible correct hashes. (Figs. 1-3; Pars. [0018]-[0019], “The live audit trails provide a comprehensive electronic record of ownership of an item traced back to the manufacturer and can be stored on one or more private or public computing devices or computing networks, such as cloud storage devices.” [0029], [0053], “using the configured processor 180, can query database of digital block chains by searching for the first transaction ID 320, which was recorded in the digital block chain at step 220 above.” [0066])
Therefore, 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 to simply substituting the barcode with cryptographically secured information about the product that is encrypted (Pars. [0054], [0076]) of Glendenning, Phan in view of Shulman in order to prevent counterfeit of products by securing information about products using cryptographic encryption methods (Glendenning, Par. [0076]) and to maintain products data in an immutable data records of Blockchains that enable a secure, reliable storage of very high data integrity that it is essentially impossible to manipulate or erase or otherwise tamper with and that can provide notification to stakeholders of the products when authentication request of the products information fails such as counterfeit (Phan, Pars. [0016], [0053]).
Neither Glendenning nor Phan explicitly discloses “the hash value is a 7-digit hash code such that only a selected subset of over 10 million hashes as possible correct hashes,” which describe hash value length and possible combination of the hash value. However, as the recited characteristics of these items are not processed to carry out any positively recited steps or functions, these limitations recite nonfunctional descriptive material. When descriptive material is not functionally related to the substrate, the descriptive material will not distinguish the invention from prior art in terms of patentability. It has been held that where the printed matter is not functionally related to the substrate, the printed matter will not distinguish the invention from the prior art in terms of patentability …. [T]he critical question is whether there exists any new and unobvious functional relationship between the printed matter and the substrate.
With respect to claim 14, Glendenning, Phan in view of Shulman discloses all the limitations as described above. Additionally, Glendenning discloses wherein aggregation of a group of packagings to be stored in an outer container occurs by forming the blockchain for the group of packagings and cryptographically securing the blockchain for marking on the outer container ().
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
PGPub Scott (US 2015/0278487 A1) discloses: wherein the packaging line uses a hashing algorithm (Secure Hash Algorithm) to the product sequence, which is then used by the packaging line to mark the packaging of the one or more packaging levels with a coding (Figs. 1-4; Pars. 32, 37, 56, 59).
Patent No. Nguyen et al. (US 10693662 B2) discloses: method of securely serializing product units to provide a trusted basis for the recording of transaction events reflecting distribution actions within and between supply chain participant vendors. The method involves receiving vendor data including vendor public data descriptive of a given product unit, generating a unique serial number to be securely associated with the given product unit, the unique serial number including a public serial number and a unique nonce, generating a cryptographic hash of the unique serial number and the vendor public data, generating a cryptographic signature of the cryptographic hash using a predetermined private key, and returning marking data including the public serial number.
PGPub Ramsey et al. (US 20130246136 A1) discloses: method of providing a personalized experience on a wireless communication device corresponding to the contents of a package, the package containing a product may include the steps of reading a unique code on a package, the package containing a product, displaying a personalized illusory images on the wireless communication device, and altering the personalized illusory images in response to relative movement between the package and the camera.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WODAJO GETACHEW whose telephone number is (469)295-9069. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8:00-6:00 CST.
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/WODAJO GETACHEW/Examiner, Art Unit 3697
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