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 office action is in response to amendment/reconsideration filed 2/10/2026, the amendment/reconsideration has been considered. Claims 1-3, 5-13, 21, 24, 26-29 are pending for examination.
Response to Arguments
2. Applicant's arguments have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. The applicant argues the following issues.
(A) Rejection under 35 U.S.C. 102
Issue 1: The applicant argues with respect to independent claim 1 that the amended limitations overcome the current reference (3GPP).
Examiner respectfully disagrees. See Examiner’s response and clarification in the corresponding rejection section below.
Issue 2: The applicant argues with respect to independent claim 11 that 3GPP fails to teach claim 11.
Examiner respectfully disagrees. Since claim 11 has not been amended, see Examiner’s response in the Examiner’s Answer and the previous Office Action.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
3. In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
4. The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
5. Claims 1-2, 5-11, 13, 21, 24, 27, 29 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) and (a)(2) as being anticipated by 3GPP TS 23.501 v15.2.0 (3rd Generation Partnership Project: Technical Specification Group Services and System Aspects; System Architecture for the 5G System; Stage 2”, submitted by IDS, hereafter “3GPP”).
As to claim 1, 3GPP discloses a method for influencing the selection of a user plane entity (section "5.6.7 Application Function influence on traffic routing", Application Function, or “AF”; section "5.6.7 Application Function influence on traffic routing", e.g.: "An AF may send requests to influence SMF routing decisions for traffic of PDU Session."; "The AF requests may influence UPF (re)selection and allow routing user traffic to a local access to a Data Network (identified by a DNAI)"; "The AF may issue requests on behalf of applications not owned by the PLMN serving the UE. ... ", etc.; See page 16, paragraph 1, “e.g., on a cloud infrastructure”. Here, the selecting routing of the user traffic indicates selecting at least one router/gateway which is considered a user plane entity), the method comprising:
detecting a creation of a computer process (section 5.13, “Support for Edge Computing…This may be based on the UE’s subscription data, UE location, the information from Application Function (AF) as defined in clause 5.6.7… Due to user or Application Function mobility, the service or session continuity may be required based on the requirements of the service or the 5G network. The 5G Core Network may expose network information and capabilities to an Edge Computing Application Function…NOTE: Depending on the operator deployment, certain Application Functions can be allowed to interact directly with the Control Plane Network Functions with which they need to interact, while the other Application Functions need to use the external exposure framework via the NEF (see clause 6.2.10 for details). Edge computing can be supported by one or a combination of the following enablers: - User plane (re)selection: the 5G Core Network (re)selects UPF to route the user traffic to the local Data Network as described in clause 6.3.3;… - Session and service continuity to enable UE and application mobility as described in clause 5.6.9;… - An Application Function may influence UPF (re)selection and traffic routing via PCF or NEF as described in clause 5.6.7;… Support of Local Area Data Network: 5G Core Network provides support to connect to the LADN in a certain area where the applications are deployed as described in clause 5.6.5.” Here, deployment of an application indicates creation of a computer process corresponding to the application, which is detected in order “to connect to the LADN in a certain area where the applications are deployed”. See also citation in the preamble, such as: "The AF may issue requests on behalf of applications…” indicating that the AF gathers and/or was noticed of the application information, wherein the first time that the AF gathers or was notified of the application information for an application is the AF’s detecting creation of such an application. It is to be noted that the claim does not require a specific timing between detecting the creation of a computer process and creating the computer process), wherein:
the computer process is an instance of an application server (see citation above, e.g., “service continuity”, therefore the deployed application is an instance of an application server),
the computer process provides a predefined service in a distributed cloud system (see citation above, e.g., “edge computing application” and page 16, para 1, “a cloud infrastructure”),
the computer process is running on a compute node in the distributed cloud system (see citation above, e.g., ”Edge Computing Application… to connect to the LADN in a certain area where the applications are deployed as described in clause 5.6.5”);
a client device can connect to the computer process (see citation above, e.g., “UE and application mobility”, “service continuity”), and
the computer process is operatble to receive, via the user plane entity, application traffic transmitted by the client device (see citation above, e.g., “Session and service continuity to enable UE and application mobility as described in clause 5.6.9;… - An Application Function may influence UPF (re)selection and traffic routing via PCF or NEF as described in clause 5.6.7;… Support of Local Area Data Network: 5G Core Network provides support to connect to the LADN in a certain area where the applications are deployed as described in clause 5.6.5”);
determining, location information associated with the compute node (see citation above, e.g., section "5.13 Support for Edge Computing…. Session and service continuity to enable UE and application mobility as described in clause 5.6.9;… - An Application Function may influence UPF (re)selection and traffic routing via PCF or NEF as described in clause 5.6.7;… Support of Local Area Data Network: 5G Core Network provides support to connect to the LADN in a certain area where the applications are deployed as described in clause 5.6.5”, wherein “where the applications are deployed” indicates that location information associated with the compute note that has the application deployed is determined),
wherein the location information comprises a data network identifier associated with the user plane entity (see citation above, “hosted close to the UE’s access point of attachment”; section 5.6.7, e.g.:" For AF interacting with PCF directly or via NEF, the AF requests may contain the information as described in the Table 5.6.7-1:", incl. "Table 5.6.7-1: Information element contained in AF request", e.g. "Potential Locations of Applications"; "Indicates potential locations of applications, represented by a list of DNAl(s). "; "The potential locations of applications can be represented by AF-Service-Identifier."; page 80, bottom, e.g.: "When the AF request is for influencing SMF routing decisions, the information is to identify the traffic to be routed. See section 5.6.7, “The AF requests may influence UPF (re)selection and allow routeing user traffic to a local access to a Data Network (identified by a DNAI”); and
influencing the selection of the user plane entity, wherein influencing the selection of the user plane entity comprises transmitting to a network function within a core network an influence request comprising the data network identifier (section "5.13 Support for Edge Computing", e.g.: "Edge computing enables operator and 3rd party services to be hosted close to the UE's access point of attachment; also, e.g.:" The 5G Core Network selects a UPF close to the UE and executes the traffic steering from the UPF to the local Data Network via a N6 interface. This may be based on the UE's subscription data, UE location, the information from Application Function (AF) as defined in clause 5.6.7, policy or other related traffic rules. See also section 5.6.7, e.g.:" For AF interacting with PCF directly or via NEF, the AF requests may contain the information as described in the Table 5.6.7-1:", incl. "Table 5.6.7-1: Information element contained in AF request", e.g. "Potential Locations of Applications"; "Indicates potential locations of applications, represented by a list of DNAl(s). "; "The potential locations of applications can be represented by AF-Service-Identifier."; page 80, bottom, e.g.: "When the AF request is for influencing SMF routing decisions, the information is to identify the traffic to be routed).
As to claim 13, see similar rejection to claim 1.
As to claim 24, see similar rejection to claim 1.
As to claim 2, 3GPP discloses the method according to claim 1, wherein the method further comprises:
detecting a creation of an instance of a second computer process providing a second predefined service in the distributed cloud system, wherein a second compute node in the distributed cloud system runs the instance of the second computer process; and determining a data network identifier associated with the second compute node, wherein the data network identifier is associated with a second user plane entity (see citation in rejection to claim 1, wherein the disclosed functionality applies to multiple applications, see e.g., section "5.13 Support for Edge Computing… where applications deployed…Edge computing enables operator and 3rd party services to be hosted close to the UE's access point of attachment, so as to achieve an efficient service delivery through the reduced end-to-end latency and load on the transport network.", also, e.g.:" The 5G Core Network selects a UPF close to the UE and executes the traffic steering from the UPF to the local Data Network via a N6 interface. This may be based on the UE's subscription data, UE location, the information from Application Function (AF) as defined in clause 5.6.7, policy or other related traffic rules."; see section 5.6.7, “The AF requests may influence UPF (re)selection and allow routing user traffic to a local access to a Data Network (identified by a DNAI”).
As to claim 5, 3GPP discloses the method according to claim 1, wherein the network function is a Service Capability Exposure Function (SCEF) (figure 4.2.3-5; and note 1, “In figure 4.2.3-5, Trust domain for NEF is same as Trust domain for SCEF as defined in TS 23.682 [36]”), and the data network identifier is an Access Point Name (APN) (section 5.6.7, e.g.:" For AF interacting with PCF directly or via NEF, the AF requests may contain the information as described in the Table 5.6.7-1:", incl. "Table 5.6.7-1: Information element contained in AF request", e.g. "Potential Locations of Applications"; "Indicates potential locations of applications, represented by a list of DNAl(s); section "5.13 Support for Edge Computing", e.g.: "Edge computing enables operator and 3rd party services to be hosted close to the UE's access point of attachment. Under the access point situation, the DNAI is an access point Name or identifier).
As to claim 27, see similar rejection to claim 5.
As to claim 6, 3GPP discloses the method according to claim 1, further comprising: prior to influencing the selection of the user plane entity, determining that the instance of the application server is registered for traffic optimization, wherein the step of influencing the selection of the user plane entity is performed as a result of determining that the new service instance is registered for traffic optimization (see citation in rejection to claim 1 and table 5.6.7-1, wherein the AF request is equivalent to a registration).
As to claim 29, see similar rejection to claim 6.
As to claim 8, 3GPP discloses the method according to claim 1, further determining a processing capacity of the instance of the application server, wherein determining the location information comprises selecting the location information based on the processing capacity of the instance of the application server (Section 6.3.3.3, “The following parameter(s) and information may be considered by the SMF for UPF selection and re-selection: - UPF's dynamic load.- UPF's relative static capacity among UPFs supporting the same DNN. - UPF location available at the SMF. - UE location information. - Capability of the UPF and the functionality required for the particular UE session: An appropriate UPF can be selected by matching the functionality and features required for an UE”).
As to claim 9, see similar rejection to claim 3. Also see section 5.17.1.1.
As to claim 10, 3GPP discloses the method according to claim 1, further comprising determining subscriber information, wherein the location information is determined based on the subscriber information (Section 5/13 Support for Edge Computing, “Edge computing enables operator and 3rd party services to be hosted close to the UE's access point of attachment, so as to achieve an efficient service delivery through the reduced end-to-end latency and load on the transport network...The 5G Core Network selects a UPF close to the UE and executes the traffic steering from the UPF to the local Data Network via a N6 interface. This may be based on the UE's subscription data, UE location, the information from Application Function (AF) as defined in clause 5.6.7, policy or other related traffic rules”. See table 5.6.7.1 and citation in rejection to claims 1 and 3).
As to claim 11, 3GPP discloses a method performed by an exposure function in a mobile commutations network, the method comprising:
the exposure function receiving an influence request from a control entity configured to influence a selection of a user plane entity, the influence request comprising a service type identifier indicating a service type and a data network identifier, wherein the user plane entity is associated with the data network identifier (see citation in rejection to claim 1 and table 5.6.7-1 for the AF request; see section 5.6.7, “The PCF(s) transform(s) the AF requests into policies that apply to PDU Sessions section”; 5.6.7, “The AF requests may influence UPF (re)selection and allow routing user traffic to a local access to a Data Network (identified by a DNAI)”); and
after receiving the influence request, the exposure function transmitting to a subscriber database function of the mobile communications network a request requesting the subscriber database function to use the data network identifier for all subscribers requesting the use of the service type (see citation in rejection to claim 1, e.g., page 82, “The AF may subscribe to notifications about UP path management events, e.g., when the request becomes active or inactive, or when a change of DNAI occurs for the PDU Session. The corresponding notification about a change from source DNAI (or no DNAI) to target DNAI (or no DNAI) sent by the SMF to the AF includes the AF transaction internal identifier, the type of notification (i.e. early notification or late notification), the Identity of the source and/or target DNAI, the IP address/prefix of the UE or the MAC address used by the UE, the GPSI and the N6 traffic routing information related to the 5GC UP. The UE identity information and the N6 routing information related to the 5GC UP are optional if the PDU Session type is IP/Ethernet but mandatory if explicitly requested by the AF”; page 81, “When the PDU Session type is IPv4 or IPv6 or IPv4v6, and the AF provides an IP address and/or an IP Prefix, or when the PDU Session type is Ethernet and the AF provides a MAC address, this allows the PCF to identify the PDU Session for which this request applies and the AF request applies only to that specific PDU Session of the UE. In this case, additional information such as the UE identity may also be provided to help the PCF to identify the correct PDU Session.” Page 79, “An AF may send requests to influence SMF routing decisions for traffic of PDU Session. The AF requests may influence UPF (re)selection and allow routing user traffic to a local access to a Data Network (identified by a DNAI)”. See also page 83, “The spatial validity condition is resolved at the PCF. In order to do that, the PCF subscribes to the SMF to receive notifications about change of UE location in an area of interest (i.e. Presence Reporting Area). The subscribed area of interest may be the same as spatial validity condition, or may be a subset of the spatial validity condition (e.g. a list of TAs) based on the latest known UE location. When the SMF detects that UE entered the area of interest subscribed by the PCF, the SMF notifies the PCF and the PCF provides to the SMF the PCC rules described above by triggering a PDU Session Modification”; and table 5.6.7-1 for the AF request, “Target UE Identifier(s) - Indicates the UE(s) that the request is targeting, i.e. an individual UE, a group of UE represented by Internal Group identifier”. See section 5.6.7, “The PCF(s) transform(s) the AF requests into policies that apply to PDU Sessions” wherein saving (i.e., a request to store) to a database/memory is implied in order to apply the policy, and whichever database/memory that stores said policy for affecting the subscribers/group of UEs is equivalent to a subscriber database, and wherein “a group of UE represented by Internal Group identifier” reads on all subscribers requesting the use of said service type, as being all Target UE identifiers associated with the subscribed area of interest. Alternatively, the above-cited “the AF request applies only to that specific PDU Session of the UE” indicates that the AF request applies to all subscribers to the PDU Session, the subscribers being the UE associated with the PDU session (service type). It is to be noted that the NF functions can all go through the NEF, see e.g., Page 178, “NEF stores the received information as structured data using a standardized interface to a Unified Data Repository (UDR) (interface to be defined by 3GPP). The stored information can be accessed and "re-exposed" by the NEF to other network functions and Application Functions, and used for other purposes such as analytics…A NEF may also support a PFD Function: The PFD Function in the NEF may store and retrieve PFD(s) in the UDR and shall provide PFD(s) to the SMF on the request of SMF (pull mode)”).
As to claim 21, see similar rejection to claim 11.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
6. In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status.
7. 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.
8. The factual inquiries set forth in Graham v. John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 148 USPQ 459 (1966), that are applied for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
9. Claim 7, 12, and 28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over 3GPP, as applied to claim 1 above, and further in view of Pancorbo Marcos et al (US 2012/0246325).
As to claim 7, 3GPP discloses the method according to claim 5, wherein the influence request transmitted to the SCEF is configured to cause the SCEF to initiate a feature for all subscribers marked with a service tag associated with the predefined service provided by the instance of the application server (Section 5/13 Support for Edge Computing, “Edge computing enables operator and 3rd party services to be hosted close to the UE's access point of attachment, so as to achieve an efficient service delivery through the reduced end-to-end latency and load on the transport network...The 5G Core Network selects a UPF close to the UE and executes the traffic steering from the UPF to the local Data Network via a N6 interface. This may be based on the UE's subscription data, UE location, the information from Application Function (AF) as defined in clause 5.6.7, policy or other related traffic rules”. See table 5.6.7-1 for all subscribers in the UE group. See figure 4.2.3-5; and note 1, “In figure 4.2.3-5, Trust domain for NEF is same as Trust domain for SCEF as defined in TS 23.682 [36]”), but does not expressly disclose that the feature is an APN override. Pancorbo Marcos a feature to be an APN override ([0098]-[0103]).
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious for an ordinary skilled in the art to combine 3GPP with Pancorbo Marcos. The suggestion/motivation would have been to apply the selected access point (3GPP, section "5.13 Support for Edge Computing", e.g.: "Edge computing enables operator and 3rd party services to be hosted close to the UE's access point of attachment, so as to achieve an efficient service delivery through the reduced end-to-end latency and load on the transport network”).
As to claim 12, see similar rejection to claim 7.
As to claim 28, see similar rejection to claim 7.
10. Claim 26 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over 3GPP.
As to claim 26, 3GPP discloses the control entity of claim 13, wherein detecting the creation of the computer process comprises:
receiving the notification indicating that the instance of the application server has been created, wherein the notification comprises service endpoint information associated with the instance of the application server (see citation in rejection to claim 1, wherein the AF’s receiving the location information for the application at a first time is equivalent to receiving the notification that such instance of the application server has been created, with service endpoint information associated with, e.g., section 5.13, “to connect to the LADN in a certain area where the applications are deployed”; Also see e.g., Table 5.6.7-1: Information element contained in AF request", e.g. "Potential Locations of Applications"; "Indicates potential locations of applications, represented by a list of DNAl(s). "; "The potential locations of applications can be represented by AF-Service-Identifier."; page 80, bottom, e.g.: "When the AF request is for influencing SMF routing decisions, the information is to identify the traffic to be routed. See section 5.6.7, “The AF requests may influence UPF (re)selection and allow routing user traffic to a local access to a Data Network (identified by a DNAI”. It is to be noted that the claim does not limit where exactly in the cloud system the notification is from), and
receiving the notification indicating that the instance of the application sever has been created, wherein the notification comprises i) a service identifier identifying the predefined service provided by the instance of application server and ii) an endpoint address of the instance of the application server (see citation above), and further wherein
a database links the service endpoint information with the data network identifier (see citation above in rejection to limitation 1, wherein implementation of said Table is a database), and
the step of determining the location information comprises: using the service endpoint information to retrieve the data network identifier from the database (see citation in rejection to limitation 1; section 5.13, “to connect to the LADN in a certain area where the applications are deployed”; page 15, “DN Access Identifier (DNAI): Identifier of a user plane access to one or more DN(s) where applications are deployed”).
But does not expressly disclose transmitting a request to the distributed cloud system requesting that, when the instance of the application server is created, the distributed cloud system provide a notification indicating that the instance of the application server has been created.
3GPP, however, discloses a concept of an event subscription mechanism for network functions to be notified of status changes/updates of newly registered/activated services (see Section 6.3.1, “The requester NF may subscribe in the NRF to receive notifications of newly registered/updated/de-registered NF/NF service instances of target NF/NF services using Nnrf_NFManagement_NFStatusSubscribe/Notify service operations as defined in TS 23.502 [3].” Section 7.1.5, “For the NRF to properly maintain the information of available NF instances and their supported services, each NF instance informs the NRF of the list of NF services that it supports. …The NF instance may make this information available to NRF when the NF instance becomes operative for the first time (registration operation) or upon individual NF service instance activation/de-activation within the NF instance (update operation) e.g. triggered after a scaling operation. The NF instance while registering the list of NF services it supports, for each NF service, may provide a notification endpoint information for each type of notification service that the NF service is prepared to consume, to the NRF during the NF instance registration. The NF instance may also update or delete the NF service related parameters (e.g. to delete the notification endpoint information). Alternatively, another authorized entity (such as an OA&M function) may inform the NRF on behalf of an NF instance triggered by an NF service instance lifecycle event (register or de-registration operation depending on instance instantiation, termination, activation, or de-activation). Registration with the NRF includes capacity and configuration information at time of instantiation.”; pages 79-83, section "5.6.7 Application Function influence on traffic routing", e.g.:" ... the AF may request to get notified about events related with PDU Sessions.". Also see page 82, “When the AF request is for subscription to notifications about UP path management events, the temporal validity condition indicates when the notifications are to be generated….When the AF request is for Type of notifications regarding UP path management events. The AF subscription can be for early notification and/or late notification. In the case of a subscription for early notification, the SMF sends the notification before the UP path is configured”; and page 82, “The AF may subscribe to notifications about UP path management events, e.g., when the request becomes active or inactive, or when a change of DNAI occurs for the PDU Session. The corresponding notification about a change from source DNAI (or no DNAI) to target DNAI”).
Before the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious for an ordinary skilled in the art to combine the teaching of 3GPP with the additional teaching of the concept of said event subscription mechanism. It is to be noted that it is the concept of subscription mechanism that is being combined, not a mechanic combination of the two subcomponents. The suggestion/motivation of the combination would have been to allow notifications adaptive to the network function consumer(s) (3GPP, section 6.3.1).
Allowable Subject Matter
11. Claim 3 is allowed.
Conclusion
12. Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any extension fee pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the date of this final action.
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/HUA FAN/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2458
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