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 .
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(b):
(b) CONCLUSION.—The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor regards as the invention.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 9-13, 15, and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being indefinite for failing to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter which the inventor or a joint inventor (or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the applicant), regards as the invention.
Claim 9 recites the limitation "wherein one or more servers in the communication network include one or more of a home location register (HLR) or a unified data management (UDM)" as part of the amendments filed 12 November 2025. The claim previously states, “forward the request to one or more servers in the communication network”. It is unclear if the one or more servers in the communication network as part of the amendment are the same one or more servers in the communication network as previously claimed, or a second one or more servers in the communication network. This renders the claim and the depending claims unclear and indefinite.
Claim 15 recites the limitation “wherein one or more servers in the communication network include one or more of a home location register (HLR), a home subscriber server (HSS), or a unified data management (UDM)”. The parent claim already states that it must include an HSS or UDM, and thus it is unclear what is added by repeating that limitation.
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 9-13, and 15-20, as best understood, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zampiello et al., USPN 2009/0064313 in view of Imbimbo, USPN 2009/0006414, in further view of Di Donato et al., USPN 2011/0269430.
With regard to claims 9, and 17, Zampiello discloses a method implemented on a lawful interception management system of a communication network (0002, 0029), the method including receiving, from a law enforcement agency (0029, Fig. 4 475), a request to track activities of a subscriber of services provided through the communication network (0032), transmitting, via an interface, the request to a communication service provider (CSP) (0018, 0025, Fig. 4 405), causing the CSP to respectively forward the request to one or more servers in the communication network (NASs or UIS, 0025-0027, Fig. 4 410), wherein one or more servers in the communication network include a unified data management (UDM) (0013-0014, 0022-0024, 0027-0029), receiving, from at least one of the CSP or the one or more servers via the interface, information associated with the activities of the user (0028, 0029), and transmitting, to the LEA via the interface, the information associated with the activities of the subscriber (0036). Zampiello does not discloses the activities include activating a new subscriber or deactivating a subscriber. Imbimbo discloses a method of implementing a lawful interception management system (0007), similar to that of Zampiello including intercepting activities such as activating a new subscriber or deactivating a subscriber (0056). It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art, prior to the instant effective filing date, to implement the intercepted activities of Imbimbo in the method of Zampiello for the motivation of allowing the law enforcement to fully monitor a subscriber or subscription. Zampiello in view of Imbimbo does not disclose updating the request to track activities of the subscriber based at least in part on the provisioning transactions and transmitting the updated request to the CSP to be forwarded to the one or more servers in the communication network. Di Donato discloses a method of facilitation legal information intercept in a communication network (0001, 0015), similar to that of Zampiello and Imbimbo, and further discloses collecting provisioning transactions of the subscriber (0013), such as a change in the mobile station ID target identity (0043), which can be the IMSI (0045), or an MSISDN (0005, 0014), and updating the request to track activities of the subscriber based at least in part on the provisioning transactions (0017, 0021, 0059, 0075), using an HLR to keep track of the subscriber data (0007, 0046) and transmitting the updated request to the CSP to be forwarded to the one or more servers in the communication network (0022, 0061, 0078). It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art, prior to the instant effective filing date, to implement the provisioning transactions monitoring and updating of Di Donato, such as IMSI or MSISDN changes stored in an HLR, in the method of Zampiello in view of Imbimbo for the motivation of allowing the law enforcement to continually and better monitor a subscriber.
With regard to claims 10, 12, 16, and 19, Zampiello in view of Imbimbo in further view of Di Donato discloses the system of claim 9, as outlined above, and Zampiello further discloses the request to track the activities of the user is transmitted to the LIMS through a third-party server (NASs or through the network, 0025, 0009).
With regard to claims 11, and 20, Zampiello in view of Imbimbo in further view of Di Donato discloses the system of claim 9, as outlined above, and Zampiello further discloses the activities of the subscriber includes data activities of the subscriber (0036, 0035), or can be based on voice activities or text activities of the subscriber (session start time and end time, 0034, 0028, 0018-0021).
With regard to claims 15, and 18, Zampiello in view of Imbimbo in further view of Di Donato discloses the system of claim 9, as outlined above, and Zampiello further discloses one or more servers in the communication network include a home subscriber server (0013).
With regard to claim 13, Zampiello in view of Imbimbo in further view of Di Donato discloses the system of claim 9, as outlined above, and Imbimbo discloses the activities include any kind of service or subscription change, such as an address change (0056), but does not specifically disclose changing international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI). Di Donato discloses collecting provisioning transactions of the subscriber (0013), such as a change in the subscriber IMSI (0043). It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art, prior to the instant effective filing date, to implement the provisioning transactions monitoring of Di Donato, such as IMSI changes in the method of Zampiello in view of Imbimbo for the motivation of allowing the law enforcement to continually and better monitor a subscriber.
Claims 1-5, 7, and 8, as best understood, are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zampiello et al., USPN 2009/0064313 in view of Imbimbo, USPN 2009/0006414, in further view of Di Donato et al., USPN 2011/0269430, in further view of Truchan et al., USPN 2020/0213839.
With regard to claims 1-5, 7, and 8, Zampiello in view of Imbimbo in further view of Di Donato discloses the system of claims 9-13, 15, and 16, as outlined above, but does not disclose the provisioning transactions including sending cancel location to the one or more servers. Truchan discloses a system of implementing a lawful interception management system (0007), similar to that of Zampiello, Imbimbo, and Di Donato, and further discloses reporting provisioning transactions (communication of content types of data) to law enforcement (0043), and that the provisioning transactions includes sending cancel location to the one or more servers (0044-0067, 0064). It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art, prior to the instant effective filing date, to implement the provisioning transactions monitoring and updating of Truchan, such as location cancellation changes in the method of Zampiello in view of Imbimbo in further view of Di Donato for the motivation of allowing the law enforcement to continually and better monitor a subscriber.
References Cited
Grootwassink et al., USPN 10,447,503, discloses a method of discloses monitoring changes in an MSISDN (column 9 lines 45-67).
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, filed 12 November 2025, have been fully considered and are partially persuasive, therefor the examiner changed the rejection and added the Truchan reference as outline above.
Conclusion
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/JACOB LIPMAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2434