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
Response to Amendment
This office action is in response to applicant’s amendment and RCE filed, 24 December 2025, of application filed, with the above serial number, on 22 December 2022 in which claims 1, 12, 20 have been amended. Claims 1-20 are pending in the application.
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 1-20 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. The amendment to the claims 1, 12, 20 add ‘at least one non-dependent configuration block’, it is indefinite of the scope of the non-dependent configuration block, the specification does not describe such non-dependent configuration block and it is assumed for examination purposes that a non-dependent configuration block is an independent configuration block.
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.
Claim(s) 1-8, 10-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tregenza Dancer et al (hereinafter “Tregenza”, 2015/0067178) in view of Nanda et al (hereinafter “Nanda”, 2019/0243802).
As per Claim 1, Tregenza discloses a location server communicatively coupled to a telecommunications network comprising a clustered Application Server (AS) comprising nodes storing configuration data to process a call or other communication request associated with a query for a subscriber of the telecommunications network, the location server comprising:
at least one network interface; a processor; a memory storing instructions that, when executed by the processor, perform operations comprising:
receive, via an interface of the at least one network interface, a query for a subscriber (at least paragraph 45; a request message being transmitted from user device 120 to network routing node 104, as shown by item 202. Upon receipt of the communication session setup message, network routing node 104 transmits a query in relation to the communication session involving the given subscriber to location database and failure manager node 110);
in response to determining that a configuration associated with the subscriber is on a failed AS node of the clustered AS (at least paragraph 45-47; query of item 106 is received by location database and failure manager node 110 and in response to the list indicating that the first communication session server CSS1 in the plurality which is currently responsible for providing communication services to the given subscriber currently has a failed state, location database and failure manager node 110 conducts a responsibility transfer operation to transfer responsibility for providing communication services to the given subscriber from the first communication session server CSS1 to a second, different communication session server in the plurality):
determine a healthy AS node of the clustered AS (at least paragraph 46);
send a request, via an interface of the at least one network interface, for the healthy AS node to instantiate a configuration block containing configuration data associated with the subscriber (at least paragraph 45-47; location database and failure manager node 110 chooses to transfer responsibility for providing communication services to the given subscriber to CSS2, i.e. the given subscriber is transferred to CSS2…responsibility transfer operation can also be referred to as a re-homing operation or a re-instantiation operation);
thereby allowing for rehoming of configuration data required for the query to be successfully processed when dependencies are in place for the configuration data (at least paragraph 52, 40, 105; using “just in time” rehoming of configuration data to a new server rather than switching over of a whole communication session server's worth of configuration and the associated processing to a new replacement communication session server is carried out); and
receive a response, via the interface of the at least one network interface, from the healthy AS node indicative that an identifier, associated with the subscriber has been registered on the healthy AS node (at least paragraph 45-47; conducting the responsibility transfer operation comprises location database and failure manager node 110 instructing (as shown by item 208) the second communication session server CSS2 to retrieve (as shown by item 210) subscriber configuration data for the given subscriber from subscriber configuration data node 114 and store the retrieved subscriber configuration data for the given subscriber locally for use in providing communication services to the given subscriber);
respond, via an interface of the at least one network interface, to the query with the location of the healthy AS node, thereby enabling immediate processing of the query without a requirement to wait for additional configuration data to be rehomed (at least paragraph 45-47; Once the second communication session server CSS2 has retrieved the subscriber configuration data for the given subscriber from subscriber configuration data node 114, communication session server CSS2 is ready to start providing communication services to the given subscriber when required, i.e. communication session server CSS2 is now responsible for providing communication services to the given subscriber; communication session server CSS2 informs location database and failure manager node 110 of such); and
in response to receiving the response from the healthy AS node, adding, by the location server, at least one configuration block previously stored on, or associated with, the failed AS node, […] to a queue for requesting the healthy AS node to instantiate each configuration block of the queue, thereby enabling additional configuration data located on the failed AS node to be subsequently requested to be instantiated on a healthy AS node, and thereby maintaining ability of the telecommunications network to facilitate communication with the failed AS node (at least paragraph 69, 84-85; re-instantiation (i.e. rehoming of a subscriber to a different communication session server) is carried out "just-in-time", the rate at which this operation needs to be supported is naturally limited by the rate of events arriving from the network (e.g. new SIP calls). Embodiments therefore have a benefit in overall performance over a scheme where the failure of the communication session server itself triggers a bulk operation to rehome subscribers; New instantiations of subscribers within a site are load balanced amongst communication session servers in the plurality in a weighted fashion based on their currently reported available capacity; location database and failure management node 110 sends it a request to pull the relevant copy of the given subscriber's configuration from the configuration backup store 114 and is able to start providing service to that subscriber when a communication session involving the subscriber is subsequently initiated);
wherein adding at least one configuration block on the failed AS node to the queue comprises identifying, based on dependency relationships between configuration blocks, at least one non-dependent configuration block to be instantiated, thereby enabling prioritized rehoming of configuration data according to dependency order (at least paragraph 69; re-instantiation (i.e. rehoming of a subscriber to a different communication session server) is carried out "just-in-time", the rate at which this operation needs to be supported is naturally limited by the rate of events arriving from the network (e.g. new SIP calls). Embodiments therefore have a benefit in overall performance over a scheme where the failure of the communication session server itself triggers a bulk operation to rehome subscribers).
Tregenza fails to disclose in response to the configuration block containing configuration data associated with the subscriber being a child configuration block, requesting instantiation of a first parent configuration block upon which the child configuration block is dependent and associated excluding of the first parent configuration block and child configuration block that were requested to be instantiated from the subsequent adding to queue.
However, the use and advantages for using such a system was well known to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention as evidenced by the teachings of Nanda. Nanda discloses in an analogous data storage art, a failback procedure where a source configuration file system is migrated to a destination by way of a user file system (child) being unmounted then serially the configuration and root (parent) file system, and mounting on the destination the root file system, configuration and user file system (at least Nanda paragraph 15-21). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to incorporate the use of Nanda’s disclosure of conventional technology as Nanda teaches it being well known that where there exists a dependency on a file system, all file systems that depend on each other would need to be migrated and file dependencies are well known in the art.
Further, Tregenza discloses (see at least paragraph 52, 40, 105) using “just in time” rehoming of configuration data to a new server rather than switching over of a whole communication session server's worth of configuration and the associated processing to a new replacement communication session server is carried out. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to incorporate the alternative option in Tregenza, as Tregenza teaches just in time offers performance gain however queueing other subscribers’ data from a failed server to a healthy server offers alternative benefits such as those other subscribers not having any interruption or ‘small one-off delay” (par. 49).
As per Claim 2. The location server of claim 1, wherein the at least one configuration block on the failed AS node added to the queue is any one or more of:
a parent-child structure comprising the first parent configuration block; at least one additional parent configuration block including a root of the parent-child structure; or the parent-child structure comprising the additional parent configuration block (at least Nanda paragraph 15-21).
As per Claim 3. The location server of claim 1, the instructions executable to iteratively request, via the at least one network interface, the healthy AS node to instantiate each configuration block of the queue (at least paragraph 105).
As per Claim 4. The location server of claim 1, wherein the queue is a first queue, the instructions further executable to at least one of:
move a configuration block of the first queue to a second queue; or
move a configuration block of the second queue to the first queue, wherein each configuration block of the second queue is configured to be requested, via the at least one network interface, to be instantiated by the healthy AS node before any block of the first queue (at least Nanda paragraph 15-21).
As per Claim 5. The location server of claim 4, wherein a configuration block of the first queue is moved to the second queue using a determined priority of the configuration block, wherein a higher priority configuration block is moved to the second queue before a lower priority configuration block, and wherein a configuration block of the second queue is moved to the first queue using a determined priority of the configuration block, wherein a lower priority configuration block is moved to the first queue before a higher priority block (at least Nanda paragraph 15-21; unmount and mount serially in order of priority for user, configuration and root data).
As per Claim 6. The location server of claim 5, wherein the priority of a configuration block is determined based on one or more of: whether a subscriber associated with the configuration block is currently attempting to make a call via the telecommunications network, whether the configuration block is associated with configuration of a business group comprising subscribers, whether the configuration block has any dependencies, whether the configuration block is a dependency for another configuration block, a number of dependents of the configuration block, the priority of any dependents of the configuration block, a type of the configuration block, historical data regarding a subscriber associated with the configuration block, or existence of a provisioning request for the block (at least Nanda paragraph 15-21; unmount and mount serially in order of priority for user, configuration and root data).
As per Claim 7. The location server of claim 6, wherein the type of the configuration block is one of: line; Private Branch Exchange, PBX; or multi-line hunt group (at least paragraph 11, 26, 47; voice session /call/ line).
As per Claim 8. The location server of claim 1, the instructions executable to further: in response to requesting the healthy AS node to instantiate a configuration block failing, reattempt to request the healthy AS node to instantiate the configuration block (at least paragraph 46, 44, 32, 39; heartbeat mechanism to determine health of server(s)).
As per Claim 10. The location server of claim 1, wherein determining that the configuration data associated with the subscriber is on a failed AS node comprises checking that a connection via the at least one network interface to a AS node of the clustered AS associated with the subscriber is unavailable (at least paragraph 50, 31-32; due to a network event that means that communication session server CSS1 is disconnected from all or part of the surrounding network).
As per Claim 11. The location server of claim 1, wherein the clustered AS registers subscriber identifiers with the location server such that the location server stores a table comprising, for each subscriber identifier, an associated location of a AS node of the clustered AS upon which configuration data associated with the subscriber is stored (at least paragraph 31-33).
As per Claim 18. The method of claim 12, wherein receiving a query for a subscriber comprises: receiving the query as part of a communications flow; or receiving the query to read or change configuration of the subscriber as part of a provisioning flow (at least paragraph 34; initiation results in a request message being transmitted from user device 120 to network routing node 104 (possibly via one or more other entities), as shown by item 102. Upon receipt of the communication session setup message, network routing node 104 transmits a query in relation to the communication session involving the given subscriber to location database and failure manager node 110, as shown by item 106. The query of item 106 queries which communication session server in the plurality is currently responsible for providing communication services). .
As per Claim 19. The method of claim 12, comprising: receiving a first query for a subscriber as part of a communications flow and receiving a second query to read or change configuration of the subscriber or another subscriber as part of a provisioning flow (at least paragraph 34-36; initiation results in a request message being transmitted from user device 120 to network routing node 104 …Communication session server CSS1 then processes the request message in relation to the communication session according to subscriber configuration data it has stored locally for the given subscriber).
As per Claim 20, Tregenza discloses a method performed by a location server of a telecommunications network comprising a clustered Application Server (AS) comprising nodes storing configuration data to process a call or other communication request associated with a query for a subscriber of the telecommunications network, wherein an entire configuration data of a business group is stored on a same node of the clustered AS and wherein the entire configuration data of the business group is comprised of configuration blocks, at least one configuration block of the configuration blocks dependent upon another configuration block of the configuration blocks, the method comprising:
receiving a query for a subscriber of the business group corresponding to a subject of a call via the telecommunications network (at least paragraph 45; a request message being transmitted from user device 120 to network routing node 104, as shown by item 202. Upon receipt of the communication session setup message, network routing node 104 transmits a query in relation to the communication session involving the given subscriber to location database and failure manager node 110; par. 5-6: subscriber of a telephony service business);
in response to determining that configuration data associated with the subscriber is on a failed AS node of the clustered AS (at least paragraph 45-47; query of item 106 is received by location database and failure manager node 110 and in response to the list indicating that the first communication session server CSS1 in the plurality which is currently responsible for providing communication services to the given subscriber currently has a failed state, location database and failure manager node 110 conducts a responsibility transfer operation to transfer responsibility for providing communication services to the given subscriber from the first communication session server CSS1 to a second, different communication session server in the plurality):
determining a healthy AS node of the clustered AS (at least paragraph 46);
requesting the healthy AS node to instantiate a configuration block … and contains configuration data associated with the subscriber (at least paragraph 45-47; location database and failure manager node 110 chooses to transfer responsibility for providing communication services to the given subscriber to CSS2, i.e. the given subscriber is transferred to CSS2…responsibility transfer operation can also be referred to as a re-homing operation or a re-instantiation operation);
thereby allowing for rehoming of configuration data required for the query to be successfully processed when dependencies are in place for the configuration data (at least paragraph 52, 40, 105; using “just in time” rehoming of configuration data to a new server rather than switching over of a whole communication session server's worth of configuration and the associated processing to a new replacement communication session server is carried out); receiving a response from the healthy AS node that an identifier, associated with the subscriber has been registered on the healthy AS node (at least paragraph 45-47; conducting the responsibility transfer operation comprises location database and failure manager node 110 instructing (as shown by item 208) the second communication session server CSS2 to retrieve (as shown by item 210) subscriber configuration data for the given subscriber from subscriber configuration data node 114 and store the retrieved subscriber configuration data for the given subscriber locally for use in providing communication services to the given subscriber);
responding to the query with the location of the healthy AS node, thereby enabling immediate processing of the query without a requirement to wait for additional configuration data to be rehomed (at least paragraph 45-47; Once the second communication session server CSS2 has retrieved the subscriber configuration data for the given subscriber from subscriber configuration data node 114, communication session server CSS2 is ready to start providing communication services to the given subscriber when required, i.e. communication session server CSS2 is now responsible for providing communication services to the given subscriber; communication session server CSS2 informs location database and failure manager node 110 of such); and
in response to receiving the response from the healthy AS node, adding, by the location server, at least one configuration block previously stored on, or associated with, the failed AS node, […] to a queue for requesting the healthy AS node to instantiate each configuration block of the queue, thereby enabling additional configuration data located on the failed AS node to be subsequently requested to be instantiated on a healthy AS node, and thereby maintaining ability of the telecommunications network to facilitate communication with the failed AS node (at least paragraph 69, 84-85; re-instantiation (i.e. rehoming of a subscriber to a different communication session server) is carried out "just-in-time", the rate at which this operation needs to be supported is naturally limited by the rate of events arriving from the network (e.g. new SIP calls). Embodiments therefore have a benefit in overall performance over a scheme where the failure of the communication session server itself triggers a bulk operation to rehome subscribers; New instantiations of subscribers within a site are load balanced amongst communication session servers in the plurality in a weighted fashion based on their currently reported available capacity; location database and failure management node 110 sends it a request to pull the relevant copy of the given subscriber's configuration from the configuration backup store 114 and is able to start providing service to that subscriber when a communication session involving the subscriber is subsequently initiated);
wherein adding at least one configuration block on the failed AS node to the queue comprises identifying, based on dependency relationships between configuration blocks, at least one non-dependent configuration block to be instantiated, thereby enabling prioritized rehoming of configuration data according to dependency order (at least paragraph 69, 84-85; re-instantiation (i.e. rehoming of a subscriber to a different communication session server) is carried out "just-in-time", the rate at which this operation needs to be supported is naturally limited by the rate of events arriving from the network (e.g. new SIP calls). Embodiments therefore have a benefit in overall performance over a scheme where the failure of the communication session server itself triggers a bulk operation to rehome subscribers; communication session server itself triggers a bulk operation to rehome subscribers; New instantiations of subscribers within a site are load balanced amongst communication session servers in the plurality in a weighted fashion based on their currently reported available capacity; location database and failure management node 110 sends it a request to pull the relevant copy of the given subscriber's configuration from the configuration backup store 114 and is able to start providing service to that subscriber when a communication session involving the subscriber is subsequently initiated).
Tregenza fails to disclose a parent configuration block and a child configuration block of the entire configuration data of the business group, wherein the parent configuration block contains configuration data of the business group, and wherein the child configuration block is dependent upon the parent configuration block; and associated excluding of the first parent configuration block and child configuration block that were requested to be instantiated from the subsequent adding to queue.
However, the use and advantages for using such a system was well known to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention as evidenced by the teachings of Nanda. Nanda discloses in an analogous data storage art, a failback procedure where a source configuration file system is migrated to a destination by way of a user file system (child) being unmounted then serially the configuration and root (parent) file system, and mounting on the destination the root file system, configuration and user file system (at least Nanda paragraph 15-21). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to incorporate the use of Nanda’s disclosure of conventional technology as Nanda teaches it being well known that where there exists a dependency on a file system, all file systems that depend on each other would need to be migrated and file dependencies are well known in the art.
Further, Tregenza discloses (see at least paragraph 52, 40, 105) using “just in time” rehoming of configuration data to a new server rather than switching over of a whole communication session server's worth of configuration and the associated processing to a new replacement communication session server is carried out. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to incorporate the alternative option in Tregenza, as Tregenza teaches just in time offers performance gain however queueing other subscribers’ data from a failed server to a healthy server offers alternative benefits such as those other subscribers not having any interruption or ‘small one-off delay” (par. 49).
Claims 12-17 do not, in substance, add or define any additional limitations over claims 1-8, 10-11 and therefore are rejected for similar reasons, supra.
Claim(s) 9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Tregenza in view of Nanda, further in view of Kukreja et al (hereinafter “Kukreja”, 11,050,618).
Tregenza discloses in at least paragraph 44: “communication session server CSS1 fails, location database and failure manager node 110 learns of such failure as shown by item 204, for example by location database and failure manager node 110 not receiving an expected heartbeat signal from communication session server CSS1 in a timely fashion. Location database and failure manager node 110 therefore updates the maintained list to indicate that communication session server CSS1 is currently in a failed state. Location database and failure manager node 110 does not carry out any responsibility transfer operations for subscribers from communication session server CSS1 to one or more different communication session servers at this stage”. Tregenza fails to explicitly disclose:
the instructions executable to further: in response to requesting the healthy AS node to instantiate a configuration block failing less than a predetermined number of times, reattempt to request the healthy AS node to instantiate the configuration block; and in response to requesting the healthy AS node to instantiate a configuration block failing more than a predetermined number of times, add the configuration block to a failure queue, wherein each configuration block of the failure queue is configured to be requested to be instantiated after at least one other queue is clear of blocks.
However, the use and advantages for using such a system was well known to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention as evidenced by the teachings of Kukreja (at least col. 7:1-18). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to incorporate the use of Kukreja’s failure queue and retry count with Tregenza and Nanda, as such retrying is well known in the art as illustrated by Kukreja, and Tregenza teaches a heartbeat mechanism to determine the health of a server and migrating to CSS2 if CSS2 is determined to be healthy and if that fails after a certain number of attempts then try CSS3, etc.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed 24 November 2025 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant argues that neither Tregenza nor Nanda address that queuing is dependency-driven as recited in amended claim 1, and that neither reference supports real-time processing of subscriber queries during recovery as with claim 1’s immediate call processing by rehoming minimal dependent configuration before full recovery.
However, Tregenza is exactly teaching such limitations as amended in claim 1, whereas in at least paragraphs 69, 84-85, Tregenza teaches “re-instantiation (i.e. rehoming of a subscriber to a different communication session server) is carried out "just-in-time", the rate at which this operation needs to be supported is naturally limited by the rate of events arriving from the network (e.g. new SIP calls). Embodiments therefore have a benefit in overall performance over a scheme where the failure of the communication session server itself triggers a bulk operation to rehome subscribers”.
Tregenza teaches “New instantiations of subscribers within a site are load balanced amongst communication session servers in the plurality in a weighted fashion based on their currently reported available capacity”. And Tregenza teaches “location database and failure management node 110 sends it a request to pull the relevant copy of the given subscriber's configuration from the configuration backup store 114 and is able to start providing service to that subscriber when a communication session involving the subscriber is subsequently initiated”.
Thus, Tregenza teaches that there is no bulk rehoming transfer, only minimal rehoming as needed, rather the rehoming is performed in real time as the subscriber makes a call and the configuration data is needed. The specification does not clearly describe ‘dependency relationships’ but it is assumed that such describes a dependent configuration block related to an independent or other dependent blocks. In this case, Tregenza teaches rehoming all configuration data for a subscriber when they make a call, such configuration data being non-dependent or independent of other subscribers data, with Nantel teaching the different transfer of data on root and dependent on root data.
The claims broadly recite that the added at least one configuration block exclude those blocks instantiated for the subscriber and thus it is assumed the added configuration blocks are for any and/or other subscribers that are subsequently requested trying to make a call, though they could also be for the same subscriber (for a same call or different call), however, the claims are not limited to such interpretation. And that such queuing up be for “subsequent” requests and calls made, as described by the claims not for the entire configuration of all configuration data on the failed AS node.
In response to applicant's argument that Tregenza and Nanda do not disclose the amended thereby clauses (see below), a recitation of the intended use of the claimed invention must result in a structural difference between the claimed invention and the prior art in order to patentably distinguish the claimed invention from the prior art. If the prior art structure is capable of performing the intended use, then it meets the claim.
The independent claims have been amended to add multiple ‘thereby’ clauses, for example in claim 1, a machine claim performing operations (method): (i) “thereby allowing for rehoming of configuration data required for the query to be successfully processed when dependencies are in place for the configuration data”; (ii) “thereby enabling immediate processing of the query without a requirement to wait for additional configuration data to be rehomed”; (iii) “thereby enabling additional configuration data located on the failed AS node to be subsequently requested to be instantiated on a healthy AS node, and thereby maintaining ability of the telecommunications network to facilitate communication with the failed AS node”; and (iv) “thereby enabling prioritized rehoming of configuration data according to dependency order”.
However, the thereby clauses do not further limit the language of the claim and are simply expressing the intended use and/or intended result from the limitation the clause is attempting to modify.
See MPEP 2103 I. C. and 2111.04 I.:
“Claim scope is not limited by claim language that suggests or makes optional but does not require steps to be performed, or by claim language that does not limit a claim to a particular structure. However, examples of claim language, although not exhaustive, that may raise a question as to the limiting effect of the language in a claim are:
(A) "adapted to" or "adapted for" clauses;
(B) "wherein" clauses; and
(C) "whereby" clauses.”
“However, the court noted that a "‘whereby clause in a method claim is not given weight when it simply expresses the intended result of a process step positively recited.’" Id. (quoting Minton v. Nat’l Ass’n of Securities Dealers, Inc., 336 F.3d 1373, 1381, 67 USPQ2d 1614, 1620 (Fed. Cir. 2003)).”,
Regarding thereby clause (i), the parent block is requested to be instantiated if the child block is what is requested, the thereby clause adding that the query is successfully processing when dependencies are in place only announces an intended result of the query being responded to with both the parent and dependent child already being instantiated.
Regarding thereby clause (ii), the thereby clause recites enabling immediate processing of a query without a ‘requirement to wait’, such timing is indefinite, as there is waiting for the parent block to be instantiated and rehomed, thus it is not ‘immediate’ and without wait for any data to be rehomed, simply additional data that must not be waited on. This is implied and inherent with any data request. For example, if ‘data x’ is requested, it is implied and inherent that a response with ‘data x’ is returned, and claiming returning ‘data x’ immediately without waiting, for example, on ‘data a, data b… data w’ does not further limit the claim.
Regarding thereby clause (iii), the thereby clause merely recites that additional data may be requested in the future, this is intended future use and does not further limit the claim. It is not explained how data from a failed node is retrieved somehow, see Interview summary where clarification was requested, as the specification outlines with a failed node in par. 32 as ‘unable to connect to the telecommunications network 110’ the configuration data appears to be retrieved from a backup database as described in par. 28, yet the claims describe the queuing of the data directly from the failed AS node.
Regarding thereby clause (iv), the thereby clause merely notes that other configuration blocks from the failed node are queued after the requested configuration block(s), which is already performed by the claims with the instantiation of the parent-child block requested and the additional blocks thereafter.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure is indicated in PTO form 892.
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/GREGORY TODD/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2443