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
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for foreign priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (a)-(d). The certified copy has been filed in parent Application No. EP 21161381, filed on 8th March 2021.
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Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 6th September 2023 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
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Claim Objections
Claims 12 and 24 are objected to because of the following informalities: please amend “control plan” into -- control plane --. Appropriate correction is required.
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Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
Claims 1, 3, 6, 7, 10, 11, 13, 15, 18, 19, 22 and 23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Liimatta et al (US 2010/0322264 A1).
Claim 13 (similarly Claim 1). Liimatta shows a wireless transmit/receive unit (WTRU) (figs. 1A, 5 and 8: UE/end user/mobile station) comprising circuitry, including a transmitter (fig. 8: radio section 815 via antenna 817), a receiver (fig. 8: radio section 815 via antenna 817), a processor and memory (fig. 8: DSP/MCU + memory), and configured to: receive, from a network node, a first message including first information indicating a control plane procedure ([0031]: a device, such as UE, can communicate with a services platform via a client messaging bus – service platform as a “control plane”), wherein the first information comprises second information indicating at least one of a first configuration corresponding to a service proxy ([0031]: the device can send and receive messages with a services platform through a protocol, such as Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) in which an XMPP core can be associated with the services platform… a client device messaging bus can receive XMPP messages and route them by router to the appropriate application 209a-209n) and a second configuration corresponding to a service proxy forwarder ([0032]: each location corresponds to a cluster wherein clusters can be in geographically separated sites – forwarding “locations”), and wherein the second configuration comprises third information indicating a first forwarding identifier for path based packet forwarding toward the network node ([0032]: the home locator determines the home location(s) for the service and if the service has multiple locations, the home locator returns a list of home locations to the messaging bus which receives the service’s home locations from the home locator – forwarding to “locations”); transmit, based on the control plane procedure, to the network node, a second message including a publish request ([0032]: a messaging bus receives a publish request associated with a service from a node (e.g. a ULE, a service, etc.) wherein the publish request is also associated with a channel to be published to subscribers of the channel); responsive to the publish request, receive, from the network node, a third message including fourth information indicating a second forwarding identifier ([0034]: the service’s messaging bus then queries a channel database to determine the proper subscribers to the publication request wherein the service’s messaging bus then receives the service as a subscriber – the service has an “identifier” for the subscriber); and transmit a fourth message including uplink data to a data network (DN) ([0034]: the service, on application platform, is then notified of the publication wherein the service then requests and receives the content of the message – UE sends uplink data (“content”) to the network), wherein the fourth message is transmitted according to a packet path routing indication based on the second forwarding identifier ([0034]: information between the service instances can be updated regularly between service locations using service-to-service connections – routing information, including forwarding identifier, are included).
Claim 15 (similarly claim 3). Liimatta shows the WTRU of claim 13, wherein the second message comprises the first forwarding identifier ([0032]: a messaging bus receives a publish request associated with a service from a node wherein the publish request is also associated with a channel to be published to subscribers of the channel… the messaging bus generates a query to determine the home locations of the service wherein each location corresponds to a cluster… the messaging bus 109a initiates transmission of the query to a home locator (e.g. home location registry) associated with the user equipment… the home locator returns a list of home locations to the messaging bus).
Claim 18 (similarly claim 6). Liimatta shows the WTRU according to claim 13, wherein the packet path routing indication is based on a routing decision ([0023]: a cluster receiving a message intended for the service from a data producer can route the message to the service at one of the locations using an optimized routing path… the routing path is determined by dynamic metrics, (e.g. based on current network congestion, network latency, network disconnected etc.) wherein multiple home locations of a service also allows for fault tolerance if one of the service’s home clusters is disconnected, the receiving cluster can route the data message to another of the service’s home clusters wherein the service is the owner of a channel and receives all messages published to the channel), wherein the routing decision is responsive to the publish request ([0032]: a messaging bus receives a publish request associated with a service from a node; [0036]: the messaging bus need only make delivery of the message to one of the home locations wherein the endpoint is the owner of the channel the data producer is publishing to).
Claim 19 (similarly claim 7). Liimatta shows the WTRU according to claim 13, wherein the second forwarding identifier corresponds to the DN ([0034]: the service, on application platform, is then notified of the publication wherein the service then requests and receives the content of the message – UE sends uplink data (“content”) to the network), and the WTRU is configured to: determine the second forwarding identifier based on the packet path routing information for the uplink data ([0034]: information between the service instances can be updated regularly between service locations using service-to-service connections – routing information, including forwarding identifier, are included).
Claim 22 (similarly claim 10). Liimatta shows the WTRU according to claim 13, wherein the first message and the third message are received by a service proxy of the WTRU ([0031]: the device can send and receive messages with a services platform through a protocol, such as Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) in which an XMPP core can be associated with the services platform… a client device messaging bus can receive XMPP messages and route them by router to the appropriate application 209a-209n; [0032]: the home locator determines the home location(s) for the service and if the service has multiple locations, the home locator returns a list of home locations to the messaging bus which receives the service’s home locations from the home locator – service platform, appropriate application(s) and home locator/locations can be service proxies).
Claim 23 (similarly claim 11). Liimatta shows the WTRU according to claim 13, wherein the transmission of the fourth message is a transmission via an Ethernet protocol data unit session ([0050]: communications interface may be a local area network (LAN) card to provide a data communication connection to a compatible LAN, such as Ethernet).
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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.
The factual inquiries 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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 4, 5, 16 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liimatta et al in view of Moisand et al (US 2015/0092551 A1).
Claim 16 (similarly claim 4). Liimatta shows the WTRU according to claim 13; Liimatta does not expressly describe the WTRU is further configured to transmit the second message to a path computation element of the network node based on the first forwarding identifier.Moisand teaches feature of transmitting a message to a path computation element (PCE) of a network node based on a forwarding identifier (fig. 6: network device sends packet (e.g. message) to the service node (e.g. PCE); [0073]: the service chain specification may further specify, for each service, network address information (e.g. IP addresses) or identifying information for each service node, which may be a virtual or physical machine or other service instance; [0074]: an SDN controller or other path computation element may compute and distribute forwarding information for the service paths to the gateway router and the service nodes).It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement the PCE feature as taught by Moisand in the WTRU second message transmission process of Liimatta to facilitate the application of session-oriented services by allowing packet flows to easily be directed along service chains, where each of the service chains represents an ordered set of stateful services applied by the service nodes (Moisand, [0006]).
Claim 17 (similarly claim 5). the WTRU according to claim 13, configured to transmit the second message to a path computation element of the network node.Moisand teaches feature of transmitting a message to a path computation element (PCE) of a network node (fig. 6: network device sends packet (e.g. message) to the service node (e.g. PCE); [0073]: the service chain specification may further specify, for each service, network address information (e.g. IP addresses) or identifying information for each service node, which may be a virtual or physical machine or other service instance; [0074]: an SDN controller or other path computation element may compute and distribute forwarding information for the service paths to the gateway router and the service nodes).It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement the PCE feature as taught by Moisand in the WTRU second message transmission process of Liimatta to facilitate the application of session-oriented services by allowing packet flows to easily be directed along service chains, where each of the service chains represents an ordered set of stateful services applied by the service nodes (Moisand, [0006]).
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Claims 12 and 24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liimatta et al in view of Ravindran et al (US 2014/0173076 A1).
Claim 24 (similarly claim 12). Liimatta shows the WTRU according to claim 13; Liimatta does not expressly describe wherein the control plane procedure is a name based-routing control plane procedure.Ravindran teaches a control plane procedure being a name based-routing control plane procedure ([0007]: the service policy rules are synchronized with the other nodes in the network using name-based routing).It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement the name based-routing procedure as taught Ravindran in the control plane procedure of Liimatta to enhance security and simplify network management.
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Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 8 and 20 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
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Conclusion
The prior art made of record is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure.
Robitzsch, US 12,309,060 B2: methods for computing and communications in an advanced or next generation wireless communication system, including communications carried out using a new radio and/or new radio (NR) access technology and communication systems wherein such NR access and technology, which may also be referred to as 5G, and/or other similar wireless communication systems and technology may include features and/or technologies for any of Name-based Routing (NbR) approach based on Information Centric Networking (ICN) principles, the ability to register IP service endpoint (servers) and the current mapping to 3GPP.
Conner et al, US 2008/0140760 A1: methods implemented by service providers within a distributed computer system implementing a service oriented-architecture is performed by maintaining, with respect to a collection of deployed service providers, a versioning database storing data representing the sets of version identifiers defined for the individual business operation methods of the service requester interfaces and service providers.
Sawant et al, US 2021/0227042 A1: a method for monitoring and adjusting a service chain that includes several services to perform on data messages passing through a network.
Kairali et al, US 11,522,948 B1: methods for managing momentary increases in resource requirements of microservices within a service mesh using sliced replicas or pre-configured cloud functions.
Sharma et al, US 2023/0161631 A1: a performance controller for a container-based orchestration system that implements techniques that can determine performance parameters based on node configurations and can dynamically adjust the parameters as conditions and workloads in the network system change.
Trossen, D. et al: Service-based Routing at the Edge
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/XAVIER S WONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2415 10th December 2025