DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . This Office Action is in response to the submission filed 2026-02-27 (herein referred to as the Reply) where claim(s) 18-19 are pending for consideration.
Election/Restrictions
All previous pending claims 1-17 are canceled making the restriction moot. New claims 18 and 19 directed to an Edge Application Server (EAS) are currently pending.
35 USC §112(a) – Claim Rejections
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
Claim(s) is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a)
Claim(s) 18, 19
The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for pre-AIA the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
The claim(s) recite variants of:
performing at an Edge Application Server (EAS):
detecting a failure of an Application Context Relocation (ACR) procedure between a Source EAS (S-EAS) and a Target EAS (T-EAS); and
sending, to an Edge Enabler Server (EES), a first message comprising a first result indicating a failure due to a cancellation of the ACR.
In other words, the claims require four entities:
EAS
S-EAS
T-EAS
EES
Further, the claims are from the perspective of the EAS, which detects ARC failure between the S-EAS and T-EAS and reports failure information to the EES.
However, the Specification describes (using citation of the corresponding US Publication) an application function (AF) including a S-EAS that detects and reports, to an EES, an ARC failure upon expiration of a timer (para. 0167, FIG. 15). This embodiment is different from the claimed invention in that:
In FIG. 15’s embodiment, the detection and report indication is performed by the S-EAS (source EAS), as opposed to a EAS as required by the claims. Consequently FIG. 15’s embodiment is missing the entity of the EAS.
In FIG. 15’s embodiment, there is no mention of a T-EAS, it is unclear/unspecified as to what entities are associated with the failed ARC procedure. The claim specifically requires the ARC failure procedure is between the S-EAS and T-EAS.
The other closest disclosure is at para. 0025-0027 where it is described:
Supplementary Note 11
[0225] The AF node according to any one of Supplementary Notes 1 to 10, wherein
[0226] the AF node includes a Source Edge Enabler Server (S-EES), and
[0227] the at least one processor is configured to send an indication of failure of an Application Context Relocation (ACR) procedure involving transfer of an application context from a Source Edge Application Server (S-EAS) to a Target EAS (T-EAS) if the second message is not received from the core network before the first predetermined period of time has expired.
However this disclosure is insufficient to support the claim because:
The AF is performing the functionality, not an EAS as required by the claims. Furthermore, the AF includes the AF includes a Source Edge Enabler Server (S-EES) which is different from the claimed “Edge Application Server (EAS).”
Examiner’s Notes
In the interest in expediting prosecution, the Examiner has also conducted a prior art search based on the embodiment of FIG. 15, which the Examiner believes is the closest supported embodiment to the claims. The Examiner could not apply the references below in prior art rejection as they would potentially anticipate the embodiment of FIG. 15 and as discussed above, the embodiment of FIG. 15 is patently different from the claimed invention. The Examiner recommends reviewing the references below.
Relevant Cited References
HU - US20240040005 teaches when an edge enabler client context fails to be relocated from a second edge enabler server to a first edge enabler server, a first apparatus sends first information to a first edge application server corresponding to the first edge enabler server, where the first information is used by the first edge application server to subscribe to edge enabler server capability exposure information from the first edge enabler server
GUPTA - US20230362602 teaches failure cause reporting in a network including edge servers, EES, and EAS.
KIM - US20230053805 teaches the EEC may not transmit the context relocation request to the target EES until it knows that the application context relocation procedure has failed or until a predefined timer is completed.
HU - US20240040005 teaches if the first apparatus is the S-EES or the T-EES, the first apparatus may further send indication information to the EEC, to indicate that the application context relocation fails.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to ANDRE TACDIRAN whose telephone number is 571-272-1717. The examiner can normally be reached on M-TH, 10-5PM EST. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jeffrey Rutkowski can be reached on 571-270-1215. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ANDRE TACDIRAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2415
Prosecution Insights