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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
An information disclosure statement was not filed in this 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.
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) 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.
MDM is an acronym that is not defined in the claims or the specification. NID is an acronym that is not defined in the claims or the specification. These undefined acronyms leave the claim indefinite.
Appropriate correction is required.
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.
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.
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Publication No. 2019/0260762 (hereinafter “Fynaard”) in view of U.S. Publication No. 2013/0007853 (hereinafter “Gupta”) and further in view of U.S. Publication No. 2022/0295288 (hereinafter “Stahl”)
Regarding claim 1, Fynaard teaches: d) accessing geofencing information from a geofencing server based on the EID of the UE ([0208] Next, at operation 1305, the RSU device 1310 submits a provisioning request for application certificates that include operating geolocation information to the SCMS host 1308. In some embodiments, as shown, the provisioning request in operation 1305 comes directly from the RSU device 1310, and may include a desired operating geolocation for the RSU device 1310, along with a tenant identifier (ID) as described previously with respect to FIG. 8.).
Fynaard teaches: provisioning RSU devises with certificates and identifiers (Fig. 5 and Abstract), authentication credentials, network IDs (e.g., URLs of FIG. 5), and EIDs (Tenant IDs); however, Fynaard does not explicitly teach: a) Receiving in an enterprise network core/MDM a batch of authentication credentials; b) The enterprise network core/MDM assigning the received credentials to EIDs, wherein each EID is associated with an authentication credential that is not yet associated with an NID; c) Providing to a UE, information from which the UE can access an assigned authentication credential with an associated NID from a SIM Provisioning Vendor based on the EID associated with the UE.
Gupta discloses: b) The enterprise network core/MDM assigning the received credentials to EIDs (pre-provisioned credentials 246), wherein each EID is associated with an authentication credential that is not yet associated with an NID ([0038] the pre-provisioned credentials 246 may comprise a subscriber-identity module (SIM) (or a universal SIM (USIM)) for either EAP-Authentication and Key Agreement (EAP-AKA) authentication or EAP-Subscriber Identity Module (EAP-SIM) authentication.); c) Providing to a UE, information from which the UE can access an assigned authentication credential with an associated NID from a SIM Provisioning Vendor based on the EID associated with the UE ([0038] In accordance with these embodiments, dual-mode mobile devices may use common SIM/UICC based credentials for both Wi-Fi and cellular networks and may use common authentication methods (EAP-SIM/EAP-AKA) for both the Wi-Fi and cellular networks. In some embodiments, the SIM/USIM credentials may be used by UMTS enabled dual-mode mobile devices.); and
Thus, Fynaard and Gupta each disclose provisioning credentials for user devices. A person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have recognized that the EAP-AKA process over wireless and cellular networks of Gupta could have been substituted for the URLs and Tenant IDs of Fynaard because both perform the function of user device identification on linking on a network. Furthermore, a person of ordinary skill in the art would have been able to carry out the substitution. Finally, the substitution achieves the predictable result of providing user device access to a network using the methods known in Gupta.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to substitute the techniques in Gupta for the techniques in Fynaard according to known methods to yield the predictable result of providing parameters for enforcing security policies.
The combination of Fynaard and Gupta teach provisioning but do not explicitly disclose a) receiving in an enterprise network core/MDM a batch of authentication credentials.
However, in the same field of endeavor, Stahl teaches: a) receiving in an enterprise network core/MDM a batch of authentication credentials ([0047] S102: The LPA 200 authenticates with a subscription management entity 300 for group download of profiles for a batch of identity modules of respective communication devices 190′ to the LPA 200 upon providing, in a GSMA Remote SIM Provisioning, RSP, AuthenticateClient command sent to the subscription management entity 300, the certificate of the virtual identity module and signed data.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the combination of Fynaard and Gupta to include the feature of receiving a batch of authentication credentials and a combination of Fynaard and Gupta with Stahl renders the claim prima facie obvious within the described scope of the prior art and any indicated differences within the level of one of ordinary skill in the art (e.g., telecommunications engineer) according to a combination of known prior art elements with known methods to yield predictable results. MPEP 2143(I)(A) (e.g., providing provisioning based on a batch of credentials).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
U.S. Publication No. 2022/0248210 (Chen) related to methods and/or systems for activation and/or configuration of an electronic subscriber identity module (eSIM)
U.S. Publication No. 2020/0236532 (Rajadurai) related to a system and method of performing integrated mobile number portability and remote sim provisioning
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/JAB/ Examiner, Art Unit 2643
/JINSONG HU/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2643