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 .
Response to Pre-Appeal Request
Prosecution was reopened because it was determined upon discussion that the combination of Wang and Goel, as mapped and explained in the rejection, did not show cause and effect in the limitation “in response to determining that at least one instance of the first list of instances of the producer type is on the black list, removing by the NRF, the last least one instance from the first list of instances of the producer NF to generate a second list of instances of the producer NF type” to be obvious.
Applicant's arguments filed 4/7/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive with respect a suspended NF not being considered malfunctioning in Goel. In Goel, suspension can mean that an NF is not responding. Such a scenario reads on the broadest reasonable interpretation of the concept of a “malfunction” which the applicant has not defined in any limiting manner. Goel may teach that a suspended NF may be able to service requests but such a teaching is one particular embodiment and does not preclude other embodiments from not providing suspended resources in response to a discovery request. The Examiner is now citing the embodiment described in paragraph 38 with respect to Figure 3 in Goel. Paragraph 38 of Goel describes the sequence covered by the applicant’s independent claims. The Examiner notes this new mapping was discussed with the Examiner’s SPE Glenton Burgess, on 4/17/2026, in an effort to make sure the case is ready to proceed to the Board if the applicant files another Appeal/pre-Appeal.
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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1, 2, 8, 9, 15 and 16 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2024/0251373 by Goel et al.
As to claim 1, Goel teaches a method of blocking malfunctioning network function (NF) instances in a wireless network, comprising: receiving, at a network repository function (NRF) (ref. no. 306 in Figure 3) in the wireless network (paragraph 7), a discovery request for one or more instances of a producer NF type from a consumer NF instance (paragraph 38, ref. no. 302 in Figure 3 is consumer NF instance. It issues discovery request for service “B” in its search criteria as indicated in Figure 3), wherein the NRF has a plurality of instances of the producer NF type registered with the NRF (NF-3 and NF-4 are both of producer type “B” as indicated by the table), wherein at least one instance of the plurality of instances of the producer NF type is on a block list (NF-4 is listed as suspended in the table in Figure 3. All NFs listed as suspended form a “block list”. Figure 1 depicts suspended NFs as their own list structure.), wherein the block list includes one or more NF instances that have been determined to be malfunctioning (In the table in Figure 3, NF-1, NF-2, and NF-4 are all in the listed as suspended and thus part of block list); identifying, by the NRF, a first list of instances of the producer NF type that each match the discovery request (paragraph 38, first two sentences, NRF 306 compares search criteria “B” to “supported services” with B and identifies NF-3 and NF-4 as a list of NFs matching discovery request); determining, by the NRF, if any of the first list of instances of the producer NF type is on the block list (paragraph 38, third sentence, NRF determines NF-4 is in the “suspended” list); in response to determining that at least one instance of the first list of instances of the producer NF type is on the block list, removing, by the NRF, the at least one instance from the first list of instances of the producer NF to generate a second list of instances of the producer NF type (paragraph 38, NF-4 is removed from the list of discovery results leaving NF-3 as the sole remaining element of the list); and responding, by the NRF, to the consumer NF instance with the second list of instances of the producer NF (paragraph 38 and Figure 3, NRF 306 returns response with NF-3).
As to claims 8 and 15, they are rejected for the same reasoning as claim 1.
As to claims 2, 9, and 16, see paragraphs 6 and 38, the software of the NRF 306 is a service which generates the second list.
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) 3, 4, 10, 11, 17, and 18 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2024/0251373 by Goel et al. in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2022/0325913 by Al-Dulaimi et al.
As to claims 3, 10, and 17, Goel teaches the subject matter of claims 1, 8, and 15 wherein at least one instance of the producer NF type is determined to be malfunctioning by a monitoring program (paragraph 25); however Goel does not teach that the monitoring program is based on a trained machine learning model.
Al-Dulaimi teaches an NRF which determines a plurality of instances of a producer NF type to be malfunctioning by a monitoring program based on a trained machine learning model (paragraphs 34 and 51).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the Network Function provisioning art at the time of the applicant’s filing to combine the teachings of Goel regarding monitoring NFs with the teachings of Al-Dulaimi regarding using a trained ML model to monitor NFs because using machine learning n the generic manner disclosed by the applicant is ubiquitous in the art.
As to claims 4, 11, and 18, Goel teaches a monitoring program configured to automatically add a malfunctioning NF instance to the block list by calling a function of a service to manage the block list (paragraphs 25 and 31) but Goel does not explicitly teach the use of an API to perform the function.
Official Notice was taken on 9/16/2025 that using an API to perform computer functions is well known in the art. The Examiner notes that the applicant did not provide any details of such an API in their disclosure (see page 9). The applicant did not traverse, in the response filed on 12/16/2025, this Official Notice, which was previously taken in the last office action, and therefore it is treated as admitted prior art based on the guidance given in section 2144.03 of the MPEP.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the network function management art at the time of the applicant’s filing to combine the teachings of Goel regarding managing a blocked list with the concept of using an API to perform a function because API usage is ubiquitous in the art and well known for connecting functionality.
Claim(s) 5, 6, 12, 13, 19, and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2024/0251373 by Goel et al. in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2022/0325913 by Al-Dulaimi et al. in further view of WIPO International Publication Number WO 2021/198207 by Yang et al.
As to claims 5, 12, and 19, the Goel- Al-Dulaimi combination teaches the subject matter of claims 4, 11, and 18 and Goel teaches adding a malfunctioning instance to a blocked list (paragraphs 25 and 31); however the Goel- Al-Dulaimi combination does not explicitly teach the NRF is configured to send a notification to the consumer NF instance that is consuming one or more services provided by the malfunctioning NF instance.
Yang teaches an NRF configured to send a notification to a consumer NF instance that is consuming one or more services provided by the malfunctioning NF instance (page 10, lines 20-22).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the Network Function provisioning art at the time of the applicant’s filing to combine the teachings of Goel regarding providing producer NF services to consumer NFs with the teachings of Yang regarding an NRF notifying a consumer NF that a service is malfunctioning because such a message would allow a consumer to find an alternative NF for providing the service (see Yang page 10, lines 13-17) and Goel teaches alternative NFs which can provide the same service.
As to claims 6, 13, and 20, see page 10, lines 13-17 of Yang.
Claim(s) 7 and 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2024/0251373 by Goel et al. in view of WIPO International Publication Number 2022/106001 by Mouroulis et al.
As to claims 7 and 14, Goel teaches the subject matter of claims 1 and 8 and that the wireless network is a 5G network (paragraphs 7 and 19); however Goel does to explicitly teach that the network is hosted on one of a plurality of sites of a multi-site replication architecture, wherein a block list is created on any one of the plurality of sites and automatically replicated to the rest of the sites.
Mouroulis teaches a wireless network is a fifth generation (SG) network, which is hosted on one of a plurality of sites of a multi-site replication architecture, wherein a block list is created on any one of the plurality of sites (master NRF in Figure 5) is automatically replicated to the rest of the sites (page 11, lines 29-34 shows the propagation from master NRF to Local NRFs and SCPs shown in Figures 5 and 4).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the Network Function provisioning art at the time of the applicant’s filing to combine the teachings of Goel regarding servicing requests based on blocked lists with the teachings of Mouroulis regarding automatically replicating block lists because both inventions pertain to 5G networks including NRFs and therefore those of ordinary skill would recognize that the NRF of Goel could exist in the network of Mouroulis. The examiner notes that the replication of claims 7 and 14 does not change the operation of the limitations of claims 1 and 8.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to DOUGLAS B BLAIR whose telephone number is (571)272-3893. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9am-5pm.
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/DOUGLAS B BLAIR/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2454
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