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 Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 1-20 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
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, 2, 8, 9, 15, and 16 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 International Patent Publication Number WO 2023/211430 by Trivedi et al.
As to claim 1, Goel teaches a method of blocking malfunctioning network function (NF) instances in a wireless network, comprising: determining, by a performance monitor, that a first NF instance of a producer type is malfunctioning and adding the first NF instance to a block list (paragraph 31); 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, including the first NF instance, 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); however, Goel does not explicitly teach that the blocked NF is determined to be malfunctioning by determining, by a performance monitor, that a first NF instance of a producer NF type is malfunctioning when a predetermined number of key performance indicators (KPIs) of the first NF instance are below respective predetermined thresholds, and adding the first NF instance to a block list.
Trivedi teaches determining, by a performance monitor, that a first NF instance of a producer NF type is malfunctioning when a predetermined number of key performance indicators (KPIs) of the first NF instance are below respective predetermined thresholds (see paragraph 13, 18, and 19).
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 Trivedi regarding monitoring and considering the values of KPIs to determine malfunction because although Goel shows one particular way of detecting malfunctions by monitoring heartbeats (paragraph 31), Trivedi shows that other ways of monitoring the status of producer NFs for malfunctions can be performed in the same context as Goel and the method of detecting malfunctions/suspensions would not change the operations described with respect to Figure 3 of Goel regarding presenting a list of NFs that are available.
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 of Goel, the software of the NRF 306 is a service which generates the second list.
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 International Patent Publication Number WO 2023/211430 by Trivedi et al. in further 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 the Goel-Trivedi combination 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 or Trivedi regarding monitoring NFs with the teachings of Al-Dulaimi regarding using a trained ML model to monitor NFs because using machine learning in 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 International Patent Publication Number WO 2023/211430 by Trivedi et al. in further view of U.S. Patent Application Publication Number 2022/0325913 by Al-Dulaimi et al. and in further view of WIPO International Publication Number WO 2021/198207 by Yang et al.
As to claims 5, 12, and 19, the Goel-Trivedi 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-Trivedi - 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 in view of International Patent Publication Number WO 2023/211430 by Trivedi et al. in further view of WIPO International Publication Number 2022/106001 by Mouroulis et al.
As to claims 7 and 14, the Goel-Trivedi combination teaches the subject matter of claims 1 and 8 and that the wireless network is a 5G network (paragraphs 7 and 19 of Goel); however the Goel-Trivedi combination 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
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
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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