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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after allowance or after an Office action under Ex Parte Quayle, 25 USPQ 74, 453 O.G. 213 (Comm'r Pat. 1935). Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, prosecution in this application has been reopened pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on April 28, 2026 has been entered.
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.
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph:
The specification shall conclude with one or more claims particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter which the applicant regards as his invention.
Claims 20, 22, 23, 28 and 30-33 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, as being incomplete for omitting essential steps, such omission amounting to a gap between the steps. See MPEP § 2172.01.
Claims 20 and 28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) as being indefinite for omitting an essential step. Specifically, claims 20 and 28 recite receiving, from the first ECS, a service provisioning response message that includes information regarding a second ECS used in a VPLMN while the UE is roaming. However, the claims fail to recite any step by which the system determines that the UE is roaming in the VPLMN, which is a necessary prerequisite for the first ECS to generate and send the claimed response message. The supporting disclosure (see FIG. 3, operation 320; paragraphs [0057]–[0059]) makes clear that such a determination is required before the response can be sent.
The omission of this essential step renders the scope of the claims unclear and indefinite, as one of ordinary skill in the art would not understand how the claimed method is to be practiced. Accordingly, claims 20 and 28 are indefinite under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) because they fail to particularly point out and distinctly claim the subject matter regarded as the invention.
Dependent claims 22–23 and 30–33 are likewise rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(b) as they depend from indefinite independent claims 20 and 28 and therefore inherit the same deficiency.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 16-19 and 24-27 are allowed.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
The pending claims are directed to methods and apparatuses for edge configuration server (ECS) selection and service provisioning in roaming scenarios, with particular focus on the interaction between a home public land mobile network (HPLMN) ECS and a visited PLMN (VPLMN) ECS via a user equipment (UE) and its edge enabler client (EEC).
The instant invention with respect to claims 16 and 24, teaches a method performed by a first edge configuration server (ECS) used in a home public land mobile network (HPLMN), the method comprising: receiving a service provisioning request message from an edge enabler client (EEC) of a user equipment (UE); in case that a serving public land mobile network (PLMN) identifier of the UE is not included in the service provisioning request message, obtaining information regarding a roaming status of the UE from a unified data management (UDM); identifying a second ECS used in a visited PLMN (VPLMN) for the UE while roaming, based on the serving PLMN identifier of the UE obtained from the information regarding the roaming status of the UE; and transmitting, to the EEC of the UE, a service provisioning response message including information regarding the second ECS.
Prior Art Reference Summaries:
Hu et al., US Publication Number 2024/0022469 (“Method for determining edge configuration server and apparatus”)
The cited prior art, including Hu et al., US Publication Number 2024/0022469 A1, discloses general techniques for selecting an ECS for a terminal device based on the device’s current PLMN, home operator, and/or service requirements, and further describes obtaining roaming and subscription information from a unified data management (UDM) function and communicating ECS or edge enabler server (EES) information to the UE.
The combination of features and underlined limitations recited in independent claim 16 above is neither disclosed, taught, nor suggested by the cited prior art of record, including Hu et al., US 2024/0022469, either alone or in any combination. In particular, Hu does not teach or suggest the specific conditional logic wherein, when a service provisioning request message from the EEC of a UE does not include the serving PLMN identifier, the HPLMN ECS obtains information regarding the roaming status of the UE from the UDM. While the cited reference generally describes obtaining PLMN and roaming information from the UDM, it does not disclose the specific conditional operation triggered by the absence of the serving PLMN identifier in the request message. Furthermore, the cited art does not disclose or suggest the claimed process in which the HPLMN ECS, upon obtaining the UE’s roaming status and serving PLMN identifier, identifies a second ECS in the VPLMN for the UE while roaming, and transmits a service provisioning response message to the EEC of the UE that includes information regarding the second ECS. The cited reference describes ECS selection based on the current PLMN, but does not disclose a mechanism in which the HPLMN ECS identifies a second ECS in the VPLMN and actively provides information to the EEC for redirecting service provisioning to that second ECS.
The cited art does not teach or suggest this specific redirection flow, nor does it describe a response message from the HPLMN ECS to the EEC that includes such detailed information for redirecting the UE to a second ECS in the VPLMN. The corresponding EEC/UE method and apparatus claims likewise recite these limitations, which are not taught or suggested by the cited art. Accordingly, the prior art, alone or in combination, does not disclose or render obvious the claimed methods and apparatuses for handling service provisioning requests in a roaming scenario by conditionally obtaining roaming status from a UDM, identifying a second ECS in a VPLMN, and providing explicit redirection information to the UE/EEC. The specific conditional logic, the two-step ECS identification, and the manner of informing and redirecting the UE/EEC are not present or suggested in the prior art. Therefore, the pending claims are novel and non-obvious over the cited references, and are thus allowable.
For these reasons, the cited prior art, either alone or in combination, does not disclose, teach, or suggest all of the limitations of the independent claims. The claimed subject matter as a whole represents a non-obvious improvement over the prior art, and the claims are therefore allowable.
Claims 17-19 and 25-27 are allowable based on their dependency on independent claims 20 and 28, respectively.
Any comments considered necessary by applicant must be submitted no later than the payment of the issue fee and, to avoid processing delays, should preferably accompany the issue fee. Such submissions should be clearly labeled “Comments on Statement of Reasons for Allowance.”
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
Hu et al., U.S. Patent Number 12,640,981 discloses method for determining edge configuration server and apparatus.
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/ANTHONY S ADDY/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2645
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