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 .
Claims 1, 3-7, 9, 11-13 and 16-17 are pending.
Allowable Subject Matter
The indication of allowability set forth in the previous action is withdrawn and prosecution is reopened in view of the following new ground of rejection.
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) 3, 7, 11 and 13 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by (WO 2022/006109 A1), hereinafter refer as D1
Regarding claims 3 and 11, D1 discloses a method performed by a network exposure function, NEF, comprising:
receiving, from an application function, AF, a first request for performing an operation related to edge application server, EAS, deployment information for an application, wherein the first request is for creating, or updating, or deleting the EAS deployment information (“The AF may request to delete 5G VN configuration by sending Nnef_ParameterProvision_Delete to the NEF.”, page 19, lines 10-15);
checking whether the AF is authorized to perform the first request (If the AF is authorized by the NEF to provision the parameters, the NEF requests to create, update and store, or delete the provisioned parameters”, page 19, lines15-20.
if the AF is authorized, sending, to a User Data Repository, UDR, a second request for creating, or updating, or deleting the EAS deployment information (“the NEF can directly forward the external parameter to the UDR via Nudr DM Update Request message. And in this case, the UDR responds to NEF via Nudr_DM_Update Response message.”), page 19, lines 25-30, ; and
sending, to the AF, a response to the first request (Fig. 5, step 3b, AF receives response to the request from NEF.), (“responds with Nudr_DM_Create/Update/Delete Response message.” Page 20, lines 5-10.), See figure 5.
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Regarding claims 7 and 13, D1 discloses a method performed by an application function, AF, comprising:
D1 teaches receiving, from a network exposure, NEF, a request for performing an operation related to edge application server, EAS, deployment information for an application, (Fig. 5, step 1 “Creation of the AF Request”), wherein the request is an Nudr_DM_Create/Update/Delete Request for creating, or updating, or deleting the EAS deployment information for the application (“requests to create, update or delete the provisioned parameters as part of the subscriber and via Nudr_DM_Create/Update/Delete Request message, the message includes the provisioned data.” Page 19, lines 30-35),
Storing or updating or removing the EAS deployment information in response to the request from the NEF (3a. Storing/Updating/Removing the information”, figure 5); and
sending, from the NEF, a response to the request (Fig. 5, step 3b, AF receives response to the request from NEF.), (“responds with Nudr_DM_Create/Update/Delete Response message.” Page 20, lines 5-10.)
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, 4, 9 and12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being anticipated by (WO 2022/006109 A1), hereinafter refeD1.
Regarding claims 1 and 9, D1 discloses a method performed by an application function, AF, comprising:
sending, to a network exposure function, NEF, a request for performing an operation related to edge application server, EAS, deployment information for an application,
receiving, from the NEF, a response to the request. See figure 5.
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D1 further teaches (“the AF request sent by EAS towards NEF/PCF/SFCF-C directly or via EES using EES APIs to trigger AF at the EES for further creating AF request using 5G network capability exposure APIs to interact with NFs in the 5G network. It would have been obvious to those having ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement an Nnef_EASDeployment_Creat/Update/Delete Request for creating, or updating or deleting the EAS deployment information.
Regarding claims 4 and 12, D1 teaches (“for the case EES supporting AF, the EAS using EES capability exposure API can request EAS to send AF request using 5G network capability exposure for SFC services in 5G network...for the case EAS supporting AF, the EAS can send AF requests directly to PCF/SFCF-C or via NEF.” See page 16, lines 20-35).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to those having ordinary skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to implement Nnef_EASDeployment_Creat/Update/Delete Request for creating, or updating or deleting the EAS deployment information, in D1.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-6 and 16-17 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant disclosure.
LIAO et al. (US 2023/0135699 A1) discloses service function chaining (SFC) in edge data network and 5G networks.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to BRENDA H PHAM whose telephone number is (571)272-3135. The examiner can normally be reached 571-272-3135.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Charles Jiang can be reached at 571-270-7191. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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BRENDA H. PHAM
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2412
/BRENDA H PHAM/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2412
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