DETAILED ACTION
This Office action is in response to Amendment filed on 05/08/2026. Claims 20-47 are canceled. Claims 14-19 are allowed. Claims 1-13 are pending.
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 .
Claim Objections
Claim 1 is objected to because of the following informalities:
Regarding claim 1, “in a Set of” should be -- in a set of -- (lines 10-11).
Appropriate correction is required.
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 1-13 are rejected 35 U.S.C. 112(b) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), second paragraph, 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.
Regarding claim 1, the claim recites “a discovery response comprising one or more external NF instances, wherein each external NF instance comprises one or more internal NF instances in a Set of NF instances of the pPLMN that require topology hiding from the cPLMN” which renders the claim indefinite. For example, it is unclear as to (1) “each external NF instance” appears to infer multiple external NF instances while “one or more external NF instances” allows for a single external NF instance, (2) whether one or more internal NF instances require topology hiding or a set of NF instances require topology hiding, and (3) whether a discovery response simply contains an internal NF instance or external NF instance selects or accompanies corresponding internal NF instances. Examiner suggests Applicant to consider further clarifying the exact formation of the discovery response in order to clearly overcome the current rejection.
Regarding claims 2-13, which claim dependency from claim 1, they are rejected for the same reasons as set forth in the rejection of claim 1 above.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure: McCann (US 2017/0214691 A1: Methods, Systems, and Computer Readable Media for Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS) Topology Hiding), Krishan et al. (US 2021/0204200 A1: Methods, Systems, and Computer Readable Media for Enabling Transport Quality of Service (QoS) in 5G Networks), Ge et al. (US 2021/0011790 A1: API Topology Hiding Method, Device, and System), and Lee (US 2019/0230556 A1: Apparatus and Method for Network Function Profile Management).
In the case of amendments, applicant is respectfully requested to indicate the portion(s) of the specification which dictate(s) the structure relied on for proper interpretation and support, for ascertaining the metes and bounds of the claimed invention.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GIL H. LEE whose telephone number is 571-272-3408. The examiner can normally be reached on Mon-Fri: 9am-6pm EST.
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/GIL H. LEE/
Primary Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2454
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