CTNF 18/759,659 CTNF 79974 Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status 07-03-aia AIA 15-10-aia The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA. Election/Restrictions 08-25-01 AIA Applicant’s election without traverse of Group I, claims 1-16 , in the reply filed on 5/12/26 is acknowledged. Claims 1-16 and 21-24 have been examined. Allowable Subject Matter 12-151-08 AIA 07-43 12-51-08 Claim s 3, 8 and 13-14 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. Objection Claim 24 is objected to because of the following typographical error: Line 4, “.” should be “;”. Claim Rejections - 35 USC §112 07-30-02 AIA 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. 07-34-01 AIA Claim 4 is rejected under 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 pre-AIA the applicant regards as the invention. Claim language in the following claims is not clearly understood: As per claim 4, lines 1-3, it is unclear whether the edge application comprises a plurality of edge applications is on the customer premises network or on the cloud provider network as in claim 1, lines 2-3. Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102 07-06 AIA 15-10-15 In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status. 07-07-aia AIA 07-07 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 – 07-08-aia AIA (a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention. 07-15 AIA Claim s 1-2, 6-7, 11-12, 16, and 21-24 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102( a)(1 ) as being anticipated by Uttaro et al, U.S. Patent Application Publication 2022/0303156 (hereinafter Uttaro) . As per claim 1, Uttaro teaches the invention as claimed comprising: a cloud provider network comprising at least one computing device configured to execute an edge application and a virtual private network server for a customer (figs. 1 and 2A; [36], cloud network executing VPE); a customer premises network of the customer that uses private network addresses and is separated from a public network by a gateway ([58][32]; fig. 1, e.g., network provider network as customer); and an edge customer premises equipment (CPE) device on the customer premises network ([27], e.g., network provider router on network provider premises), wherein the edge CPE device is configured to at least: execute a tunneling agent that establishes a layer-3 virtual private network between the customer premises network and the virtual private network server on the cloud provider network ([43][46][27], e.g., establishing layer 3 IP tunnel between network provider network and VPE); and establish a layer-2 virtual interface for the edge application using a tunnel to encapsulate layer-2 traffic between the customer premises network and the edge application over the layer-3 virtual private network ([43][27], e.g., establishing layer 2 interface for VPE using a tunnel to encapsulate layer 2 traffic/frames between network provider network and VPE over the layer 3 VLAN). As per claim 2, Uttaro teaches the invention as claimed in claim 1 above. Uttaro further teach wherein the edge application is executed in a container or a virtual machine instance on the cloud provider network ([37], e.g., VPE is a VM on cloud provider network). As per claim 6, Uttaro teaches the invention as claimed in claim 1 above. Uttaro further teach wherein the edge CPE device comprises a hardware radio interface supporting at least one of: Z-WAVE, ZIGBEE, BLUETOOTH low energy, or LORAWAN ([75][93]), and the edge CPE device is configured to expose the hardware radio interface for use by the edge application ([40][48]). As per claim 7, Uttaro teaches the invention as claimed in claim 1 above. Uttaro further teach wherein the edge CPE device comprises a hardware communication port supporting at least one of: RS-232 serial communication or universal serial bus (USB) ([85]), and the edge CPE device is configured to expose the hardware communication port for use by the edge application ([40][48]). As per claims 11 and 21, they are rejected for the same reason as set forth in claim 1 above. As per claim 12, Uttaro teaches the invention as claimed in claim 11 above. Uttaro further teach comprising bridging, by the tunneling agent, the layer-2 traffic from the customer premises network to the layer-2 virtual interface of the edge application ([68]). As per claim 16, it is rejected for the same reason as set forth in claim 1 above. As per claim 22, Uttaro teaches the invention as claimed in claim 21 above. Uttaro further teach wherein the edge application is executed in a container in the cloud provider network, and the instructions further cause the computing device to at least control, by the edge application, an edge customer premises equipment (CPE) device on the customer premises network via the layer-2 data connection (e.g., VPE control the customer data rate, [37][43]-[45]). As per claim 23, Uttaro teaches the invention as claimed in claim 21 above. Uttaro further teach wherein the edge application is assigned a network address on the customer premises network ([46]). As per claim 24, Uttaro teaches the invention as claimed in claim 21 above. Uttaro further teach wherein the instructions further cause the computing device to at least: communicate, by the edge application, with one or more services on a virtual private cloud network in the cloud provider network ([37][49][51][64]). encode, by the edge application, data obtained from the edge CPE device for at least one of: streaming or storage (e.g., modify, by the VPE, the received signal data including the assigned address from GW 204 in a manner that can be recognized by VPE for storage, [43][46][51][126]) . Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103 07-06 AIA 15-10-15 In the event the determination of the status of the application as subject to AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 (or as subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103) is incorrect, any correction of the statutory basis for the rejection will not be considered a new ground of rejection if the prior art relied upon, and the rationale supporting the rejection, would be the same under either status. 07-20-aia AIA 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. 07-21-aia AIA Claim s 4 and 5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Uttaro . As per claim 4, Uttaro teaches the invention as claimed in claim 1 above. Although Uttaro teaches wherein the edge application comprises a plurality of edge applications ([44][60]), and network traffics between a plurality of applications on the customer premises network bypasses the tunnel ([50][51], e.g., network traffics between applications on the network provider network does not passes the tunnel), however, Uttaro is silent in regards to network traffic between the plurality of edge applications on the customer premises network bypasses the tunnel. Uttaro teaches only network traffics between applications on customer premises network (i.e., network provider network) and cloud provider network passes the tunnel ([43][46][27]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include network traffic between the plurality of edge applications on the customer premises network bypasses the tunnel with Uttaro’s system in order to allow network communication within a network to be passed without transmitting via a different network, thus allowing more efficient communication in Uttaro’s system. As per claim 5 , Uttaro teaches the invention as claimed in claim 1 above. Although Uttaro teaches wherein the edge application is configured to at least: generate a graphical user interface ([105]); and encode the graphical user interface for rendering by a device ([44][89][102][105][126]), however, Uttaro is silent in regards to rendering by a device on the customer premises network. Uttaro does teach rendering by any device ([89]). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to include rendering by a device on the customer premises network with Uttaro’s system in order to allow any associated device to render GUI to access the edge application, thus improving the accessibility of the edge application in Uttaro’s system . 07-21-aia AIA Claim s 9 and 15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Uttaro in view of Singla et al, U.S. Patent Application Publication 2017/0272273 (hereinafter Singla) . As per claim 9, Uttaro teaches the invention as claimed in claim 1 above. Although Uttaro teaches wherein the tunnel to encapsulate Ethernet frames on the layer-3 virtual private network [43], however, Uttaro is silent in regards to Generic Routing Encapsulation Terminal Access Point. Singla teaches the tunnel uses Generic Routing Encapsulation Terminal Access Point (GRE-TAP) [64]. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Singla’s teaching with Uttaro’s system in order to allow tunneling of any Ethernet packets sent to its interface to the other end of the tunnel [64], thus enhancing the virtual Ethernet communication in Uttaro’s system. As per claim 15, it is rejected for the same reason as set forth in claim 9 above . 07-21-aia AIA Claim 10 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Uttaro in view of Achar Suvarneshwar, U.S. Patent Application Publication 2024/0235995 (hereinafter Achar) . As per claim 10, Uttaro teaches the invention as claimed in claim 1 above. Although Uttaro teaches wherein the layer-3 virtual private network uses Internet Protocol and the customer premises network uses Internet Protocol ([43][46]), however, Uttaro is silent in regards to IPv6 and IPv4. Achar teaches wherein the layer-3 virtual private network uses Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6) [55], and the customer premises network uses Internet Protocol version 4 (IPv4) [68][69]. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate Achar’s teaching with Uttaro’s system in order to allow VPN communication between different version of Internet Protocol, thus enhancing the VPN communication in Uttaro’s system. Conclusion Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Philip Lee whose telephone number is (571)272-3967. The examiner can normally be reached on 6a-3p M-F. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Glenton Burgess can be reached on 571-272-3949. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://pair- direct.uspto.gov. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative or access to the automated information system, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /PHILIP C LEE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2454 Application/Control Number: 18/759,659 Page 2 Art Unit: 2454 Application/Control Number: 18/759,659 Page 3 Art Unit: 2454 Application/Control Number: 18/759,659 Page 4 Art Unit: 2454 Application/Control Number: 18/759,659 Page 5 Art Unit: 2454 Application/Control Number: 18/759,659 Page 6 Art Unit: 2454 Application/Control Number: 18/759,659 Page 7 Art Unit: 2454 Application/Control Number: 18/759,659 Page 8 Art Unit: 2454 Application/Control Number: 18/759,659 Page 9 Art Unit: 2454
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