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 .
Claim Interpretation
The examiner treats ‘if’ statements, in claims, like open ended ‘or’ statements for patentability. Examination needs to treat only one condition (true or false). So claiming a limitation to be conditional on the 'if being true' leaves open the possibility that it is instead false in which case when no additional limitation is present the conditional limitation would not be patentably limiting. Therefore it is considered that either an ‘if-then-else' format be used or a positive recitation of a limitation ‘when’ a condition exists be used to positively limit the claim with the recited limitation.
For the sake of compact prosecution, the examiner address claim as written. (MPEP 2111.04)
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 112(f):
(f) Element in Claim for a Combination. – An element in a claim for a combination may be expressed as a means or step for performing a specified function without the recital of structure, material, or acts in support thereof, and such claim shall be construed to cover the corresponding structure, material, or acts described in the specification and equivalents thereof.
Claim limitation “an equipment search unit, a management object reception unit, a management unit, a first judgment unit, a second judgment unit, a first updating unit, a transmission unit, a reception unit, an acquisition unit” has/have been interpreted under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, because it uses/they use a generic placeholder “unit ” coupled with functional language “ configured to acquire, configured to acquire, configured to manage, configured to determine, configured to judge, configured to update, configured to transmit, configured to receive, configured to acquire” without reciting sufficient structure to achieve the function. Furthermore, the generic placeholder is not preceded by a structural modifier. (Furthermore, None of the following terms are considered to be structural).
Since the claim limitation(s) invokes 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, claims 1-7 and 9-11, has/have been interpreted to cover the corresponding structure described in the specification that achieves the claimed function, and equivalents thereof.
A review of the specification shows that the following appears to be the corresponding structure described in the specification for the 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph limitation:
(See Figures (1, 2, 3, 4, 5); [0024-0054] and the corresponding Written Description in the Specification of the instant Application.
).
If applicant wishes to provide further explanation or dispute the examiner’s interpretation of the corresponding structure, applicant must identify the corresponding structure with reference to the specification by page and line number, and to the drawing, if any, by reference characters in response to this Office action.
If applicant does not intend to have the claim limitation(s) treated under 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112 , sixth paragraph, applicant may amend the claim(s) so that it/they will clearly not invoke 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph, or present a sufficient showing that the claim recites/recite sufficient structure, material, or acts for performing the claimed function to preclude application of 35 U.S.C. 112(f) or pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, sixth paragraph.
For more information, see MPEP § 2173 et seq. and Supplementary Examination Guidelines for Determining Compliance With 35 U.S.C. 112 and for Treatment of Related Issues in Patent Applications, 76 FR 7162, 7167 (Feb. 9, 2011).
Note :
One of the reference considered but not use as prior art is Alanas (US 2012/0124653 A1).
Alanas teaches about UE identification verification and management including access authentication to a DM server. The access control is performed using a certificate-based access control to establish communication session with the DM server. But Alanas does not teach about a monitoring device between the UE devices that acquire information from a management server and information about the UE network wherein the monitoring device perform multiple matching logic verification using according acquire identities and access information from both sides of UE devices and DM server.
Besides the issues invoked above, the application claim can be allowed once issues are addressed and the functionality with the logic applied can be considered as unique.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-13 can be allowable after addressing the issue above such as the 112th(f) invocation and the condition statement characterize by the “if” statement that can described open ended issue condition.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to GARY LAFONTANT whose telephone number is (571)272-3037. The examiner can normally be reached 10:00AM -6:00PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Jeanette Parker can be reached at 571-2703647. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/GARY LAFONTANT/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2646
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