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 .
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 11/14/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claims Status
Claims 1-20 are pending
Claims 1-5 are rejected.
Claims 6-20 are withdrawn
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on 6/17/2026 with respect to restriction requirement have been fully considered but they are not persuasive.
Applicant’s election of Group I, claims 115, with traverse is acknowledged. The traversal has been considered but is not persuasive, and the restriction requirement is maintained.
Applicant argues that the inventions share a common 5GMS architecture and are disclosed as addressing related objectives. However, inventions may be related and usable together in a single disclosed system and still be restrictable as distinct subcombinations. The claims of Group I are directed to cross release provisioning session resource allocation, including determining whether resources allocated for a first release are adequate for a second release and allocating or reallocating resources accordingly. The claims of Group II are directed to service access information update mechanisms using sub-resource change flags or change attributes and selectively including data structures for changed, created, updated, or destroyed sub-resources.
The groups do not overlap in scope. Group I does not require the per sub-resource change flag attribute structure recited in Group II, and Group II does not require receiving provisioning session requests for different releases, determining adequacy of previously allocated resources for a later release, or allocating resources based on such adequacy. Applicant’s citations to the specification show that the inventions may be used together within a 5GMS framework, but do not show that the claim limitations overlap or that the inventions are obvious variants.
Group II has separate utility because the claimed service access information change attribute mechanism may be used to selectively update and deliver changed service access information sub-resources to devices independent of cross-release provisioning resource reuse. Conversely, Group I may be practiced to manage cross release provisioning resources without using the specific change flag/change attribute data structures of Group II.
Therefore the examination burden remains. Group I requires searching 5GMS provisioning-session management, release compatibility, resource allocation/reallocation and reuse of previously allocated resources. Group II requires searching service access information syntax, sub-resource change indicators, delta/update signaling, created/updated/destroyed resource attributes, and selective delivery of service information structures. Although some classifications may overlap, the materially different claim limitations require different search strategies and different areas of prior art.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
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.
Claims 1 and 3-5 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sodagar (US 2023/0254356) in view of Kolan (US 2023/0007573) and further in view of Offer (US 8,001,083).
Regarding claim 1, Sodagar teaches a method for provisioning services for a 5G media streaming, the method being executed by at least one processor (0002, 0029-0035), the method comprising:
controlling a 5GMS Application Server to allocate resources for the requested first service provisioning session (0037-0044 and 0055-0057 Sodagar discloses a media AF 502 corresponding to 5GMSu AF 306 and/or 5GMSd AF 406, at least one media AS 501 corresponding to 5GMSu AS 305 and/or 5GMSd AS 405, the media AF 502 requesting existing hardware resources from the media AS 501, and the media AF 502 provisioning at least one media AS 501 after the external media AS 503 requests processing);
Sodagar further teaches controlling the 5GMS Application Server to determine whether the allocated resources for the requested first service provisioning session are adequate for the requested second service provisioning session (0005, 0054-0056 and 0081-0084- Sodagar teaches that 5G network capabilities are not static and must be measured at the time of request, that resource availability varies depending on current network load, and that media AS capability information includes available hardware resources, throughput, delay range, media processing function libraries, and functional characteristics, i.e., determining current AS resource adequacy for requested media processing);
and in response to determining that the allocated resources for the requested first service provisioning session are not adequate for the requested second service provisioning session, controlling the 5GMS Application Server to allocate resources for the requested second service provisioning session (0056-0057- Sodagar discloses that the media AF 502 collects media AS 501 capability responses, the external media AS 503 requests processing, the media AF 502 provisions at least one media AS 501, the media AS 501 reports readiness, and the media AF 502 confirms the processing workflow.)
Even though Sodagar discloses controlling a 5GMS Application Server to determine current available resources/capabilities and provision the 5GMS Application Server, Sodagar does not expressly disclose receiving a first service provisioning session request and receiving a second service provisioning session request in the context of a media service provisioning request and controlling allocation of resources for the requested media service.
Kolan teaches receiving a first service provisioning session request and receiving a second service provisioning session request (0089-0096, 0163-0164, 0198 and 0217, Kolan discloses a 5G media streaming architecture including an application provider, 5GMSd AF, and media application function server, and further teaches that a 5G application service provider provisions a service at the 5G AF using the M1 interface and that an AF receiving a service provisioning request checks for allocation of edge resources for the requested application service. Kolan further teaches “controlling a 5GMS Application Server to allocate resources for the requested first service provisioning session”(0163–0164 and 0198), teaches that provisioning information obtained from an application service provider during provisioning is used by the AF to provision slice resources in an edge network and that, when the AF receives a service provisioning request, the AF checks with an edge orchestration manager for allocation of edge resources.
Kolan further teaches controlling the 5GMS Application Server to determine whether the allocated resources for the requested first service provisioning session are adequate for the requested second service provisioning session. Kolan also teaches in response to determining that the allocated resources for the requested first service provisioning session are not adequate for the requested second service provisioning session, controlling the 5GMS Application Server to allocate resources for the requested second service provisioning session (Kolan 0198, 0203]–0209, 0234–0235 and 0243–0245), teaching allocating, scaling, reallocating, relocating, or preempting media-service resources when existing resources are unavailable or insufficient for the requested service.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Sodagar to incorporate the teachings of Kolan in order to provide service-provisioning-request based allocation and adequacy checking of 5G media-service resources.
Although Sodagar and Kolan disclose receiving service provisioning requests and controlling 5GMS/AF/AS resource allocation based on current resource adequacy, Sodagar and Kolan do not expressly disclose that the first and second provisioning requests are “for devices of a first release” and “for devices of a second release.”
Offer teaches provisioning computing devices or application-specific runtime environments using repository metadata and provisioning metadata, including different versions of resources, application version information, operating system version information, target platform characteristics, feature sets, hardware/software compatibility information and selecting compatible resources or versions for provisioning (0014-0015, 0036-0044 and 0073-0081). Offer further teaches determining whether resources are suitable for a requested release, specifically disclosing comparing repository metadata with provisioning metadata, including version information and target platform characteristics, to select one of multiple resources or versions for inclusion in a provisioned runtime environment.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to further modify the combined Sodagar and Kolan system to incorporate Offer’s version/release aware provisioning metadata so that first and second service provisioning session requests in a 5GMS system are associated with devices or applications of respective first and second releases.
Regarding claim 3, Sodagar teaches the second service provisioning session request comprises a provision session identifier of the requested first service provisioning session (Sodagar – 5GMS provisioning architecture uses a provisioning session identifier and any subsequent request to a first request would inherently use the existing identifier to identify the provisioning session whose resources are being used).
Regarding claim 4, Sodagar as modified by Kolan and Offer disclose in response to determination that the allocated resources for the requested first service provisioning session are adequate for the requested second service provisioning session, controlling the 5GMS Application Server to re-allocate resources allocated for the requested first service provisioning session (Kolan 0205-0210 teach that resources already allocated to a media service may be scaled up or down based on the requirements of the service. Kolan 0198-0199 disclose that resources already allocated to one service may be reallocated in response to another service provisioning request).
Regarding claim 5, Sodagar as modified by Kolan and Offer disclose the first release is a highest release and the second release is a lower-level release of the first release (Offer- abstract, provisioning across different software version including selecting resources based on a specific version, version range, dependencies etc. In other words, Offer’s teaches version awareness provisioning.)
Claim 2 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sodagar (US 2023/0254356) in view of Kolan (US 2023/0007573) and Offer (US 8,001,083) and further in view of Nelson (US 11,075,799).
Regarding claim 2, Sodagar as modified by Kolan and Offer fail to specifically disclose
prior to the receiving the first service provisioning session request for the devices of the first release, the method comprises: receiving a first provisioning request for the devices of the first release, the first provisioning request comprising one or more lower-level releases for copied provisioning; controlling a 5GMS Application Function to provision for the devices of the first release; and controlling the 5GMS Application Function to create directories and copy resources for the one or more lower-level releases.
However, Nelson discloses provisioning requests are received at a lifecycle manager, specify provisioning of a particular partition or environment, are communicated to a provisioning framework, and are used to provision the partition/environment before the environment is subsequently used by software applications. Nelson further teaches that a user selects desired component types, dependent component types are selected automatically by the partition provisioning framework using a dependency discovery mechanism, the framework identifies dependencies and a provisioning order, and provisions the partition for each selected/dependent component type. Furthermore, Nelson teaches provisioning tools that perform copying of resources, copying files, creating directories and copying specified files into those directories, executing scripts, updating configurations, and using provisioning framework/handler methods to process provisioning resources and set up components for use in a partition or environment (Nelson 0176-0185, 0193-0202 and 0217-0249).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to further modify the Sodagar 5GMS provisioning system to incorporate Nelson’s provisioning framework operations, including receiving an initial provisioning request, selecting dependent or compatible components/versions, creating directories, and copying resources in order to use Nelson’s automated provisioning framework in the combined Sodagar, Kolan and Offer 5GMS system to prepare release-specific or lower-release resource environments before service session provisioning, thereby reducing manual configuration, ensuring required resources are copied into proper locations, and improving repeatable provisioning of compatible resources for different releases.
Alternative rejection to claim 1.
Claim 1 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sodagar (US 2023/0254356) in view of Rhyu et al (US 2022/0321407) and further in view of Offer (US 8,001,083).
Regarding claim 1, Sodagar teaches a method for provisioning services for a 5G media streaming, the method being executed by at least one processor (0002, 0029-0035), the method comprising:
controlling a 5GMS Application Server to allocate resources for the requested first service provisioning session (0037-0044 and 0055-0057 Sodagar discloses a media AF 502 corresponding to 5GMSu AF 306 and/or 5GMSd AF 406, at least one media AS 501 corresponding to 5GMSu AS 305 and/or 5GMSd AS 405, the media AF 502 requesting existing hardware resources from the media AS 501, and the media AF 502 provisioning at least one media AS 501 after the external media AS 503 requests processing);
Sodagar further teaches controlling the 5GMS Application Server to determine whether the allocated resources for the requested first service provisioning session are adequate for the requested second service provisioning session (0005, 0054-0056 and 0081-0084- Sodagar teaches that 5G network capabilities are not static and must be measured at the time of request, that resource availability varies depending on current network load, and that media AS capability information includes available hardware resources, throughput, delay range, media processing function libraries, and functional characteristics, i.e., determining current AS resource adequacy for requested media processing);
and in response to determining that the allocated resources for the requested first service provisioning session are not adequate for the requested second service provisioning session, controlling the 5GMS Application Server to allocate resources for the requested second service provisioning session (0056-0057- Sodagar discloses that the media AF 502 collects media AS 501 capability responses, the external media AS 503 requests processing, the media AF 502 provisions at least one media AS 501, the media AS 501 reports readiness, and the media AF 502 confirms the processing workflow.)
Although Sodagar discloses controlling a 5GMS Application Server to determine current resources/capabilities and provision the 5GMS Application Server, Sodagar does not expressly disclose determining whether a previously running or previously allocated first instance/resource should be reused for a later service requirement and generating or allocating another instance/resource when the first instance/resource is not sufficient.
Rhyu teaches controlling the 5GMS Application Server to determine whether the allocated resources for the requested first service provisioning session are adequate for the requested second service provisioning session (Rhyu Abstract and 0037-0040 and 0066-0068 and 0077-0083), wherein Rhyu teaches identifying an architecture supported by a first running instance and a list of functions for that architecture, determining whether to use the first instance based on the identification result and requirements for service provision and creating/generating a second instance when the first instance does not support a new requirement, increased requirement, required function, process type or capacity.
Rhyu further teaches in response to determining that the allocated resources for the requested first service provisioning session are not adequate for the requested second service provisioning session, controlling the 5GMS Application Server to allocate resources for the requested second service provisioning session (Rhyu Abstract, 0013-0015, 0039-0040, 0068 and 0077-0083 teaches an existing first instance and generating/creating a second instance when the management service determines that the first instance should not be used, or is insufficient to support increased requirements.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Sodagar to incorporate the teachings of Rhyu in order to provide existing resource adequacy determination and resource allocation in Sodagar’s 5GMS AF/AS capability discovery and provisioning workflow,
to avoid unnecessary allocation of new 5GMS AS resources when existing resources are adequate and to allocate new resources when existing resources are insufficient.
Even though Sodagar and Rhyu disclose determining whether existing 5GMS network service resources are adequate for a later service requirement and allocating or generating another resource when not adequate, Sodagar and Rhyu do not expressly disclose that the first and second provisioning requests are “for devices of a first release” and “for devices of a second release.”
Offer teaches “receiving a first service provisioning session request for devices of a first release” and “receiving a second service provisioning session request for devices of a second release”(Offer Abstract, 0014-0015, 0036-0044 and 0073-0081 teaches provisioning computing devices or application specific runtime environments using repository metadata and provisioning metadata, including multiple versions of resources, application version information, operating system version information, target platform characteristics, feature sets, hardware/software compatibility information, and selection of compatible resources or versions for provisioning. Offer further teaches determining whether resources are suitable for a requested release/version (Offer 0040-0044 and 0078-0080, disclose comparing repository metadata with provisioning metadata, including version information and target-platform characteristics, to select one of multiple resources or versions for inclusion in a provisioned runtime environment.
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to further modify the combined Sodagar and Rhyu system to incorporate Offer’s version/release aware provisioning metadata so that first and second service provisioning session requests in a 5GMS system are associated with devices or applications of respective first and second releases.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to EDAN ORGAD whose telephone number is (571)272-7884. The examiner can normally be reached 9AM-5PM.
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000.
/EDAN ORGAD/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2414
Prosecution Insights