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 .
Priority
Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 9/16/24 and 10/11/24 is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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.
(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) 1-5, 7, 16-17, and 19-20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Senarth et al. (US 2019/0289444).
Regarding claim 1, Senarth teaches a network application server (CSM), comprising:
communication circuitry; and
at least one processor configured to:
receive, from a number of user equipments (UEs) and via the communication circuitry, a number of requests to receive service data from a number of application providers (at least one service) (see “Embodiments of the present invention provide for a Customer Service Management (CSM) function element in a communication network. The communication network provides at least one service involving one or more terminals serviced by the communication network” [0089] and “In some embodiments, the at least one service involves a plurality of terminals and/or at least one of the one or more terminals supports a plurality of services” [0090] and “The assignment operation 203 may occur upon receipt of a service request from a UE, or may occur in advance of the service request for distribution about the network” [0134] which suggests a plurality of terminals or UEs may request a service provided by CSM);
determine an amount of service data (usage data) exchanged between an application provider (VN customer) of the number of application providers and a set of UEs (associated UEs) of the number of UEs requesting service data over one or more network slices (see “Each VN customer 511, 512 can have associated therewith an end user population comprising a plurality of end user devices, for example UEs, and the VN customer 511, 512 will request particular services from the TCSP 506, 507, for enabling the connection of the UEs to the Access Points, via the network infrastructure associated with the particular TCSP 506, 507” [0188] and “Various data may also be logged, such as delay data, cloud resources usage data, bandwidth usage data, and the like, and associated with the service” [0138]) which suggests usage data may be logged for associated UEs of the VN customer, or a “set of UEs”);
generate first billing information corresponding to the application provider based on criteria including the amount of service data exchanged with the application provider over the one or more network slices for the set of UEs (see “In addition to the above operations, customer charging may subsequently be performed. This may include comparing logged QoS parameters with promised QoS parameters, along with actual service usage/availability…” [0139] and “A VN customer 511, 512 can request a service or network slice associated therewith, which is provided by the TCSP 506, 507” [0189] which suggests that a VN customer is charged based on actual service usage of the service or network slice associated with the service); and
generate second billing information (conventional/legacy charging function) corresponding to each UE of the set of UEs based on data usage by each UE of the set of UEs, the second billing information generated independent of characteristics of the one or more network slices used for providing the requested service data (see “The service-based billing may comprise:…b. A combination of a pay-per-service model and a conventional service level agreement based on the UE, wherein at least one of the services accessed by the UE are under the conventional service level agreement and at least one other of the services accessed by the UE are under the pay-per-service model” [0160, 0162] and “In current 3G and 4G wireless communication networks, the legacy charging function can be characterized as being individual UE-based with a billing subscription assigned to a hardware identifier such as a SIM card” [par 0149] which suggests that associated UEs of the VN customer may also be billed based on conventional/legacy charging which corresponds to the UE and thus “independent of characteristics of the one or more network slices used for providing the requested service data”).
Regarding claim 2, Senarth teaches the network application server of claim 1, wherein the criteria for generating the first billing information corresponding to the application provider further includes at least one of:
performance statistics (delay) of the one or more network slices; or
one or more attributes (reliablility) of the one or more network slices (see “For example, the policy may be service-based and consider such service factors as upload/download speed, bit volume, delay, reliability, or the like” [0151]).
Regarding claim 3, Senarth teaches the network application server of claim 2, wherein the performance statistics of the one or more network slices include at least one of:
a total number of online or active users;
a total number of connections;
a total number of online sessions;
latency (delay) (see “For example, the policy may be service-based and consider such service factors as upload/download speed, bit volume, delay, reliability, or the like” [0151]); or
a throughput over a particular time period.
Regarding claim 4, Senarth teaches the network application server of claim 2, wherein the one or more attributes of the one or more network slices include at least one of:
a peak number of online or active users over a particular time period;
a peak number of connections over the particular time period;
a peak number of online sessions over the particular time period; or
a type of service coverage (see “For example, when a high proportion of a service provider or infrastructure provider's network capacity is occupied, a premium may be charged to customers who wish to purchase additional network capacity (and a premium may be charged to customers who are already using the services)” [0191] which suggests that VN customer is charged more when the network capacity is low which reads on the claimed peak number of users/connections/sessions).
Regarding claim 5, Senarth teaches the network application server of claim 1, wherein each UE of the set of UEs is further charged based on one or more of:
a number of protocol data unit (PDU) sessions;
a service data flow (volume or bandwidth usage); or
a quality of service (QoS) flow (see “The legacy charging function is typically implemented with a
static usage-based charging rule, typically based upon bit volume, or bandwidth usage based charging rule, or a call time based charging rule for voice calls” [0149]).
Regarding claim 7, Senarth teaches the network application server of claim 1, wherein each network slice of the one or more network slices is configured to provide the requested service data according to a different quality of service or a service level agreement (QoS policy) with a UE of the set of UEs (see “The service specific VN is established including QoS and QoE policies to be distributed to, and enforced at, one or more of the virtual nodes” [0135]).
Claims 16 and 17 recite subject matter similar to claim 1 and are therefore rejected on the same basis.
Claim 19 recites subject matter similar to claim 2 and is therefore rejected on the same basis.
Claim 20 recites subject matter similar to claims 3 and 4 and is therefore rejected on the same bases.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 8-15 are allowed.
Claim 6 is 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Nam T Huynh whose telephone number is (571)272-5970. The examiner can normally be reached 9am-5pm.
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/NAM T HUYNH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2647
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