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 Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 –
(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.
Claim(s) 1, 5-7, and 55 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by US 2021/0307089 (Kim1).
With regard to claim 1, Kim1 discloses a method performed by a functional component implementing an enabler function in a User Equipment (UE), comprising:
transmitting, to a first network function implementing an Edge Configuration Server (ECS), a first request message for service provisioning (Kim1: Figure 7, 705); and
receiving, from the first network function, a first response message including a first parameter indicating information related to a second network function implementing an Edge Enabler Server (EES) managed by the first network function, and a second parameter indicating information related to a third network function implementing an EES managed by a fourth network function implementing an ECS (Kim1: Figure 7 and Paragraph [0078]. Kim1 discloses that a listing of EESs may be provided to the client. As a note, “first,” “second,” “third,” and “fourth” do not require any of the elements be separate from each other, such that a “third” may be the same as the “first,” lacking any explicit (e.g. wherein each of the first, second, third, and fourth network functions are separate from each other) or implicit (e.g. interaction details or structural details are provided that require that the components are separate from each other).).
With regard to claim 5, Kim1 discloses transmitting, to the second network function, a second request message for Edge Application Server (EAS) discovery, the second request message includes the second parameter; and receiving, from the second network function, a second response message including information related to one or more EASs (Kim1: Paragraph [0107]).
With regard to claim 6, Kim1 discloses wherein the first request message is a service provisioning request message over Edge-4 reference point; wherein the first response message is a service provisioning response message over Edge-4 reference point; wherein the second request message is an EAS discovery request message over Edge-1 reference point; and/or wherein the second response message is an EAS discovery response message over Edge-1 reference point (Kim1: Paragraph [0107], pages 4-5, Table 1, and Figure 1.).).
With regard to claim 7, Kim1 discloses, wherein the second parameter is received in a way that is transparent to the functional component (Kim1: Figure 7 and Paragraph [0078]. The receiving of alternate ECS choices does not appear to be specifically requested for. Further, the “functional component” implements “an enabler function,” where the enabler function would be the edge enabler client of Kim1, which is executed by the UE (which, in itself, or a processor of such would constitute a “functional component”), where there does not appear to be any requirement that the UE or the processor of the UE, as a whole, have explicit awareness of the list, and thus such would be “transparent” to the functional component that implements the edge enable client.).
With regard to claim 55, the instant claim is similar to claim 1, and is rejected for similar reasons.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
Claim(s) 2-3, 9, and 11-13 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim1 in view of US 2023/0412698 (Kim2).
With regard to claim 2, Kim1 fails to disclose, but Kim2 teaches wherein the first network function has an edge service federation with the fourth network function (Kim2: Paragraph [0016]). Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have the first network function have an edge service federation with the fourth network function to provide better coverage and service, such as when another edge service in the federation would have better connectivity than the first edge service.
With regard to claim 3, Kim1 in view of Kim2 fails to teach, but knowledge possessed by one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing teaches wherein the second network function uses the edge service federation for validating the third network function (More specifically, Official Notice is taken that validating members of a federation using the federation (e.g. to confirm that a node is currently a valid member of the federation prior to communication with that node) was well-known to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing). Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to use the federation for validating the third network function to ensure that the third network function is currently available to be used based on membership in the federation.
With regard to claim 9, the instant claim is substantially within the scope of claim 2 (and claim 1, from which claim 2 depends), and is thus rejected for similar reasons as presented above with regard to claim 2, and claim 1, from which claim 2 depends.
With regard to claim 11, the instant claim adds subject matter included in the recitation of claim 1, and is thus rejected for similar reasons as addressed in claim 2, from which claim 1 depends.
With regard to claim 12, the instant claim adds subject matter included in the recitation of claim 6, and is thus rejected for similar reasons as presented with regard to a combination of claims 6 and claim 2 (which depends from claim 1).
With regard to claim 13, the instant claim is similar to claims 7 and 8, in the alternative, and is thus rejected for similar reasons as claim 7, as only one of the two embodiments claimed need to be disclosed by the prior art to disclose the claimed invention, as a whole.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
Claim(s) 4 and 10 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim1 in view of Kim2, and further in view of US 2009/0043882 (Hibbets).
With regard to claim 4, Kim1 in view of Kim2 fails to teach, but Hibbets teaches, wherein the edge service federation is a Service Layer Agreement (SLA) (Hibbets: Paragraph [0021]. A federation can be formed as part of a SLA.). Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to have the federation be a SLA to ensure that any requirements of the federation can be properly fulfilled by any nodes that are to be included in the federation.
With regard to claim 10, the instant claim is similar to claim 4, and is rejected for similar reasons.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
Claim(s) 8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kim1 in view of US 2022/0116774 (Rajadurai).
With regard to claim 8, Kim1 fails to teach, but Rajadurai teaches wherein the second parameter is included in an access token generated by the first network function (Rajadurai: Paragraph [0068]). Accordingly, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of filing to provide an access token with second information (e.g. information for accessing an EES) to enable the client to efficiently convey that the UE is authorized to access the ECS (Rajadurai: Paragraph [0082]).
Conclusion
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SCOTT B. CHRISTENSEN
Examiner
Art Unit 2444
/SCOTT B CHRISTENSEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2444