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 .
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.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 35-40 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claim(s) does/do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because they encompass signals per se.
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 21-24, 29-31, and 35-37 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang (US 20180262431 A1) in view of Higuchi (US 20200313959 A1).
Regarding claim 21, Zhang discloses:
“An apparatus … comprising: one or more interfaces for network communications; logic circuitry coupled with the interface to perform operations to:” ([¶ 0194]: “As illustrated in this example, network element 1800 may, accordingly, include one or more processors 1801, memory 1810, one or more service functions 1850, and a network interface 1820.”)
“identify, based on a service request received via the network interface, a service function chain comprising one or more instances of a communication service function, one or more instances of a computing service function, and one or more instances of a data service function in a network,” ([¶ 0079]: “As previously noted, each SFC request may specify a sequence of service functions. Each service function may use a certain number of compute and/or storage resources (e.g., virtual machines) and may require a certain amount of bandwidth (or have an upper limit on delay) for outgoing traffic.”; [¶ 0119]: “The method also includes (at 1008) the source orchestrator sending the SFC request to all participating orchestrators in the multi-domain network and coordinating the execution of a common compute function, as described herein. As candidate solutions are identified by the participating orchestrators (at 1010), the method includes emitting them to the source orchestrator.”)
“wherein the one or more instances of the communication service function are associated with one or more instances of the computing service function and the one or more instances of the data service function;” ([¶ 0079]: “In some embodiments, providing distributed service function chaining, given a multi-domain network topology (a physical infrastructure topology) that includes vertices (nodes) and edges (links between the nodes), given a set of service functions and the number of compute and/or storage resources available at each vertex, and given the delay and bandwidth at each edge, may include identifying all possible solutions for an SFC request.”)
“determine service-aware transport information associated with the service function chain;” ([¶ 0119]: “Once (at 1012) the message exchanges cease, the method includes the source orchestrator selecting one or more of the possible solutions for executing the SFC request, based on an applicable policy and/or input from the requestor.”)
“and configure, via the one or more interfaces, the one or more instances of the communication service function, the computing service function, and the data service function for packet steering based on the service-aware transport information.” ([¶ 0119]: “The method also includes (at 1014) the source orchestrator informing the orchestrator(s) for the domain(s) in which various service functions within the SFC will be executed to configure the physical resources within their domain(s) for execution of the those service functions.”)
Zhang does not explicitly disclose the apparatus is “of a base station”.
However, Higuchi discloses the missing feature the apparatus is “of a base station.” (See Edge Server 140 in Fig. 1A)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, having the teachings of Zhang and Higuchi, to modify the orchestrator as disclosed by Zhang, to be implemented in an edge server of a base station as disclosed by Higuchi. The motivation for doing so is that it decreases load (See ¶ 2). Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Zhang with Higuchi to obtain the invention as specified in the instant claim.
Regarding claim 22, Zhang discloses all the features of the parent claim.
Zhang further discloses “wherein the logic circuitry comprises a processor and a memory coupled with the processor.” ([¶ 0194]: “As illustrated in this example, network element 1800 may, accordingly, include one or more processors 1801, memory 1810, one or more service functions 1850, and a network interface 1820.”)
Zhang does not explicitly disclose “the apparatus further comprising a radio frequency circuitry coupled with the logic circuitry, and one or more antennas coupled with the radio frequency circuitry.”
However, Higuchi discloses the missing feature “the apparatus further comprising a radio frequency circuitry coupled with the logic circuitry, and one or more antennas coupled with the radio frequency circuitry.” ([¶ 0153]: “For example, the communication unit 145 includes a DSRC antenna configured to broadcast DSRC messages via the network.”)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, having the teachings of Zhang and Higuchi, to modify the orchestrator as disclosed by Zhang, to be implemented in an edge server of a base station as disclosed by Higuchi. The motivation for doing so is that it decreases load (See ¶ 2). Thus, by extension, it would be obvious to obvious to implement the edge server features, including the antennas, as disclosed in Higuchi. Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Zhang with Higuchi to obtain the invention as specified in the instant claim.
Regarding claim 23, Zhang discloses all the features of the parent claim.
Zhang further discloses “wherein the one or more instances of the computing service function are associated with one or more physically distributed computing service clusters, and the one or more instances of the data service function are associated with one or more physically distributed data service clusters.” ([¶ 0003]: “Emerging network applications, such as cloud and big data applications, may involve joint consideration of IT resources residing within multiple domains within one or more data centers (DCs).”)
Regarding claim 24, Zhang discloses all the features of the parent claim.
Zhang further discloses “wherein identification of the one or more instances of the communication service function comprises identification of each instance of the communication service function associated with a hop between nodes of the network from an access node connected to a user equipment to one or more access nodes connected to physical computing and data resources associated with the service request.” ([¶ 0066]: “In at least some embodiments, in addition to maintaining vertex information (such as the node information described above), each vertex may also maintain information about its incoming and outgoing edges, and a common compute function, which is user-defined function.”)
Claims 29-31 and 35-37 are similar to claims 21-24, with the differences amounting to that claims 21-24 are directed towards an apparatus, while claims 29-31 are directed towards a method and claims 35-37 are directed towards a machine-readable medium. Thus, claims 29-31 and 35-37 are rejected for similar reasons to claims 21-24.
Claim(s) 27-28, 34, and 40 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Zhang (US 20180262431 A1) in view of Higuchi (US 20200313959 A1) and further in view of Huang (US 20230275834 A1).
Regarding claim 27, Zhang discloses all the features of the parent claim.
Zhang does not explicitly disclose “parse a service label of a packet associated with a service identified in the service request to determine an address associated with the service label; and forward the packet to an instance of a service function of the service function chain based on the address, wherein the instance of the service function comprises one instance of the one or more instances of the computing service function, the data service function, and the communication service function in the network.”
However, Huang discloses the missing feature “parse a service label of a packet associated with a service identified in the service request to determine an address associated with the service label; and forward the packet to an instance of a service function of the service function chain based on the address, wherein the instance of the service function comprises one instance of the one or more instances of the computing service function, the data service function, and the communication service function in the network.” ([¶ 0130]: “The service traffic passes through a classifier of an SFC network, and the classifier routes a service traffic request to an ingress SFF; the ingress SFF parses a network service header (NSH), and parses out a URL of a next computing network atomic function according to a combination of an SPI and an SI...”)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, having the teachings of Zhang and Huang, to modify the orchestrator as disclosed by Zhang, to parse either addresses or service identifiers and forward as disclosed by Huang. The motivation for doing so is that it allows for improved flexibility. Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Zhang with Huang to obtain the invention as specified in the instant claim.
Regarding claim 28, Zhang discloses all the features of the parent claim.
Zhang does not explicitly disclose “parse a service label of a packet associated with a service identified in the service request to determine a service identifier associated with the service label; and forward the packet to an instance of a service function of the service function chain based on the service identifier, wherein the instance of the service function comprises one instance of the one or more instances of the computing service function, the data service function, and the communication service function in the network.”
However, Huang discloses the missing feature “parse a service label of a packet associated with a service identified in the service request to determine a service identifier associated with the service label; and forward the packet to an instance of a service function of the service function chain based on the service identifier, wherein the instance of the service function comprises one instance of the one or more instances of the computing service function, the data service function, and the communication service function in the network.” ([¶ 0087]: “In an embodiment, step S204 may specifically comprise: parsing a network service header (NSH) of the service traffic; and parsing out the atomic function identifier of a next atomic function instance according to a service path identifier (SPI) and a service index (SI).”)
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the invention, having the teachings of Zhang and Huang, to modify the orchestrator as disclosed by Zhang, to parse either addresses or service identifiers and forward as disclosed by Huang. The motivation for doing so is that it allows for improved flexibility. Therefore, it would have been obvious to combine Zhang with Huang to obtain the invention as specified in the instant claim.
Claims 34 and 40 are similar to claim 27 and are rejected for similar reasons.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 25-26, and 32-33 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. Similarly, claims 38-39 would be allowable if the 35 U.S.C. 101 rejection is overcome and they are rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims. The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
Regarding claim 25, of the closest prior arts Zhang (US 20180262431 A1) in view of Higuchi (US 20200313959 A1) discloses all the features of the parent claim. However, Zhang in view of Higuchi does not disclose “wherein identification of the one or more instances of the computing service function and the one or more instances of the data service function comprises identification of each instance of a gateway service function and a service function proxy associated with the physical computing and data resources for the service request.” The cited references fail to anticipate or render the above limitations in combination with all the recited limitations of claims 25 obvious, over any of the prior art of record, alone or in combination. Claims 32 and 38 are similar to claim 25 and contain allowable subject matter for similar reasons. Claims 26, 33, and 39 depend on claims 25, 32, and 38 and contain allowable subject matter based on their dependence.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SAAD KHAWAR whose telephone number is (571)272-7948. The examiner can normally be reached Monday - Friday, 9:00am - 5:00pm.
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/SAAD KHAWAR/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2412
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