Detailed Action
1. This Office Action is responsive to the Preliminary Amendment filed 12/16/2024. Claims 1-20 are presented for examination. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Priority
2. Applicant’s claim for the benefit of a prior-filed application under 35 U.S.C. 119(e) or under 35 U.S.C. 120, 121, or 365(c) is acknowledged.
Information Disclosure Statement
3. The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 12/16/2024 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
4. 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 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.
5. Claims 1-6, 8-13 and 15-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by LEE et al. (US 2021/0352511 A1), hereinafter “LEE”.
6. As to claim 1, LEE teaches an edge computing device (Figs. 1-3 and [0039-0054], [0060-0093]), comprising:
a memory storing computer-executable instructions (Fig. 1 and [0039-0054]: a memory is considered implicit in all electronic devices); and
at least one processor (Fig. 1 and [0039-0054]: a processor is considered implicit in all electronic devices) coupled with the memory and configured to execute the
computer-executable instructions to:
establish a subscription to event information of a user equipment (UE) or an application client executing on the UE, the application client associated with an edge application server instance executing within an edge data network (Figs. 2, 3 and [0060-0093]: The EAS '201' in this case comprises an orchestrator (i.e. same as the EAS MGMT component of the current application), which subscribes '211' to the EES '202' to receive AC status events related to the status of an application in a UE/EEC '203');
receive, based on the subscription, a notification of a context event of the application client and/or the UE (Figs. 2, 3 and [0060-0093]: The EES may either (a) directly respond '212-213' to such a subscription request with AC status information in case it is a one-time request and it is already in possession of such information or (b) subscribe '214-216' to the UE/EEC 203 to receive notifications related to any changes to the status (i.e. context) of the AC (either upon receiving the subscription request or triggered by any changes in the AC status that match the subscription reporting conditions ([0070-0071]) in order to inform the EAS '201' (Fig. 3 and [0090-0091]) to respond accordingly by ([0066], [0091], [0121-0122]) instantiating/generating (i.e. adding), load balancing, scaling in or out or deleting (i.e. releasing) an EAS); and
cause release, suspension, or resumption of the edge application server instance in response to the notification (Figs. 2, 3 and [0066], [0091], [0121-0122]: inform the EAS ‘201’ to respond accordingly by instantiating/generating (i.e., adding), load balancing, scaling in or out or deleting (i.e., releasing) an EAS).
7. As to claim 2, LEE teaches the edge computing device of claim 1, wherein to establish the subscription to the event information of the application client, the at least one processor is configured to execute the computer-executable instructions to request, from a wireless core network serving the UE, the subscription to the event information of the application client and/or the UE (Figs. 2, 3 and [0060-0093]: The EAS '201' in this case comprises an orchestrator (i.e. same as the EAS MGMT component of the current application), which subscribes '211' to the EES '202' to receive AC status events related to the status of an application in a UE/EEC '203'); and receive, from the wireless core network serving the UE, confirmation of the subscription, and wherein to receive the notification of the context event, the at least one processor is configured to execute the computer-executable instructions to receive, from the wireless core network, the notification of the context event based on wireless activity between the UE and the wireless core network (Figs. 2, 3 and [0060-0093]: The EES may either (a) directly respond '212-213' to such a subscription request with AC status information in case it is a one-time request and it is already in possession of such information or (b) subscribe '214-216' to the UE/EEC 203 to receive notifications related to any changes to the status (i.e. context) of the AC (either upon receiving the subscription request or triggered by any changes in the AC status that match the subscription reporting conditions).
8 As to claim 3, LEE teaches the edge computing device of claim 2, wherein the notification identifies at least one of protocol data unit (PDU) session status or UE reachability status (Figs. 2, 3 and [0063-0071]: The EAS '201' in this case comprises an orchestrator (i.e. same as the EAS MGMT component of the current application), which subscribes '211' to the EES '202' to receive AC status events related to the status of an application in a UE/EEC '203'; [0210] and [0220]; status in which an application is installed on the UE but is not running, i.e., reachable status).
9. As to claim 4, LEE teaches the edge computing device of claim 1, wherein to establish the subscription to the event information of the application client, the at least one processor is configured to execute the computer-executable instructions to request, from an edge enabler client executing on the UE, the subscription to the event information of the application client and/or the UE (Figs. 2, 3 and [0060-0093]: The EAS '201' in this case comprises an orchestrator (i.e. same as the EAS MGMT component of the current application), which subscribes '211' to the EES '202' to receive AC status events related to the status of an application in a UE/EEC '203'); and receive, from the edge enabler client executing on the UE, confirmation of the subscription, wherein to receive the notification of the context event, the at least one processor is configured to execute the computer-executable instructions to receive, from the UE, the notification of the context event based on device activity at the UE, the context event detected by the edge enabler client based on monitoring of the UE and/or application (Figs. 2, 3 and [0060-0093]: The EES may either (a) directly respond '212-213' to such a subscription request with AC status information in case it is a one-time request and it is already in possession of such information or (b) subscribe '214-216' to the UE/EEC 203 to receive notifications related to any changes to the status (i.e. context) of the AC (either upon receiving the subscription request or triggered by any changes in the AC status that match the subscription reporting conditions).
10. As to claim 5, LEE teaches the edge computing device of claim 4, wherein the notification identifies at least one of an application context of the application client or a device context of the UE ([0081-0086] and [0205-0220]).
11. As to claim 6, LEE teaches the edge computing device of claim 1, wherein to cause release, suspension, or resumption of the edge application server instance in response to the notification, the at least one processor is configured to execute the computer-executable instructions to transmit a release request, a suspension request, or a resumption request to the edge application server instance or an edge application server manager that manages the edge application server instance (Figs. 2, 3 and [0060-0093]: The EES may either (a) directly respond '212-213' to such a subscription request with AC status information in case it is a one-time request and it is already in possession of such information or (b) subscribe '214-216' to the UE/EEC 203 to receive notifications related to any changes to the status (i.e. context) of the AC (either upon receiving the subscription request or triggered by any changes in the AC status that match the subscription reporting conditions ([0070-0071]) in order to inform the EAS '201' (Fig. 3 and [0090-0091]) to respond accordingly by ([0066], [0091], [0121-0122]) instantiating/generating (i.e. adding), load balancing, scaling in or out or deleting (i.e. releasing) an EAS).
12. As to claims 8-13 and 15-20, claims 8-13 and 15-20 are corresponding method claims and non-transitory computer-readable medium claims that recite similar limitations as device claims 1-6 and do not contain any additional limitations with respect to novelty and/or inventive steps; therefore, they are rejected under the same rationale.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
13. 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.
14. Claims 7 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over LEE, in view of Matolia et al. (US 2021/0314906 A1), hereinafter “Matolia”.
15. As to claim 7, LEE teaches the edge computing device of claim 1, but does not explicitly teach “determine that no other applications and/or UEs are currently associated with the edge application server instance; and cause release, suspension, or resumption of the edge application server instance based on no other applications and/or UEs being currently associated with the edge application server instance”.
In an analogous art, Matolia discloses “determine that no other applications and/or UEs are currently associated with the edge application server instance; and cause release, suspension, or resumption of the edge application server instance based on no other applications and/or UEs being currently associated with the edge application server instance” ([0193]: the data analytics may determine that a particular application used for work is not used on the weekend, and may predict that EAS resources/instance may be deallocated (i.e., release, suspension, or resumption) from this application during the weekend).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of Matolia into LEE’s to achieve the claimed invention to allow the system to use the information related to the current status of the EAS operations to make a prediction for whether it will be desirable for resources for a particular EAS instance to be increased or reduced (Matolia, [0193]).
16. As to claim 14, claim 14 is a corresponding method claim that recites similar limitations as of device claim 6 and does not contain any additional limitations with respect to novelty and/or inventive steps; therefore, it is rejected under the same rationale.
17. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure: Pateromichelakis (US 2025/0048220 A1); Xue (US 2023/0118395 A1); KIM (US 2022/0377515 A1); GUPTA (US 2022/0110081 A1); Obaidi (US 2021/0314906 A1).
18. A shortened statutory period for reply to this action is set to expire THREE (3) months from the mailing date of this communication. See 37 CFR 1.134.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to QUANG N. NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571) 272-3886.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s SPE, KAMAL B. DIVECHA, can be reached at (571) 272-5863. The fax phone number for the organization is (571) 273-8300.
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/QUANG N NGUYEN/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2453
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