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 .
Double Patenting
The nonstatutory double patenting rejection is based on a judicially created doctrine grounded in public policy (a policy reflected in the statute) so as to prevent the unjustified or improper timewise extension of the “right to exclude” granted by a patent and to prevent possible harassment by multiple assignees. A nonstatutory double patenting rejection is appropriate where the conflicting claims are not identical, but at least one examined application claim is not patentably distinct from the reference claim(s) because the examined application claim is either anticipated by, or would have been obvious over, the reference claim(s). See, e.g., In re Berg, 140 F.3d 1428, 46 USPQ2d 1226 (Fed. Cir. 1998); In re Goodman, 11 F.3d 1046, 29 USPQ2d 2010 (Fed. Cir. 1993); In re Longi, 759 F.2d 887, 225 USPQ 645 (Fed. Cir. 1985); In re Van Ornum, 686 F.2d 937, 214 USPQ 761 (CCPA 1982); In re Vogel, 422 F.2d 438, 164 USPQ 619 (CCPA 1970); In re Thorington, 418 F.2d 528, 163 USPQ 644 (CCPA 1969).
A timely filed terminal disclaimer in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(c) or 1.321(d) may be used to overcome an actual or provisional rejection based on nonstatutory double patenting provided the reference application or patent either is shown to be commonly owned with the examined application, or claims an invention made as a result of activities undertaken within the scope of a joint research agreement. See MPEP § 717.02 for applications subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA as explained in MPEP § 2159. See MPEP § 2146 et seq. for applications not subject to examination under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . A terminal disclaimer must be signed in compliance with 37 CFR 1.321(b).
The filing of a terminal disclaimer by itself is not a complete reply to a nonstatutory double patenting (NSDP) rejection. A complete reply requires that the terminal disclaimer be accompanied by a reply requesting reconsideration of the prior Office action. Even where the NSDP rejection is provisional the reply must be complete. See MPEP § 804, subsection I.B.1. For a reply to a non-final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.111(a). For a reply to final Office action, see 37 CFR 1.113(c). A request for reconsideration while not provided for in 37 CFR 1.113(c) may be filed after final for consideration. See MPEP §§ 706.07(e) and 714.13.
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Claims 1-20 are rejected on the ground of nonstatutory double patenting as being unpatentable over claims 1-20 of U.S. Patent No. 12256303 Although the claims at issue are not identical, they are not patentably distinct from each other because for example, both claims 1 in the instant application and claim 1 teaches {method comprising: receiving, by a service communication proxy (SCP) on a network, a request from a Network Function (NF) consumer, the request including a set of parameters; identifying, by the SCP, a plurality of target NF producers corresponding to the set of parameters; transmitting, by the SCP, the request to the plurality of target NF producers; receiving, by the SCP, a plurality of successful request responses corresponding to at least a portion of the plurality of target NF producers; and transmitting, by the SCP, one of the plurality of successful request responses to the NF consumer}.
The instant application is border than the patent’s claim which include (receiving, by the SCP, a failure request response corresponding to one of the target NF producers having an associated second set of parameters; and retransmitting, by the SCP, the request to the target NF producer having the associated second set of parameters), however this limitation is in claim 4 in the instant application and (discarding, by the SCP, all other successful request responses), which also in claim 2 in the instant application. Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art to modify the instant application and combine claims 2 and 4 with claim 1 to obtain the patent.
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.
Claims 1-2, 6-7, 8-9, 13-14, 15-16, 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being unpatentable by Krishan (US 20220060547).
Regarding claim 1, Krishan teaches, a method (abstract: method for optimized NF discovery and routing includes, at an SCP, receiving a discovery request message or generating a discovery request message in response to a received service request message with a 3gpp-Sbi-Discovery header) comprising:
receiving, by a service communication proxy (SCP) on a network, a request from a Network Function (NF) consumer (Paragraph 9: when the consumer NF sends a service request message to a producer NF instance through the SCP and Paragraph 29: the SCP discovery/service request handler and database manager is configured to receive the discovery response message, forward the discovery response message to a consumer NF, receive, from the consumer NF, a service request message addressed to one of the service endpoints in the list and forward the service request to the service endpoint), the request including a set of parameters (Paragraph 11, Paragraph 17: creating the list of service profiles of producer NF instances includes extracting a service name parameter from the discovery, identifying service profiles of producer NF instances capable of providing the service identified by the service name parameter, and including the service profiles of the producer NF instances capable of providing the service identified by the service name parameter in the list. Paragraph 24: generate a discovery request message using discovery parameters received in a service request with the 3gpp-Sbi-Discovery header from a consumer NF in delegated discovery mode and by: performing a lookup in the unhealthy endpoint database using service identifier included in or derived from the discovery parameters in the service request),
identifying, by the SCP, a plurality of target NF producers corresponding to the set of parameters (Paragraph 11: at the SCP, receiving a discovery request message or generating a discovery request message in response to a received service request message with a 3gpp-Sbi-Discovery header, header is used to convey NF service discovery factors to the SCP in indirect communication models. The 3gpp-Sbi-Discovery header contains discovery parameters to be conveyed by the NF consumer to the SCP and is used for finding a suitable NF producer instance, e.g. by performing the NF service discovery procedure with the NRF on behalf of the NF consumer in case of indirect communication with the delegated discovery model and Fig. 2);
transmitting, by the SCP, the request to the plurality of target NF producers (Paragraph 12: forwarding, by the SCP, the discovery request message to the NRF. The method further includes at the NRF, creating a list of service profiles of producer NF instances capable of providing the service identified in the discovery or service request message. The method further includes excluding, by the NRF and from the list, at least one service profile of at least one producer NF instance corresponding to the at least one endpoint and service name combination identified as unhealthy in the discovery request message and Paragraph 20-21: discovery or service request message includes receiving a service request message indicating delegated discovery and further comprising, at the SCP, after receiving the discovery response message, forwarding the service request message to one of the producer NF instances having a service profile in the list. and Fig. 2, el. 204, 206, 202, 101);
receiving, by the SCP, a plurality of successful request responses corresponding to at least a portion of the plurality of target NF producers (Paragraph 21 and Paragraph 54: SCP 101A maintains context about the health or reachability of producer NF instances on producer NFs 204, SCP 101A can utilize this context to facilitate optimized routing by communicating the context to NRF 100. Such utilization is illustrated by line 6 of the message flow diagram where, when SCP 101A receives further discovery requests for service X, SCP 101A adds a custom header notifying or indicating to NRF 100 that service X from a given producer NF in location 2 is not reachable from the location of SCP 101A. SCP 101A forwards this discovery request to NRF 100. NRF 100 processes the discovery request and filters the service profiles in the list of service profiles that is returned in response to the discovery request based on the custom header. The discovery response from NRF 100 will contain the profiles of producer NF instances on producer NFs that are reachable from location 1, the consumer NFs can send a service request to producer NF instances on producer NFs that are reachable by the consumer NFs and the SCP was not required to provide a re-selection service, which could result in processing delay of the service request); and
transmitting, by the SCP, one of the plurality of successful request responses to the NF consumer (Paragraph 50: the consumer NF that sent the discovery request sends a service request to SCP 101A requesting service from a producer NF in location 2. SCP 101A determines the selected service endpoint of producer NF in location 2 is unavailable, for example, due to lack of connectivity, and determines that there is a producer NF instance in location 3 that is capable of providing the service. Accordingly, in line 3 of the message flow diagram, SCP 101A forwards the service request to one of the producer NF instances on producer NFs 208 in location 3 that is capable of providing the service, Paragraph 83: once NRF 100 has completed iterating through the list of service profiles, control proceeds to steps 614, 616, 618, and 620 where NRF 100 sorts the list of service profiles of producer NF instances capable of providing a service identified in the discovery request with unhealthy service profiles removed from the list and sends the discovery response to the requesting SCP or consumer NF).
Regarding claim 2, Krishan teaches, discarding, by the SCP, all other successful request responses upon the transmittal of the one of the pluralities of successful request response (Fig. 6, el. 602 Fig. 6, el. 608-616).
Regarding claim 6, Krishan teaches, wherein a portion of the set of parameters corresponds to a geographic area (Paragraph 72).
Regarding claim 7, Krishan teaches, wherein the SCP forms part of a segment of the network, and the network comprises a plurality of segments each having one or more SCPs, one or more network repository functions (NRFs), and one or more NF producers (Paragraph 21: system for optimized NF discovery and routing comprises a service communications proxy (SCP) including at least one processor. The system includes an NF repository function (NRF) including at least one processor and Paragraph 43).
Regarding claim 8, see claim 1 rejection.
Regarding claim 9, Krishan teaches, discarding, by the SCP, all other successful request responses upon performance of the transmittal of the one of the plurality of successful request response (Paragraph 79: step 608, if the NRF is not finished iterating through all of the custom headers, control proceeds to step 610 where NRF 100 determines whether there are any service profiles in the service profile list created in step 602 that match the current endpoint being examined in the custom headers. If a matching endpoint is located, control proceeds to step 612 where NRF 100 removes the service instance from the service profile list. Removing the service profile from the list includes the deleting the service profile for the producer NF instance from the list of service profiles that will be provided to the SCP or consumer NF in the discovery response).
Regarding claim 13, see claim 6 rejections.
Regarding claim 14, see claim 7 rejections.
Regarding claim 15, see claim 1 rejection.
Regarding claim 16, see claim 9 rejections.
Regarding claim 19, see claim 13 rejections.
Regarding claim 20, see claim 14 rejections.
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.
Claims 5, 12, 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Krishan (US 20220060547) in view of Lu (US 20230261953).
Regarding claim 5, Krishan teaches, plurality of NF producers (see claim 1).
Krishan does not teach wherein the plurality of NF producers is a plurality of Access & Mobility Management Functions (AMF).
Lu teaches method for delivery notification (abstract), wherein the plurality of NF producers is a plurality of Access & Mobility Management Functions (AMF) (paragraph 189).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one with ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the claimed invention to modify Krishan with Lu to use cell broadcast for public warning for sending out a call broadcast message to a few million people in less than seconds.
Regarding claim 12, see claim 5 rejections.
Regarding claim 18, see claim 12 rejections.
Also during search, Examiner found the following related art:
Rodrigo (US 12107916) teaches (abstract: method for prioritizing a plurality of first NF nodes of at least one service producer. Transmission of a first message is initiated (202) towards a network repository function (NRF) node. The first message comprises information indicative of a plurality of criteria and an order of importance of the criteria. The information is for use in assigning priority information to the plurality of first NF nodes. For each first NF node, the priority information is indicative of a priority with which the first NF node is to be selected to provide a service relative to at least one other first NF node of the plurality of first NF nodes and the priority information is assigned based on one or more criteria of the criteria that the first NF node meets and the position of the one or more criteria in the order of importance of the criteria) and ( FIGS. 1C and 1D, a service request is sent indirectly from the NF node of the service consumer to the NF node of the service producer via a service communication proxy (SCP) node. A response to the service request is sent indirectly from the NF node of the service producer to the NF node of the service consumer via the SCP node. Similarly, any subsequent service requests are sent indirectly from the NF node of the service consumer to the NF node of the service producer via the SCP node. The systems illustrated in FIGS. 1C and 1D also comprise an NRF node).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-4, 10-11, 17 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.
Reason for indicating the allowable matter, that none of the cited arts alone or in reasonable combination teaches:
Although Krishan teaches (paragraph 17: creating the list of service profiles of producer NF instances includes extracting a service name parameter from the discovery, identifying service profiles of producer NF instances capable of providing the service identified by the service name parameter, and including the service profiles of the producer NF instances capable of providing the service identified by the service name parameter in the list) it does not teach alone or in reasonable combination (receiving a second request, such that the plurality of target NF producers are based on the second request) as claimed in claims 3 and 10 “claims 4 and 11” depending on 3 and 10”.
Also none of the cited arts alone or in reasonable combination teaches (receive, by the SCP, a failure request response corresponding to one of the target NF producers having another set of parameters; transmit, by the SCP, the failure request response and the other set of parameters to the NF consumer; and receive, by the SCP, another request from the NF consumer, the other request including the other set of parameters) as claimed in 17.
Conclusion
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/MARIA EL-ZOOBI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2692
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