Prosecution Insights
Last updated: August 30, 2026
Application No. 19/125,470

POLICY BASED ACTIVATION OF CAPABILITIES

Non-Final OA §102§103
Filed
Apr 29, 2025
Priority
Nov 04, 2022 — nonprovisional of PCTCN2022129728
Examiner
ALGIBHAH, HAMZA N
Art Unit
2457
Tech Center
2400 — Computer Networks
Assignee
Nokia Corporation
OA Round
1 (Non-Final)
79%
Grant Probability
Favorable
1-2
OA Rounds
1y 8m
Est. Remaining
82%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 79% — above average
79%
Career Allowance Rate
579 granted / 732 resolved
+21.1% vs TC avg
Minimal +3% lift
Without
With
+3.1%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
2y 12m
Avg Prosecution
27 currently pending
Career history
757
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
12.6%
-27.4% vs TC avg
§103
52.2%
+12.2% vs TC avg
§102
19.9%
-20.1% vs TC avg
§112
9.8%
-30.2% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 732 resolved cases

Office Action

§102 §103
Details Claims 1-10 and 24-33 are pending. Claims 11-23 and 34-47 are canceled. Claims 1-10 and 24-33 are rejected. 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) 1-2, 10, 24-25, and 31-33 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by Qureshi et al (Pub. No.: US 2020/0389358 A1). As per claim 1, Qureshi discloses a first apparatus (Qureshi, Fig 1 for example item 103 “data server”), comprising: - at least one processor (Qureshi, Fig 1 item 111) - at least one memory (Qureshi, Fig 1 item 113, 115, 121) storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor (Qureshi, Fig 1 item 113, 115, 121, paragraph 0037, wherein “Data server 103 may further include RAM 113, ROM 115, network interface 117, input/output interfaces 119 (e.g., keyboard, mouse, display, printer, etc.), and memory 121. I/O 119 may include a variety of interface units and drives for reading, writing, displaying, and/or printing data or files. Memory 121 may further store operating system software 123 for controlling overall operation of the data processing device 103, control logic 125 for instructing data server 103 to perform aspects described herein, and other application software 127 providing secondary, support, and/or other functionality which may or may not be used in conjunction with aspects described herein”), cause the first apparatus to - determine an activation policy for activating a set of capabilities of a network entity at a second apparatus (Qureshi, paragraph 0099, wherein “For instance, some mobile device management policies may define permitted and/or prohibited functions and/or applications based on different sets of circumstances that may be evaluated using the device state information collected by the MDM agent”;Paragraph 0101, wherein “the computing device and/or the MDM agent running on the computing device may send state information (which may, e.g., include various types of device state information as discussed herein) to the one or more policy management servers, which may, for instance, be configured to analyze such information and provide commands and/or other information back to the computing device and/or the MDM agent running on the computing device. In addition, in receiving commands from one or more policy management servers, the computing device and/or the MDM agent running on the computing device may receive new and/or updated policies and/or other policy information, remotely analyzed and/or otherwise processed device state information”; Thus, the data server (first apparatus) determines new policy that defines permitted and/or prohibited functions (activation policy) at the computing device (second apparatus) );- send the determined activation policy to the second apparatus (Qureshi, paragraph 0101, wherein “In addition, in receiving commands from one or more policy management servers, the computing device and/or the MDM agent running on the computing device may receive new and/or updated policies and/or other policy information, remotely analyzed and/or otherwise processed device state information”);- receive status information on execution of the activation policy from the second apparatus (Qureshi, paragraph 0116, wherein “In some embodiments, monitoring the state information may include providing at least some of the state information to one or more policy management servers and receiving management information from the one or more policy management servers. For example, in monitoring the state information (e.g., in step 610), the computing device and/or the MDM agent running on the computing device may provide at least some of the state information monitored by the MDM agent to one or more policy management servers by connecting to, and subsequently sending the state information to, the one or more policy management servers”); and- update the activation policy based on the received status information (Qureshi, paragraph 0116, wherein “For example, after providing the state information to the one or more policy management servers, the computing device and/or the MDM agent running on the computing device may receive management information from the one or more policy management servers, and such management information may be generated by the one or more policy management servers based on the provided state information. In some instances, the management information may include one or more commands to be executed by the computing device and/or by the MDM agent. For example, the management information may include one or more commands that, when executed, cause the computing device and/or the MDM agent to selectively enable and/or selective disable application tunneling functionalities for one or more specific applications, as discussed below. In other instances, the management information may include one or more policy updates. For example, the management information may include one or more policy updates that reflect one or more new and/or updated policies to be applied to the application tunneling functionalities”); As per claim 2, claim 1 is incorporated and Qureshi further discloses wherein the first apparatus is caused to determine the activation policy by: receiving, from the second apparatus, information on a plurality of capabilities of the network entity, the set of capabilities being at least part of the plurality of capabilities; and determining the activation policy based on the plurality of capabilities of the network entity (Qureshi, paragraph 0101, wherein “the computing device and/or the MDM agent running on the computing device may send state information (which may, e.g., include various types of device state information as discussed herein) to the one or more policy management servers, which may, for instance, be configured to analyze such information and provide commands and/or other information back to the computing device and/or the MDM agent running on the computing device. In addition, in receiving commands from one or more policy management servers, the computing device and/or the MDM agent running on the computing device may receive new and/or updated policies and/or other policy information, remotely analyzed and/or otherwise processed device state information”); As per claim 10, claim 1 is incorporated and Qureshi further discloses wherein the activation policy comprises a rule-based policy based on at least one activation rule (Qureshi, paragraph 0037, wherein “logic may also be referred to herein as the data server software 125. Functionality of the data server software may refer to operations or decisions made automatically based on rules coded into the control logic, made manually by a user providing input into the system, and/or a combination of automatic processing based on user input (e.g., queries, data updates, etc.)”). Claims 24-25 and 31 are rejected under the same rationale as claims 1-2 and 10. As per claim 32, claim 31 is incorporated and Qureshi further discloses wherein the status information comprises a deviation in a metric of a condition for execution of the rule-based policy (Qureshi, paragraph 0110, wherein “Such application inventory information may, for instance, include a listing of the applications that are running on the computing device, installed on the computing device, and/or otherwise present on the computing device, as well as status information about each of the applications included in the listing (e.g., indicating whether the application is open, whether the application is being executed locally, whether the application is being executed remotely, whether the application is being run inside the managed browser, etc.) and/or other information about the applications”). As per claim 33, claim 31 is incorporated and Qureshi further discloses wherein the at least one activation rule comprises one or more of the following: a complete set of AI/ML capabilities to be activated; a largest desired activation scope; a target activation scope; or an activation constraint or condition (Qureshi, paragraph 0101, wherein “the computing device and/or the MDM agent running on the computing device may send state information (which may, e.g., include various types of device state information as discussed herein) to the one or more policy management servers, which may, for instance, be configured to analyze such information and provide commands and/or other information back to the computing device and/or the MDM agent running on the computing device. In addition, in receiving commands from one or more policy management servers, the computing device and/or the MDM agent running on the computing device may receive new and/or updated policies and/or other policy information, remotely analyzed and/or otherwise processed device state information”); 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 3-4 and 26-27 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Qureshi et al (Pub. No.: US 2014/0297840 A1) in view of Ying et al (Pub. No.: US 2022/0014942 A1). As per claim 3, claim 1 is incorporated and Qureshi further discloses wherein the activation policy indicates a mode in which the first apparatus interacts with the second apparatus for the activation (Qureshi, paragraph 0099, wherein “For instance, some mobile device management policies may define permitted and/or prohibited functions and/or applications based on different sets of circumstances that may be evaluated using the device state information collected by the MDM agent”). Qureshi does not explicitly disclose wherein: the first apparatus is an artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) management service (MnS) consumer and the second apparatus is an AI/ML MnS producer; the network entity is an AI/ML entity. However, using artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) management service (MnS) consumers and producers is well known in the art. For example, Ying discloses wherein: the first apparatus is an artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) management service (MnS) consumer and the second apparatus is an AI/ML MnS producer; the network entity is an AI/ML entity (Ying, abstract, wherein “The services include ML model monitoring, getting and putting ML models from and to an A1-ML producer and an A1-ML consumer, and terminating the use of an ML mode. The ML model monitoring includes the A1-ML consumer sending monitoring data to the A1-ML producer and the A1-ML producer processing the monitoring data and taking actions based on the monitoring data”). Therefore, it would have it would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate Ying with Qureshi to achieve the claimed limitations because it would have allowed to benefit from AI technologies which can improve the system performance and accuracy. As per claim 4, claim 1 is incorporated and Qureshi further discloses wherein the set of capabilities are (Qureshi, paragraph 0102, wherein “n some embodiments, the managed browser may be a web browser that is configured to provide one or more enterprise security features. For example, the managed browser may be configured to provide and/or operate in a "managed" mode in which one or more mobile device management policies (which may, e.g., be defined and/or distributed by an enterprise) may be enforced on the browser (e.g., such that various functions of the browser, including the browser's ability to access and/or interact with enterprise resources and/or other content may be restricted in accordance with one or more policies and/or based on device state information), and the managed browser may be configured to provide and/or operate in an "unmanaged" mode in which policies might not be enforced, but the browser's ability to access specific resources, including one or more enterprise resources, may be restricted. Additionally or alternatively, the managed browser may extend various enterprise security features for use with mobile device applications that may be configured to run within the browser. For example, an enterprise may require some or all of its employees and/or other users to install and use the managed browser on their respective mobile devices in a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) scheme to reduce enterprise security risks. In addition, the managed browser can, for instance, be used to enable mobile device users to access a corporate intranet and/or other enterprise resources without connecting to a virtual private network (VPN). For instance, the managed browser may implement and/or provide tunneling functionalities, such as those discussed in greater detail below, to enable such access to a corporate intranet and/or other enterprise resources”). Qureshi does not explicitly disclose that the capabilities are AI/ML capabilities. However, using artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) is well known in the art. For example, Ying discloses AI/ML capabilities (Ying, abstract, wherein “The services include ML model monitoring, getting and putting ML models from and to an A1-ML producer and an A1-ML consumer, and terminating the use of an ML mode. The ML model monitoring includes the A1-ML consumer sending monitoring data to the A1-ML producer and the A1-ML producer processing the monitoring data and taking actions based on the monitoring data”). Therefore, it would have it would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to incorporate Ying with Qureshi to achieve the claimed limitations because it would have allowed to benefit from AI technologies which can improve the system performance and accuracy. Claims 5-9 and 28-30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Qureshi et al (Pub. No.: US 2014/0297840 A1) in view of Zahavy et al (Pub. No.: US 2024/0104389 A1). As per claim 5, claim 1 is incorporated and Qureshi does not explicitly disclose wherein the activation policy is an activation policy step of a step-based policy. However, Zahavy discloses wherein the activation policy is an activation policy step of a step-based policy (Zahavy, paragraph 0044, wherein “FIG. 3 is a flow diagram of an example process for iteratively updating parameters of a new policy. This generally equates to steps 220 and 230 of FIG. 2”) Therefore, it would have been obvious to one ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the invention to modify Qureshi to so that the activation policy is an activation policy step of a step-based policy as claimed limitations because it would have allowed to apply Qureshi application to systems that require step-based policies. As per claim 6, claim 5 is incorporated and Qureshi further discloses wherein the first apparatus is caused to update the activation policy by: determining a next activation policy step of the step-based policy based on the status information on execution of at least one previous activation policy step (Qureshi, paragraph 0101, wherein “the computing device and/or the MDM agent running on the computing device may send state information (which may, e.g., include various types of device state information as discussed herein) to the one or more policy management servers, which may, for instance, be configured to analyze such information and provide commands and/or other information back to the computing device and/or the MDM agent running on the computing device. In addition, in receiving commands from one or more policy management servers, the computing device and/or the MDM agent running on the computing device may receive new and/or updated policies and/or other policy information, remotely analyzed and/or otherwise processed device state information”); As per claim 7, claim 5 is incorporated and Qureshi further discloses wherein the status information comprises one or more of the following: activation status; an activated AI/ML capability description; an activation scope description; or a report of metrics or changes as requested by the first apparatus (Qureshi, paragraph 0102, wherein “n some embodiments, the managed browser may be a web browser that is configured to provide one or more enterprise security features. For example, the managed browser may be configured to provide and/or operate in a "managed" mode in which one or more mobile device management policies (which may, e.g., be defined and/or distributed by an enterprise) may be enforced on the browser (e.g., such that various functions of the browser, including the browser's ability to access and/or interact with enterprise resources and/or other content may be restricted in accordance with one or more policies and/or based on device state information), and the managed browser may be configured to provide and/or operate in an "unmanaged" mode in which policies might not be enforced, but the browser's ability to access specific resources, including one or more enterprise resources, may be restricted. Additionally or alternatively, the managed browser may extend various enterprise security features for use with mobile device applications that may be configured to run within the browser. For example, an enterprise may require some or all of its employees and/or other users to install and use the managed browser on their respective mobile devices in a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) scheme to reduce enterprise security risks. In addition, the managed browser can, for instance, be used to enable mobile device users to access a corporate intranet and/or other enterprise resources without connecting to a virtual private network (VPN). For instance, the managed browser may implement and/or provide tunneling functionalities, such as those discussed in greater detail below, to enable such access to a corporate intranet and/or other enterprise resources”). As per claim 8, claim 5 is incorporated and Qureshi further discloses wherein the activation policy step is associated with one or more of the following: a set of AI/ML capabilities to be activated; an object or an objects type; a network context; an activation time window; or a network performance metric of interest to be monitored or reported (Qureshi, paragraph 0102, wherein “In some embodiments, the managed browser may be a web browser that is configured to provide one or more enterprise security features. For example, the managed browser may be configured to provide and/or operate in a "managed" mode in which one or more mobile device management policies (which may, e.g., be defined and/or distributed by an enterprise) may be enforced on the browser (e.g., such that various functions of the browser, including the browser's ability to access and/or interact with enterprise resources and/or other content may be restricted in accordance with one or more policies and/or based on device state information), and the managed browser may be configured to provide and/or operate in an "unmanaged" mode in which policies might not be enforced, but the browser's ability to access specific resources, including one or more enterprise resources, may be restricted. Additionally or alternatively, the managed browser may extend various enterprise security features for use with mobile device applications that may be configured to run within the browser. For example, an enterprise may require some or all of its employees and/or other users to install and use the managed browser on their respective mobile devices in a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) scheme to reduce enterprise security risks. In addition, the managed browser can, for instance, be used to enable mobile device users to access a corporate intranet and/or other enterprise resources without connecting to a virtual private network (VPN). For instance, the managed browser may implement and/or provide tunneling functionalities, such as those discussed in greater detail below, to enable such access to a corporate intranet and/or other enterprise resources”). As per claim 9, claim 5 is incorporated and Zahavy further discloses wherein the first apparatus is further caused to update the activation policy step iteratively until one or more of the following: a desired capability in a desired scope is activated; or a desired metric is achieved (Zahavy, paragraph 0044, wherein “FIG. 3 is a flow diagram of an example process for iteratively updating parameters of a new policy. This generally equates to steps 220 and 230 of FIG. 2”); Claims 28-30 are rejected under the same rationale as claims 5-9. Conclusion Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HAMZA N ALGIBHAH whose telephone number is (571)270-7212. The examiner can normally be reached 7:30 am - 3:30 pm. Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, applicant is encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Ario Etienne can be reached on ario.etienne@uspto.gov. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of published or unpublished applications may be obtained from Patent Center. Unpublished application information in Patent Center is available to registered users. To file and manage patent submissions in Patent Center, visit: https://patentcenter.uspto.gov. Visit https://www.uspto.gov/patents/apply/patent-center for more information about Patent Center and https://www.uspto.gov/patents/docx for information about filing in DOCX format. For additional questions, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). If you would like assistance from a USPTO Customer Service Representative, call 800-786-9199 (IN USA OR CANADA) or 571-272-1000. /HAMZA N ALGIBHAH/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2457
Read full office action

Prosecution Timeline

Apr 29, 2025
Application Filed
Jul 01, 2026
Non-Final Rejection mailed — §102, §103 (current)

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Study what changed to get past this examiner. Based on 5 most recent grants.

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Prosecution Projections

1-2
Expected OA Rounds
79%
Grant Probability
82%
With Interview (+3.1%)
2y 12m (~1y 8m remaining)
Median Time to Grant
Low
PTA Risk
Based on 732 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allowance rate.

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