DETAILED ACTION
The current office action is in response to the communication filed on 5/12/2025.
The applicant cancelled claims 1-20 and added claims 21-38 in the Preliminary Amendment received on 6/27/25.
Claims 21-38 are pending.
The Examiner recommends filing a written authorization for Internet communication in response to the present action. Doing so permits the USPTO to communicate with Applicant using Internet email to schedule interviews or discuss other aspects of the application. Without a written authorization in place, the USPTO cannot respond to Internet correspondence received from Applicant. The preferred method of providing authorization is by filing form PTO/SB/439, available at: https://www.uspto.gov/patent/forms/forms. See MPEP § 502.03 for other methods of providing written authorization.
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 .
Paper Submitted
It is hereby acknowledged that the following papers have been received and placed of record in the file:
Information Disclosure Statement(s) as received on 2/4/26 are considered by the Examiner.
Specification
The title of the invention is not descriptive. A new title is required that is clearly indicative of the invention to which the claims are directed.
The disclosure is objected to because of the following informalities:
Typically abbreviations/acronyms are used after an expansion is provided to the abbreviations/acronyms. However, in the Specification, “NFV,” “GSMA,” “App,” “OPG,” “MEO,” “MNOs,” “UEs,” “x86,” “AMD,” “ARM,” “ISO,” “PHY,” “MAC,” “VMs,” “ASIC,” “FaaS,” “PC,” “LPWA,” “IEEE,” “LTE,” “LTE-A,” “OMA,” “M2M,” “RAN,” “MP2,” “XML,” “HTML,” “JSON,” “LAN,” “WAN,” “PAN,” “DN,” “LADN,” “DNS,” “DP,” “VI,” “IP,” “PC,” “RNIS,” “LS,” “UE_ID,” “BWMS,” “WAID,” “FAIS,” “API,” “HTTP,” “NAN/AP,” “WLAN,” “VIM,” “LCM,” “Mx2,” “RATs,” “CDN,” “ETSI,” “ISG,” “VNFM,” “MEFM/B,” “SmartNIC,” “SOC,” “NAND,” “NOR,” “SPA/SAS,” “CD-ROM,” “DVD-ROM,” “OEMs,” “SQL,” “ASCII,” ETC. are used before they are expanded. It is suggested to use expansions before using their abbreviations/acronyms. Appropriate correction is required.
Examiner respectfully requests applicant to review and correct any other paragraphs that may contain typographical/grammatical errors.
Claim Objections
Claims 27-32 are objected to because of the following informalities:
The period (“.”) following the word “the” in claim 28, line 3, should be removed. Appropriate correction is required.
The limitation “…the federated manager.” in claim 32, line 2, should be “…the federation manager.” (emphasis added) in order to resolve the lack of antecedent basis for the limitation. Appropriate correction is required.
All dependent claims are objected to as having the same deficiencies as the claims they depend from.
Note: For examination purposes, the claims will be interpreted based on the claim language suggested by the Examiner.
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 21-26 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter.
Claims 21-26 lack the necessary physical articles or objects to constitute a machine or a manufacture within the meaning of 35 U.S.C. 101. They are clearly not a series of steps or acts to be a process nor are they a combination of chemical compounds to be a composition of matter. As such, they fail to fall within a statutory category.
Claims 21-26 recite an apparatus comprising a first federation manager (software), a mobile edge orchestrator (software), a northbound interface (software), and an operations support system (software); thus, the claims do not meet the definition of a machine and thereby do not fall under any of the patent eligible statutory categories. A machine is “a concrete thing, consisting of parts, or of certain devices and combination of devices”.
All dependent claims are rejected to as having the same deficiencies as the claims they depend from.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 21-22, 27-29 and 32-34 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by “Lee et al.” (US PGPUB 2023/0283511) (Hereinafter Lee).
With respect to claim 21, Lee teaches an apparatus (system of Fig. 1; [0053]) comprising:
a first federation manager (federation manager(s) 100; Fig. 1, [0053]) to communicate over an east-west bound interface (federation managers 100 realize functions for direct linkage between multi access edge computing (MEC) systems (MEC services); Fig. 1, [0056]);
a mobile edge orchestrator (MEO) (mobile edge orchestrator (MEO); Fig. 1, [0069]) to communicate with the first federation manager, the MEO to, based on an update to multi-access edge computing (MEC) system-wide MEC application instance information, transmit updated MEC system-wide MEC application instance information to the first federation manager (federation manager(s) 100 receives, from at least one MEO, information related to at least one multi-access edge computing (MEC) system and at least one of MEC applications installed in the MEC system, and registers the information. The information about each MEC system is updated and managed with the latest information; Fig. 1, [0069]-[0079]); and
the first federation manager to:
obtain the updated MEC system-wide MEC application instance information (federation manager(s) 100 receives, from at least one MEO, information related to at least one multi-access edge computing (MEC) system and at least one of MEC applications installed in the MEC system, and registers the information. The information about each MEC system is updated and managed with the latest information; Fig. 1, [0069]-[0079]); and
transmit the updated MEC system-wide MEC application instance information to a second federation manager via the east-west bound interface (each of the federation managers 100 stores/manages information about an MEC system provided by each MEC provider, and transmits/exchanges the information managed/held thereby to/with another federation manager; Fig. 1, [0057], [0080]), the first federation manager corresponding to a first operator platform (OP), the second federation manager corresponds to a second OP different than the first OP (each of the federation managers 100 are provided for each MEC system or for multiple MNOs; Fig. 1, [0058], [0080]).
With respect to claim 22, Lee teaches the apparatus of claim 21, wherein the first OP and the second OP make up a MEC federation (federation managers 100 realize functions for direct linkage between multi access edge computing (MEC) systems (MEC services); Fig. 1, [0056]), [0058], [0080]).
With respect to claim 27, Lee teaches an apparatus (federation manager(s) 100; Fig. 1, [0053], [0066]) comprising:
at least one memory; instructions; and processor circuitry to be programmed by the instructions (instructions are executed by a processor for controlling operation in the federation manager 100, and these instructions are installed in a memory of the federation manager 100; Fig. 1, [0066]) to:
obtain updated multi-access edge computing (MEC) system-wide MEC application instance information (federation manager(s) 100 receives, from at least one MEO, information related to at least one multi-access edge computing (MEC) system and at least one of MEC applications installed in the MEC system, and registers the information. The information about each MEC system is updated and managed with the latest information; Fig. 1, [0069]-[0079]); and
transmit the updated MEC system-wide MEC application instance information to a federation manager via an east-west bound interface (each of the federation managers 100 stores/manages information about an MEC system provided by each MEC provider, and transmits/exchanges the information managed/held thereby to/with another federation manager; Fig. 1, [0057], [0080]), the processor circuitry corresponding to a first operator platform (OP), the federation manager corresponds to a second OP different than the first OP (each of the federation managers 100 are provided for each MEC system or for multiple MNOs; Fig. 1, [0058], [0080]).
With respect to claim 28, Lee teaches the apparatus of claim 27, wherein the processor circuitry is to obtain the updated multi-access edge computing (MEC) system-wide MEC application instance information from a mobile edge orchestrator (MEO) based on an update to the. multi-access edge computing (MEC) system-wide MEC application instance information (federation manager(s) 100 receives, from at least one MEO, information related to at least one multi-access edge computing (MEC) system and at least one of MEC applications installed in the MEC system, and registers the information. The information about each MEC system is updated and managed with the latest information; Fig. 1, [0069]-[0079]).
With respect to claim 29, Lee teaches the apparatus of claim 27, wherein the first OP and the second OP make up a MEC federation (federation managers 100 realize functions for direct linkage between multi access edge computing (MEC) systems (MEC services); Fig. 1, [0056]), [0058], [0080]).
With respect to claim 32, Lee teaches the apparatus of claim 27, wherein the east-west bound interface connects the processor circuitry to the federated manager (each of the federation managers 100 stores/manages information about an MEC system provided by each MEC provider, and transmits/exchanges the information managed/held thereby to/with another federation manager; Fig. 1, [0057], [0080]).
With respect to claim 33, Lee teaches an apparatus (federation manager(s) 100; Fig. 1, [0053], [0066]) comprising:
at least one memory; instructions; and processor circuitry to be programmed by the instructions (instructions are executed by a processor for controlling operation in the federation manager 100, and these instructions are installed in a memory of the federation manager 100; Fig. 1, [0066]) to:
based on an update to multi-access edge computing (MEC) system-wide MEC application instance information (federation manager(s) 100 receives, from at least one MEO, information related to at least one multi-access edge computing (MEC) system and at least one of MEC applications installed in the MEC system, and registers the information. The information about each MEC system is updated and managed with the latest information; Fig. 1, [0069]-[0079]), transmit updated MEC system-wide MEC application instance information to a federation manager (each of the federation managers 100 stores/manages information about an MEC system provided by each MEC provider, and transmits/exchanges the information managed/held thereby to/with another federation manager; Fig. 1, [0057], [0080]).
With respect to claim 34, Lee teaches the apparatus of claim 33, wherein the processor circuitry corresponds to a first operator platform (OP) (each of the federation managers 100 are provided for each MEC system or for multiple MNOs; Fig. 1, [0058], [0080]), the updated MEC system-wide MEC application instance information to be transmitted to a second OP (each of the federation managers 100 stores/manages information about an MEC system provided by each MEC provider, and transmits/exchanges the information managed/held thereby to/with another federation manager; Fig. 1, [0057], [0080]), the first OP and the second OP making up a MEC federation (federation managers 100 realize functions for direct linkage between multi access edge computing (MEC) systems (MEC services); Fig. 1, [0056]), [0058], [0080]).
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 of this title, 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 23-26, 30-31 and 35-38 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee in view of “Wang et al.” (US PGPUB 2021/0243580) (Hereinafter Wang).
With respect to claim 23, Lee teaches the apparatus of claim 22. Lee does not teach further including a northbound interface (NBI) providing an interoperable solution for enabling edge application developers to access the MEC federation.
However, Wang teaches further including a northbound interface (NBI) providing an interoperable solution for enabling edge application developers to access the MEC federation (an external applications controller 218 (e.g., acting on behalf of an application owner) is in communication with a multi access edge computing (MEC) applications manager 210. The MEC applications manager 210 receives MEC application criteria from external (e.g., third-party) applications controller; Figs. 2, 4 and 6, [0032], [0091], [0124]).
It would have been obvious to a person with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate enabling application developers to access a MEC federation to Lee because Lee discloses storing and managing application information ([0071]) and Wang suggests enabling application developers to access a MEC federation ([0091]).
One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to utilize the teachings of Wang in the Lee system in order to facilitate resource sharing and scalability.
With respect to claim 24, Lee teaches the apparatus of claim 22. Lee does not teach further including an operations support system (OSS) to receive a request from application for relocation application between an external cloud and the MEC federation.
However, Wang teaches further including an operations support system (OSS) to receive a request from application for relocation application between an external cloud and the MEC federation (a MEC server receives requests from external service providers to instantiate their external (or third-party) applications (or MEC applications) on a MEC server(s); Figs. 2, 4 and 6, [0032]-[0033], [0045]).
It would have been obvious to a person with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate requesting application relocation to Lee because Lee discloses storing and managing application information ([0071]) and Wang suggests requesting application relocation ([0032]).
One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to utilize the teachings of Wang in the Lee system in order to provide improved management of MEC applications.
With respect to claim 25, Lee teaches the apparatus of claim 21. Lee does not teach further including a northbound interface (NBI) providing an interface between an application provider and the first OP.
However, Wang teaches further including a northbound interface (NBI) providing an interface between an application provider and the first OP (an external applications controller 218 (e.g., acting on behalf of an application owner) is in communication with a multi access edge computing (MEC) applications manager 210. The MEC applications manager 210 receives MEC application criteria from external (e.g., third-party) applications controller; Figs. 2, 4 and 6, [0032], [0091], [0124]).
It would have been obvious to a person with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate providing an interface to an application provider to Lee because Lee discloses storing and managing application information ([0071]) and Wang suggests providing an interface to an application provider ([0091]).
One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to utilize the teachings of Wang in the Lee system in order to facilitate resource sharing and scalability.
With respect to claim 26, Lee teaches the apparatus of claim 21. Lee does not teach further including an operations support system (OSS) to determine whether to grant instantiation or termination requests from a MEC app.
However, Wang teaches further including an operations support system (OSS) to determine whether to grant instantiation or termination requests from a MEC app (a MEC server receives requests from external service providers to instantiate their external (or third-party) applications (or MEC applications) on a MEC server(s). The MEC server may then grant or deny the request to instantiate the application; Figs. 2, 4 and 6, [0032]-[0033], [0043], [0045]).
It would have been obvious to a person with ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate determining whether to grant application requests to Lee because Lee discloses storing and managing application information ([0071]) and Wang suggests determining whether to grant application requests ([0032]).
One of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to utilize the teachings of Wang in the Lee system in order to provide improved management of MEC applications.
The limitations of claims 30-31 are rejected in the analysis of claims 23 and 25 respectively and these claims are rejected on that basis.
The limitations of claims 35-38 are rejected in the analysis of claims 23-26 respectively and these claims are rejected on that basis.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant’s disclosure:
Purkayastha et al. US 2024/0196184. Discloses discovery and interoperation of constrained devices with MEC platform.
Chauhan et al. US 2022/0052961. Discloses resource discovery in a multi-edge computing network.
Featherstone. US 2022/0393944. Discloses managing an application instance by a multi-access edge computing orchestrator.
Sabella et al. US 2022/0086218. Discloses interworking between different edge computing technologies.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Johnny B Aguiar whose telephone number is (571)272-3563. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday to Friday 7:30 am - 5:30 pm EST.
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, Joon Hwang can be reached on (571) 272-4036. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/JOHNNY B AGUIAR/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2447
October 14, 2026
