Obviousness

Obviousness Analysis (35 U.S.C. § 103)

As stated in the preceding "Prior art" section, the full patent text for US patent 9491564, including its claims and the "References Cited" section, was not provided in the user's message. Furthermore, I am unable to browse external URLs to retrieve this information from the designated authoritative source (Google Patents).

Therefore, it is not possible to perform a specific obviousness analysis under 35 U.S.C. § 103 for US patent 9491564. A proper obviousness analysis requires:

1. The claims of the patent at issue: Without the claims of US9491564, it is impossible to determine the scope of the invention and what aspects would need to be considered in light of prior art.
2. Specific prior art references: While a general overview of relevant technology areas was provided, specific patent citations are necessary to form combinations and assess their teachings.
3. A Person Having Ordinary Skill in the Art (PHOSITA): Defining the PHOSITA for this patent requires understanding its technical domain, which is broadly outlined by the title and definitions, but would be more precisely informed by the claims.
4. Motivation to combine: This requires identifying explicit or implicit reasons a PHOSITA would combine the teachings of multiple prior art references to arrive at the claimed invention, along with a reasonable expectation of success.

General Principles of Obviousness in the Context of US9491564 (Hypothetical)

If the claims and specific prior art were available, an obviousness analysis would typically involve identifying combinations of prior art references (A, B, C, etc.) that, when combined, would render one or more claims of US9491564 obvious to a PHOSITA. The "General Relevance of Prior Art" section identified several key areas, which, if embodied in actual prior art references, could lead to potential obviousness combinations:

• Mobile Device Management (Reference A) + Secure Communication (Reference B): If one reference teaches device management and control (e.g., remote provisioning of policies) and another teaches secure communication or authentication mechanisms, a PHOSITA might be motivated to combine them to implement secure policy updates or secure reporting from mobile devices. The motivation could stem from the common need for secure and reliable device management in modern communication networks.
• Network Service Policy/Traffic Management (Reference C) + Device-Side Implementation (Reference D): If a first reference describes network-based traffic shaping or service monitoring, and a second reference describes the ability to execute software agents or policy engines on a mobile device, a PHOSITA might be motivated to move some or all of the network-side policy implementation to the device for reasons such as reducing core network load, enabling finer-grained control, or supporting diverse billing models. The provided patent text explicitly mentions "distributing the network traffic policy implementation and control away from the core network by providing for more control for service policy implementation and management on the end user device" and "moving to this distributed service policy processing architecture also becomes more efficient and economical," which could represent motivations for such a combination.
• Billing Systems (Reference E) + Mobile Device Transactions (Reference F) + Security (Reference B): If references describe existing billing systems, mobile e-commerce, and general security protocols, a PHOSITA might be motivated to combine these to create a secure, device-assisted transaction billing system. The patent's goal of "device based transaction billing for an open ecosystem" could be seen as an incremental improvement driven by known industry needs to make mobile commerce more flexible and scalable. The challenge of "Device based billing can be compromised, hacked and/or spoofed" and the solution of "verifiable device assisted and/or network based service policy implementation" suggests that addressing known security vulnerabilities in such combined systems would be a natural development for a PHOSITA.
• Hierarchical Network Architectures (Reference G) + Distributed Processing (Reference D): The patent describes applying a "virtual network overlay networking solution... to simplify or flatten the network architecture." If prior art teaches traditional hierarchical networks and another teaches the benefits of distributed processing or edge computing, a PHOSITA might be motivated to combine these to flatten the network architecture by offloading processing to devices, thereby simplifying infrastructure and reducing costs, as explicitly stated in the patent ("reduces network infrastructure equipment, installation and maintenance costs").

Without the specific claims of US9491564 and the actual prior art cited during its prosecution (or any newly identified prior art), this analysis remains hypothetical and cannot provide definitive conclusions regarding the obviousness of the patented invention.