DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Continued Examination
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on March 27, 2026 has been entered.
This Office Action is in response to claim amendment filed on March 16, 2026 and wherein claims 1, 14, 18, 29 and 30 being currently amended, claims 3, 7 and 27 being cancelled.
In virtue of this communication, claims 1, 4-6, 8-26 and 28-30 are currently pending in this Office Action.
The Office appreciates the explanation of the amendment and analyses of the prior arts, and however, although the claims are interpreted in light of the specification, limitations from the specification are not read into the claims. See In re Van Geuns, 988 F.2d 1181, 26 USPQ2d 1057 (Fed. Cir. 1993) and MPEP 2145.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see Remarks, Pages 12-13, filed on March 16, 2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 18, 30 under 35 USC §102 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Zhao.
Applicant’s arguments, see Remarks, Pages 14-16, filed on March 16, 2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1, 29 under 35 USC §103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
Claims 18-26, 30 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Maino et al. (US 20200344662 A1, hereinafter Maino) in view of Zhao et al. (US 20230096727 A1, hereinafter Zhao).
Claim 18: Maino teaches A second network device for wireless communication (Fig. 14, [0021], “FIG. 14 is a schematic block diagram of a network node, such as the mobile network—fabric network gateway”, Fig.1B, elements 150, Fig. 1D, elements 150, 160), comprising: a processor (Fig. 14, element 1410); memory (Fig. 14, element 1420) coupled with the processor; and instructions stored in the memory and executable by the processor ([0094], “the memory 1420 stores instructions for control logic 1450 that, when executed by the processor 1410, causes the processor 1410 to perform various operations on behalf of the node 1400 as described herein. The memory 1420 also stores configuration information received from a network controller to configure the network node according to desired network functions”) to cause the apparatus to:
mapping information indicating a mapping of each quality of service flow of a plurality of quality of service flows of a first radio access technology to one or more service classes of a plurality of service classes of a second radio access technology supported by the second network device (Fig, 5A, 5B, [0063], “the network node or UE may receive a publication of policy mappings … The policy mappings may be mappings between a set of network fabric policy profiles of a fabric network of an enterprise private network and a set of mobile network policy profiles of a mobile network. See e.g. FIGS. 6A-6B and associated description”, Fig. 6A, 6B, [0067], “shows example policy mappings
between a set of network fabric policy profiles 602 associated with a fabric network of an enterprise private network and a set of mobile network policy profiles 604 of a mobile network …. such as QoS, encryption type, grade, or level, (service or data) access level, or segmentation”, Fig. 7, [0071], “the network node or UE may receive network fabric policy data associated with an application, subscriber, and/or device “, [0036], “Each EPS bearer may be associated with a QoS class identifier (QCI). A QCI specifies the QoS treatment of user plane flows that are associated with the bearer.
QCI characteristics include the packet delay budget, priority, and packet error loss rate”, [0043], “The outer IP header 206 may include source and destination IP address of the routing locators (e.g. RLOCs). As a UE may be assigned a (e.g. a static, unique) EID as well as a dynamically-assigned RLOC for its own tunnel router per LISP MN, IP data packet communications to and from the UE will use the RLOC of the UE tunnel router as well as the EID of the UE”);
translate, using a translation rule included in the mapping information, a header of a packet between a first network address of the first radio access technology and a second network address used by the second network device (Fig. 7, [0071-0073], wherein establishing a bearer associated with a QoS that corresponds to or matches the QoS of the fabric network , applying the generated packet filter to direct the IP traffic flow associated with the application to the established bearer of the mobile network. Fig. 9, element 906. Fig. 8B , wherein the packet filter may assess the outer IP header , may compare and/or match a source port value of the outer IP header with a specified source port value of the packet filter to direct the IP data packet to the appropriate bearer. Fig. 2A, 2B, [0043-0044], disclose source and destination IP addresses in details for endpoints and routing locators (RLOC), the identifier of the virtual network and the identifier of the group policy of the policy group, IP data packet communications to and from the UE will use the RLOC of the UE tunnel router as well as the EID of the UE. Fig. 12 and paragraph [0091], showing example types of classification for filtering, mapping or directing IP traffic flows to their appropriate dedicated bearers, classifier items may include a remote address, UE local port, Bearer ID, Packet filter ID, source port, a type of service (IPv4)/traffic class (IPv6) and etc., Fig. 4, element 406, 408, [0056-0060], claim 12, wherein decapsulating and re-encapsulating outer IP data packet with updated source IP address and destination address, wherein a new source IP address comprising the routing locator of the mobile network—fabric network gateway and a new destination IP address comprising a routing locator of a tunnel router of a user equipment (UE), and applying the packet filter or the packet detection rule, based on the identifier of the group policy, in order to direct the IP traffic flow to the bearer or QoS flow process. Fig. 6A, 6B, [0067-0068], disclose policy mapping between fabric network and mobile network, Fig, 10A, 10B, [0087-0089], disclose bearer ID is associated with corresponding QoS, [0098], “4G LTE uses EPS bearers, each of which is assigned an EPS bearer ID, and QoS is enforced at the EPS bearer level”, [0100], “The gNB may map the QoS flow to a specific data radio bearer”, [0060], “the dedicated bearer may be established or selected to satisfy a mobile network policy (e.g. QoS and/or encryption grade or level) that corresponds to or matches the network fabric policy (e.g. QoS and/or encryption grade or level) of the fabric network. The mobile network policy may correspond to or match the network fabric policy according to at least the group identifier of the group or group policy”);
and communicate the packet between a device associated with the second network device using a first service class of the plurality of service classes and a first quality of service flow of the plurality of quality of service flows based at least in part on translation of the header (Fig. 4, element 410, [0059], “The re-encapsulated IP data packet may include a new outer source IP address which is a routing locator of the network node. The re-encapsulated IP data packet may also include a new outer destination IP address which is a routing locator assigned to a UE tunnel router of the UE”. Fig. 10A, 10B, [0087-0089], disclose bearer ID is associated with corresponding QoS. Fig. 2A, element 206, 208, Fig. 2B, elements source IP, DEST IP, [0081-0084], disclose the packet filter performing packet filtering (comparing and/or matching) using IP header and XLAN headers data. disclose source and destination IP addresses in details for endpoints and routing locators, the identifier of the virtual network and the identifier of the group policy of the policy group. Fig. 7, element 710, [0073], wherein the network node may cause a packet filter to be generated for mapping or directing IP traffic flows associated with the application to the appropriate, established bearer of the mobile network.[0043], “The outer IP header 206 may include source and destination IP address of the routing locators (e.g. RLOCs). As a UE may be assigned a (e.g. a static, unique) EID as well as a dynamically-assigned RLOC for its own tunnel router per LISP MN, IP data packet communications to and from the UE will use the RLOC of the UE tunnel router as well as the EID of the UE”).
However, Maino does not explicitly teach receive, from a first network device and via a serial communication or a hypertext transfer protocol message,
Zhao, from the same or similar field of endeavor, teaches receive, from a first network device and via a serial communication (alternative) or a hypertext transfer protocol message (Fig. 2, element 208, [0025], “the request uses HTTP as a transport layer protocol, and thus the request is an HTTP request … the confirmation is an HTTP 200 response”, [0024], “the UE-requested PFD may be a 3-tuple of protocol, server-side IP address, and port number … comprise updating information for the CN PFD…the UE-requested PFD may comprise a DSCP mark having a DSCP value”, [0013], “an uplink (UL) packet is transmitted to the CN mapped to a QoS flow based on a differentiated services
code point (DSCP) mark derived from the updated PFD and received with the DL packet ”).
Maino and Zhao are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of wireless communication. Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the system of Maino and the features of receiving from a first network device via hypertext transfer protocol message as taught by Zhao, for the benefit of allowing the network receiving valid QoS flow information when the firewall exist between the network and the server, by employing a UE-driven method for PFD management, PFD updates are acquired from the UE ([0012]).
Claim 30 is analyzed and rejected according to claim 18.
Claim 19: Maino teaches the second network device of claim 18, wherein: the mapping information comprises an indication of a set of internet protocol addresses that are to be communicated to a quality of service flow; and the header is translated based at least in part on the set of internet protocol addresses (Fig. 2B, element group ID, [0060], wherein the mobile network policy or QoS may correspond to or match the network fabric policy according to at least the group identifier of the group or group policy, Fig. 2A, element 206, 208, Fig. 2B, elements source IP, DEST IP, [0081-0084], disclose the packet filter performing packet filtering (comparing and/or matching) using IP header and XLAN headers data. [0043-0044], disclose source and destination IP addresses in details for endpoints and routing locators, the identifier of the virtual network and the identifier of the group policy of the policy group).
Claim 20: The combination of Maino and Zhao teaches the second network device of claim 18, wherein the instructions are further executable by the processor to cause the apparatus to: transmit, to the first network device, an indication of the plurality of service classes, wherein the mapping information be received based at least in part on transmitting the indication of the plurality of service classes (Maino , Fig. 7, element 708a, 708b , [0072], “The network node may request a bearer of the mobile network to be established in satisfaction of the selected mobile network policy data that corresponds to the received network fabric policy data … a bearer associated with a QoS that corresponds to or matches the QoS of the fabric network may be established”, [0071], “UE may receive network fabric policy data associated with an application, subscriber, and/or device (step 704 of FIG. 7). For example, the network fabric policy data may be received as part of a request associated with a particular application at a host of the fabric network”, Fig. 8A, Fig. 6A, 6B, [0067-0068], disclose policy mapping between fabric network and mobile network, Fig. 5A, [0063], “the network node or UE may receive a publication of policy mappings (step 504 of FIG. 5A)… UE may receive corresponding publication updates to the policy mappings”.
Zhao, Fig. 2, element 212, [0027], “the DL packet may include information for a reflective QoS for UL packet mapping … an IP header of the DL packet includes a DSCP mark … may include a RQI setting ” ).
Claim 21: Maino teaches the second network device of claim 18, wherein the instructions are further executable by the processor to cause the apparatus to: transmit, to the first network device, a second packet that includes a traffic identifier that is mapped to a default quality of service flow associated with the first radio access technology ([0034], “the same or similar process may be applied in P-GW 104 for the DL. Packets that do not match any packet filters may be left for the default bearer”), wherein the mapping information be received based at least in part on transmitting the second packet (Fig. 9, element 904, [0082], “an IP data packet of an IP traffic flow may be received (step 904 of FIG. 9). One or more packet filters of the TFT may be applied to the IP traffic flow”, Fig. 12, [0091], packet filter ID inside TFT serve as traffic ID. [0071], “the network fabric policy data may be received as part of a request associated with a particular application at a host of the fabric network or the UE in the mobile network”. Fig. 12, disclose the default bearer for packet filter ID 8).
Claim 22: Maino teaches the second network device of claim 21, wherein the instructions are further executable by the processor to cause the apparatus to: receive from the device the second packet via a default service class ([0034], “When UE 101 needs to send an UL data packet, it checks the packet filters across all TFTs to determine whether there is a match with one of them … Packets that do not match any packet filters may be left for the default bearer”), wherein the second packet be transmitted to the second network device based at least in part on receiving the second packet from the device (Fig. 7, [0075], “When the method of FIG. 7 is performed by the UE, the step 704 of receiving may occur in response to the application being invoked at the UE. Also, the tunnel router at the UE may perform decapsulation and for delivery to the proper IP stack”, thus IP traffic is directing to network node MNFN GW. Fig. 6A, 6B further disclose Mapping is bi-direction between FABRIC NETWORK and MOBILE network).
Claim 23: Maino teaches the second network device of claim 18, wherein the instructions to communicate the packet are executable by the processor to cause the apparatus to: receive via the first service class, the packet from the device; insert, into a header of the packet, a traffic identifier that corresponds to the first service class based at least in part on the mapping information; and transmit, to the second network device, the packet that includes the traffic identifier (Fig. 9, [0081-0086], disclose receiving packet, IP header checking/comparing, directing IP traffic to the appropriate bearer. Fig.4, elements 406, 408, [0058-0059], disclose the method of decapsulating IP data packet and re-encapsulate the decapsulated IP data packet to generate a re-encapsulated IP data packet).
Claim 24: Maino teaches the second network device of claim 18, wherein the instructions to translate the header of the packet are executable by the processor to cause the apparatus to: receive the packet from the first network device, the packet including the first network address; and replace the first network address with the second network address that is mapped to the first network address via the mapping information, wherein the packet is transmitted to the device via the first service class (Fig. 4, element 408,[0059], “The re-encapsulated IP data packet may include a new outer source IP address which is a routing locator of the network node. The re-encapsulated IP data packet may also include a new outer destination IP address which is a routing locator assigned to a UE tunnel router of the UE”. Fig. 7, 8A, 8B, 9, [0085], “ingress traffic flows may be classified into different service data flows (SDFs) having different QoS classes based on the packet filters. SDF QoS may be maintained and controlled through the EPS bearers in the mobile network”, [0086], “Each EPS bearer may be associated with a QCI which specifies the QoS treatment of its user plane flows. QCI characteristics include the packet delay budget, priority, and packet error loss rate. QoS parameters include GBR, MBR, and ARP”. Zhao, Fi2, element 216, Fig. 4, element 410 ).
Claim 25: Maino teaches the second network device of claim 18, wherein the instructions to translate the header of the packet are executable by the processor to cause the apparatus to: receive, the packet from the device, the packet including the second network address; and replace the second network address with the first network address that is mapped to the second network address via the mapping information, wherein the packet is transmitted to the second network device (Fig. 4, element 408, [0059], “The re-encapsulated IP data packet may include a new outer source IP address which is a routing locator of the network node. The re-encapsulated IP data packet may also include a new outer destination IP address which is a routing locator assigned to a UE tunnel router of the UE”, Fig. 7, 8A, 8B, 9, [0085], “ ingress traffic flows may be classified into different service data flows (SDFs) having different QoS classes based on the packet filters. SDF QoS may be maintained and controlled through the EPS bearers in the mobile network”, [0086], “Each EPS bearer may be associated with a QCI which specifies the QoS treatment of its user plane flows. QCI characteristics include the packet delay budget, priority, and packet error loss rate. QoS parameters include GBR, MBR, and ARP”).
Claim 26: Maino teaches the second network device of claim 18, wherein the instructions are further executable by the processor to cause the apparatus to: scheduling communication of a plurality of packets include the packet based at least in part on a respective service class associated with each of the plurality of packets, wherein the packet is communicated based at least in part on the scheduling (Fig. 12, [0091], “TFT 1200 may include an UL packet filter ID associated with each one of a plurality of packet filter, as well as a packet filter evaluation precedence for each packet filter”, [0034], “Each packet filter may include a packet filter evaluation precedence. … UE 101 checks the packet filters starting with the one having the highest evaluation precedence”, thus evaluation precedence is reading as scheduling, [0085], “ ingress traffic flows may be classified into different service data flows (SDFs) having different QoS classes based on the packet filters. SDF QoS may be maintained and controlled through the EPS bearers in the mobile network”, [0086], “Each EPS bearer may be associated with a QCI which specifies the QoS treatment of its user plane flows. QCI characteristics include the packet delay budget, priority, and packet error loss rate. QoS parameters include GBR, MBR, and ARP”).
Claim 28 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Maino et al. (US 20200344662 A1, hereinafter Maino) in view of Zhao et al. (US 20230096727 A1, hereinafter Zhao) and further in view of Lin et al. (CN 106131234 A, hereinafter Lin).
Claim 28: Maino does not explicitly teach the second network device of claim 18, wherein: the mapping information is transmitted by a dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) server at the first network device and via a DHCP offer message that is transmitted to a DHCP client at the second network device; and the DHCP offer message includes the mapping information and indicates an identifier configured to cause the DHCP client to refrain from discarding the DHCP offer message.
However, Lin, from the same or similar field of endeavor, teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein: the mapping information is transmitted by a dynamic host configuration protocol (DHCP) server at the first network device and via a DHCP offer message that is transmitted to a DHCP client at the second network device; and the DHCP offer message includes the mapping information and indicates an identifier configured to cause the DHCP client to refrain from discarding the DHCP offer message (Page 2, line 2-4, “When the DHCP client and the DHCP server are on different physical network segments, the client can communicate with the server through the DHCP relay to obtain the IP address and other configuration information. The DHCP clients on multiple networks can use the same DHCP server”).
Maino and Lin are both considered to be analogous to the claimed invention because they are in the same field of wireless communication. Therefore, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the system of Maino and the features of exchanging mapping information from DHCP server and client as taught by Lin, which is well known technology in the field, thus allowing DHCP server to return configuration information such as the IP address assigned to the client to implement dynamic configuration of the IP address and other information.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1, 4-6, 8-17 and 29 are in condition for allowance.
Conclusion
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/Y.Z./Examiner, Art Unit 2472
/NICHOLAS A JENSEN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2472
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