DETAILED ACTION
Response to Remark
This communication is considered fully responsive to the amendment filed on 07/27/26.
Independent claims have been amended.
The previous 102 rejection by Salkintzis has been replaced with a new 103 rejection over Liao in view of Salkintzis.
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 1, 3, 5, 6, 8, 9, 12, 15, 19, and 21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liao (US 2021/0360742, “Liao”) in view of Salkintzis (US 2020/0236727, “Salkintzis”).
Regarding claim 1, Liao discloses a user equipment, UE (See 102 Fig.1, 5GC capable UE), configured for controlling packet data unit, PDU, session continuity in a system comprising:
- a residential gateway device (See 104 Fig.2, 5G-RG) having an established PDU session with a telecommunications network (See ¶.32, an established PDU session may be used to relay NAS messages of UE; See ¶.86, it may be assumed that the multiple PDU sessions are established for carrying traffic of the 5G-RG and the 5GC-capable UEs, respectively) storing a session management context for the residential gateway device relating to the established PDU session (See Fig. 6 and ¶.73, the AMF stores the PDU session ID, and the remote user context list in the UE context of the 5G-RG) and the residential gateway device providing a local network for a plurality of UEs using the established PDU session of the residential gateway device for data communication with a data network over the telecommunications network (See ¶.84, based on the local policy or UE subscriptions, a single PDU session with a particular DDN may be used for carrying traffic from the 5G-RG and the 5GC capable UE; See ¶.85, based on the local policy or UE subscriptions, multiple PDU sessions may be used for the 5G-RG to carry its own traffic and the remote UEs' traffic, respectively; See ¶.21, remote UEs), wherein the UE is configured to control the PDU session continuity (See 618 Fig.6 and ¶.71, 5GC capable UE initiates a PDU session establishment procedure) by the UE transmitting:
- a PDU session establishment request to the telecommunications network, not via the residential gateway device, but directly via a 3GPP radio access network of the telecommunication network (See ¶.71, after successful registration, the 5GC capable UE initiates a PDU session establishment procedure and the 5G-RG as relay UE sends a N1 message, e.g. PDU session establishment request, N1 transport, or a new N1 request, to forward the PDU session establishment request message sent by the 5GC capable UE by piggybacking the NAS PDU in its N1 message; Examiner’s Note: Salkintzis discloses the limitations “not via the residential gateway, but directly via a 3GPP radio access network”) to establish a dedicated PDU session of the UE with the telecommunications network, not via the residential gateway device (See 618 Fig.6, PDU session establishment procedure for relaying traffic of remote UEs).
Liao discloses the method for the 5GC capable UE to initiate a PDU session establishment procedure and the 5G-RG to relay UE forwards PDU session establishment request to the network (Liao, See ¶.71), but does not explicitly disclose what Salkintzis discloses,
- UE transmits a PDU session establishment request to the telecommunications network not via the residential gateway, but directly via a 3GPP radio access network (Salkintzis, See 502 Fig.5A, the UE requests a normal (i.e. single-access network) PDU session. In the embodiments of FIG. 5, the NAS message is sent over the 5G RAN (e.g., the 3GPP access network) UE transmits NAS message; See 135 Fig.5A and ¶.44, not via 5G-RG);
- wherein the UE is configured to include in the PDU session establishment request at least one reference to the session management context of the established PDU session for the residential gateway device stored in the telecommunications network (Salkintzis, See 522 Fig.5A and ¶.115, the AMF sends to the interface function 135, i.e. 5G-RG, the QoS profile(s) to be applied over non-3GPP access network, each one determined from the QoS rules to be applied over non-3GPP access network, provided by PCF. Additionally, the interface function 135, i.e. 5G-RG, receives the single PDU session ID that was provided by the UE in step 1; See ¶.116, the UE and the interface function, i.e. 5G-RG, establish one or more child IPsec SAs. Based on the received PDU Session ID, the UE determines that the child IPsec SAs are part of the PDU session requested in operation 502. In other words, the UE determines that the network has decided to establish a MA-PDU session instead of the requested single-access network PDU session).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to apply the method of “UE transmitting a PDU session establishment request to the telecommunications network not via the residential gateway, but directly via a 3GPP radio access network, wherein the UE being configured to include in the PDU session establishment request at least one reference to the session management context of the established PDU session for the residential gateway device stored in the telecommunications network” as taught by Salkintzis into the system of Liao, so that it provides a way for the UE to determine that the network has decided to establish a MA-PDU session instead of the requested single-access network PDU session (Salkintzis, See ¶.116).
Regarding claim 3, Liao does not explicitly disclose what Salkintzis discloses “the UE is configured to determine availability of the local network and to transmit the PDU session establishment request when the local network is unavailable and an access request to the residential gateway device when the local network is available, wherein the UE is configured to include in the access request at least one reference to a session management context of a dedicated PDU session of the UE in the telecommunications network that is not established via the residential gateway device, to nest at least one dataflow of the dedicated PDU session of the UE into the session management context of the established PDU context of the residential gateway device. (Salkintzis, See ¶.74, when one access becomes unavailable, the multi-access PDU session simply uses the other access. At a later time, a second access may again become available and the multi-access PDU session may operate using multiple data paths (e.g., over multiple access networks). As another example, if one access network fails to meet a QoS requirement for the multi-access PDU session, then the multi-access PDU session may operate using only one access network until the second access network meets QoS requirements (e.g., until network conditions improve or QoS requirements change); See 905 & 907 Fig.9, IP flow to QoS flow mapping according to ‘QoS rules’ for non-3GPP or 3GPP; See ¶.92, the multi-access QoS rules comprise QoS rules for the first access network and QoS rules for the second access network. …send a session establishment request to the common user plane function anchoring the first and second data paths, the session establishment request including the multi-access routing rules and an indication that the first and second data paths are for a multi-access data connection; See ¶.120, each QoS flow is associated with a QoS profile sent to the 5G RAN; See 524 Fig.5A, IPsec child SA(s) established between UE and interface function, 5G-RG; See further ¶.99-100 and ¶.109 for SM establishment request includes at least one reference).” Therefore, this claim is rejected with the similar reasons and motivation set forth in the rejection of claim 1.
Regarding claim 5, Liao discloses “the UE is configured to include a data network name, DNN, in the PDU session establishment request referring to a virtual network associated with the established PDU Session of the residential gateway device (See ¶.90, based on the information of DNN in the NAS message sent by the 5GC-capable UE; See ¶.93, the 5G-RG may create a remote UE connection context which includes PDU session ID used for relaying traffic (generated by the 5G-RG), PDU session ID provided by the remote UE, remote user context list, application ID(s), DNN, and/or S-NSSAI).”
Regarding claim 6, Liao discloses “the UE is configured to receive an authentication token from the residential gateway device and to transmit the authentication token with the PDU session establishment request to the telecommunications network (See ¶.79, for using 3GPP access via NG-RAN, the exchange of N1 messages between the relay UE and the 5GC via the NG-RAN uses existing NAS security key of the 5G-RG when the relay UE performs registration procedure for 5G-RG; See 618 Fig.6 for PDU session establishment; See further ¶.99 for security access implemented by AMF and AUSF; See ¶.167 for EAP, extensible authentication protocol).”
Regarding claim 8, Liao discloses “the UE is configured to include a data network name, DNN, in the access request referring to a 5G virtual network, wherein the DNN is different from the DNN associated with the established PDU session of the residential gateway device (See ¶.91, if there is no existing PDU session with associated DNN; See ¶.92, If using an existing PDU session with associated DNN).”
Regarding claim 9, it is a session management system claim corresponding to the method claim 1 and is therefore rejected for the similar reasons set forth in the rejection of the claim.
Regarding claim 12, Liao discloses “the session management system is configured to receive an authentication token from the UE in the PDU session establishment request and to transmit the authentication token to the residential gateway device or receive the authentication token from the residential gateway device to authenticate the PDU session establishment request from the UE (See Fig.6 and ¶.79, for using 3GPP access via NG-RAN, the exchange of N1 messages between the relay UE and the 5GC via the NG-RAN uses existing NAS security key of the 5G-RG when the relay UE performs registration procedure for 5G-RG. The procedure can follow, for example, 3GPP TS 23.502, clause 4.2.2.2 between the relay UE in the 5G-RG and the AMF/AUSF in the 5GC with the following additions: Step 8-9 may include the AMF selecting the AUSF and indicating the relay UE authentication to the AUSF, wherein the AUSF performs authentication for the remote UE; Step 11 may be updated to include, if the identity of the remote UE is requested, the 5G-RG forwards the identity request to the remote UE by using the protocol based on corresponding L2/L3 transport connection; and/or in Step 22 the AMF may reply the N1 message including the piggybacked registration accept/reject message and accept/rejection indication to the 5G-RG, wherein the 5G-RG forwards the registration accept/reject message to the Remote UE, and wherein the 5G-RG indicates to the N3GPP-AN to disconnect the remote UE if receiving the rejection indication or continue to initiate the PDU session management procedure; See 618 Fig.6 for PDU session establishment; See further ¶.99 for security access implemented by AMF and AUSF; See ¶.167 for EAP, extensible authentication protocol).”
Regarding claim 15, it is a residential gateway device claim corresponding to the UE claim 1, except the limitations “transmit a reference to a session management context stored in the telecommunications network associated with the established PDU session of the residential gateway device to at least one of the plurality of UEs over the local network (Liao, See ¶.70, the registration request message of the remote UE is piggybacked in a N1 message, e.g. registration request, N1 transport, or a new N1 request, sent by the relay UE in the 5G-RG. If the registration is successful, the 5G-RG allocates a remote user ID for the remote UE and stores it in a created remote user context. For the L3 transport connection with 5GC capable UE using untrusted N3GPP access, the 5G-RG allocates an IP address to the 5GC capable UE (e.g., in the block 614)” and is therefore rejected for the similar reasons set forth in the rejection of the claim.
Regarding claim 19, it is a user equipment claim corresponding to the claim 1, except the limitations in the following and is therefore rejected for the similar reasons set forth in the rejection of the claim.
- an access request to the residential gateway device over local network (Salkintzis, See 135 Fig.1 and ¶.44, the interface function is a 5G Residential Gateway (5G-RG)), wherein the UE is configured to include in the access request at least one reference to a session management context of a dedicated PDU session of the UE in the telecommunications network that is not via the residential gateway device, but directly via a 3GPP radio access network of the telecommunications network (See 123 & 120 Fig.1 and 135 Fig.5A, not via 5g-RG; See rejection of claim 1), for the residential gateway device to nest at least one dataflow of the dedicated PDU session of the UE that is not via the residential gateway device into the session management context of the established PDU session of the residential gateway device (Salkintzis, See 135, 502 & 504 Fig.5A, Figs.6-8; See 903 Fig.9 for Multi-Access routing rules; See 1010 & 1015 Fig.10 for sending a request to the access management function to establish a data path for each access network; See 1110 Fig.11, a request includes a first indication requesting an access data connection; See the rejection of claim 3 for data flow). Therefore, this claim is rejected with the similar reasons and motivation set forth in the rejection of claim 1.
Regarding claim 21, it is a claim corresponding to the claim 8 and is therefore rejected for the similar reasons set forth in the rejection of the claim.
Claims 2, 10, 11, 13, 14, 18, and 22-29 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liao in view of Salkintzis and further in view of Zhu et al. (US 2021/0345161, “Zhu”).
Regarding claim 2, Liao and Zhu disclose “the UE is configured to include an address, e.g. an IP address, allocated by the residential gateway device in the PDU session establishment request to the telecommunications network (Liao, See ¶.70, the 5G-RG allocates an IP address to the 5GC capable UE; Zhu, See 302 & 303 Fig.11A, ¶.290, and ¶.293, 5G-RG allocates a local IP address to the 5G capable UE and the PDU session establishment carries 5G capable UE information to identify the 5G capable UE).” Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to apply the method of “the UE being configured to include an address, e.g. an IP address, allocated by the residential gateway device in the PDU session establishment request to the telecommunications network” as taught by Zhu into the system of Liao and Salkintzis, so that it provides a way of identifying the 5G capable UE in the PDU session (Zhu, See ¶.293).
Regarding claim 10, Liao and Salkintzis do not explicitly disclose what Zhu discloses “the session management system is configured to receive an address, allocated by the residential gateway device to the UE, from at least one of the UE and the residential gateway device upon receiving the PDU session establishment request and assign the received address to the UE for the dedicated PDU session (Zhu, See 302 Fig.11A, 5G-RG allocates a local IP address to a UE and then send a PDU session establishment request).”
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to apply the method of “the session management system being configured to receive an address, allocated by the residential gateway device to the UE, from at least one of the UE and the residential gateway device upon receiving the PDU session establishment request and assign the received address to the UE for the dedicated PDU session” as taught by Zhu into the system of Liao and Salkintzis, so that it provides a way for the 5G capable UE to establish a connection to an IWF network element by using the local IP address (Zhu, See ¶.291).
Regarding claim 11, Liao and Salkintzis do not explicitly disclose what Zhu discloses “the session management system is configured to execute at least one of: performing a PDU session modification procedure to modify the established PDU session for the residential gateway device during or after establishing the dedicated PDU session (Zhu, See Fig.11A-C, PDU modification; See further Fig.14A-C and Fig.15A-C for modification procedure and QoS flow); adding at least one dedicated forwarding rule in the telecommunications network to route data for the UE to a dataflow of the dedicated PDU session; updating the access network of the telecommunications network (See ¶.101, a first control plane network element and the second control plane network element in this embodiment of this application are mainly responsible for user registration authentication, mobility management, and delivering a data packet forwarding policy, a QoS control policy, and the like to a user plane function (UPF); See ¶.106, a UPF network element is a user plane gateway, and is mainly responsible for packet data packet forwarding, QoS control, charging information statistics, and the like).” Therefore, this claim is rejected with the similar reasons and motivation set forth in the rejection of claim 10.
Regarding claim 13, Liao and Salkintzis do not explicitly disclose what Zhu discloses “the telecommunications network comprises a policy control system configured for storing a policy control context of a residential gateway device and/or a UE (Zhu, See Fig.2 and ¶.104, a policy control function, PCF), wherein the session management system is configured to: interact with the policy control system handling the established PDU session of the residential gateway device using the at least one reference received from the UE to identify the policy control context of the residential gateway device; and use a part of the policy context of the residential gateway device associated with the UE for the dedicated PDU session (Zhu, See Fig.11A-C, Fig.14A-C, and ¶.127; See further ¶.213).” Therefore, this claim is rejected with the similar reasons and motivation set forth in the rejection of claim 10.
Regarding claim 14, Liao does not explicitly disclose what Salkintzis and Zhu disclose “the session management system is configured for at least one of: receiving and storing an indication from a residential gateway device in a PDU session establishment request for the residential gateway device, the indication indicating that the residential gateway device is available for assigning addresses to UEs (Zhu, See Fig.11A-C and ¶.287-297 for 5G-RG procedures by receiving information; See further Fig.14A-C and the related paragraphs); requesting an address from the residential gateway device in response to receiving a PDU session establishment request from a UE and receiving the address from the residential gateway device; sending an address assigned by the residential gateway device to a UE in a PDU session establishment accept message to the UE (Zhu, See Fig.11A-C and Fig.14A-C for allocating IP address by 5G-RG; Examiner’s Note: Salkintzis discloses ‘PDU session establishment accept’ message, See 544 Fig.5B).” Therefore, this claim is rejected with the similar reasons and motivation set forth in the rejection of claim 10.
Regarding claim 18, Liao and Zhu disclose “the residential gateway device is configured for at least one of the following: transmitting an indication to a session management system, the indication indicating that the residential gateway device is available for assigning addresses to UEs; receiving a request from a session management system for an address for a UE and providing the address to the session management system for the UE; allocating an address to a UE in a local network provided by the residential gateway device, wherein the allocated address corresponds to the address provided to the session management system (Liao, See ¶.70, allocating an IP address to the UE; Zhu, See 302 Fig.11A, allocate a local IP address to UE). Therefore, this claim is rejected with the similar reasons and motivation set forth in the rejection of claim 2.
Regarding claim 22, Liao does not explicitly disclose what Salkintzis discloses a session management system in a telecommunications network storing a session management context including at least one established PDU session for a residential gateway device providing a local network for a plurality of UEs for data exchange with a data network over the telecommunications network using the established PDU session, wherein the session management system (Salkintzis, See Fig.5A) is configured to:
- a dedicated PDU session of the UE that is not established via the residential gateway device, but directly via a 3GPP radio access network of the telecommunications network (Salkintzis, See Fig.5A, the PDU session can be established not via the interface function 135 Fig.5A and Fig.7, wherein the interface function is a trusted network gateway function or 5G Residential Gateway (5G-RG); Examiner’s Note: See further the rejection of claim 1).
Liao and Salkintzis do not explicitly disclose what Zhu discloses,
- receive a PDU session modification request from the residential gateway device containing a reference to a session management context of a dedicated PDU session of the UE (Zhu, See 411 Fig.14B, 5G-RG initiates a PDU session modification procedure for a first session) and modify the established PDU session of the residential gateway device by including at least one data flow of the dedicated PDU session in the established PDU session of the residential gateway device (Zhu, See 409 Fig.14A, complete a remaining modification process for the second session; See 416 Fig.14C, determine a QFI in the downlink user plane data from the second network and transmit the downlink user plane data to the 5G-RG by using the QoS flow indicated by using the QoS on the first network).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to apply the method of “receiving a PDU session modification request from the residential gateway device containing a reference to a session management context of a dedicated PDU session of the UE and modify the established PDU session of the residential gateway device by including at least one data flow of the dedicated PDU session in the established PDU session of the residential gateway device” as taught by Zhu into the system of Liao and Salkintzis, so that it provides a way of initiating or deleting a session modification procedure (Zhu, See ¶.156).
Regarding claim 23, Liao and Salkintzis do not explicitly disclose what Zhu discloses “the session management system is configured to execute: releasing the dedicated PDU session of the UE (Zhu, See ¶.126, session release).” Therefore, this claim is rejected with the similar reasons and motivation set forth in the rejection of claim 22.
Regarding claim 24, Liao and Salkintzis do not explicitly disclose what Zhu discloses “wherein the telecommunications network comprises a policy control system configured for storing a policy control context of a residential gateway device and/or a UE (Zhu, See Fig.2 and ¶.104, a policy control function, PCF), wherein the session management system is configured to: interact with the policy control system handling the dedicated PDU session of the UE using the at least one reference received from the residential gateway device to identify the policy control context of the UE and use the policy context of the UE for the established PDU session of the residential gateway device (Zhu, See Fig.11A-C, Fig.14A-C, and ¶.127; See further ¶.213).” Therefore, this claim is rejected with the similar reasons and motivation set forth in the rejection of claim 13.
Regarding claim 25, Liao and Salkintzis do not explicitly disclose what Zhu discloses “wherein the session management system is configured for at least one of: receiving and storing an indication from a residential gateway device in a PDU session establishment request for the residential gateway device (Zhu, See 303 Fig.11A), the indication indicating that the residential gateway device is available for assigning addresses to UEs (Zhu, See ¶.199, a local IP address allocated by the first terminal, i.e. 5G-RG; See ¶.286, a first terminal is a 5G-RG); requesting an address from the residential gateway device in response to receiving a PDU session establishment request from a UE and receiving the address from the residential gateway device; sending an address assigned by the residential gateway device to a UE in a PDU session establishment accept message to the UE (Zhu, See 304 & 307 Fig.11A, complete a remaining PDU session establishment process).” Therefore, this claim is rejected with the similar reasons and motivation set forth in the rejection of claim 10.
Regarding claim 26, Liao does not explicitly disclose what Salkintzis discloses a residential gateway device configured to provide a local network for a plurality of UEs and to provide an established PDU session of the residential gateway device with a telecommunications network for data communication with a data network over the telecommunications network, wherein the residential gateway device (Salkintzis, See Fig.5A and ¶.44) and is configured to:
- receive from a UE connecting to the local network of the residential gateway device at least one reference to a session management context stored in the telecommunications network associated with a dedicated PDU session of the UE that is not established via the residential gateway device, but directly via a 3GPP radio access network of the telecommunications network (Salkintzis, See 135 & 502 Fig.5A; Examiner’s Note: See further the rejection of claim 1).
Liao and Salkintzis do not explicitly disclose what Zhu discloses,
- transmit a PDU session modification request including the reference over the telecommunications network to include at least one dataflow of the dedicated PDU session of the UE in the established PDU session of the residential gateway device (Zhu, See Fig.11B, 5G-RG initiates a PDU session modification procedure to the first session and modification process; See Fig.12, QoS flows; See further ¶.205, ¶.236-237, and ¶.330 for QoS flow ID). Therefore, this claim is rejected with the similar reasons and motivation set forth in the rejection of claim 22.
Regarding claim 27, Liao and Salkintzis do not explicitly disclose what Zhu discloses “wherein the residential gateway device is configured to receive an address of the UE from the telecommunications network and to compare the received address with the address allocated to the UE over the local network (Zhu, See 302 & 303 Fig.11A).” Therefore, this claim is rejected with the similar reasons and motivation set forth in the rejection of claim 10.
Regarding claim 28, Liao discloses “wherein the residential gateway device is configured to receive a data network name, DNN, in an access request referring to a 5G virtual network, wherein the DNN is different from the DNN associated with the established PDU session of the residential gateway device, and wherein the residential gateway device is further configured to establish a further PDU session, different from the already established PDU session, with the telecommunication network and include at least one data flow of the UE in the further PDU session (See ¶.90-91 as rejected in claim 8).”
Regarding claim 29, it is a claim corresponding to the claim 18 and is therefore rejected for the similar reasons set forth in the rejection of the claim.
Claims 4, 7, 16, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Liao in view of Salkintzis and further in view of Zhang et al. (US 2023/0171320, “Zhang”).
Regarding claim 4, Liao does not explicitly disclose what Salkintzis and Zhang disclose “the UE is configured to receive the at least one reference to the session management context in a message from the residential gateway device during connection establishment with the residential gateway device (Salkintzis, See 522 Fig.5A and ¶.115, the AMF sends to the interface function 135, i.e. 5G-RG, the QoS profile(s) to be applied over non-3GPP access network, each one determined from the QoS rules to be applied over non-3GPP access network, provided by PCF. Additionally, the interface function 135, i.e. 5G-RG, receives the single PDU session ID that was provided by the UE 205 in step 1; See ¶.116, the UE 205 and the interface function, i.e. 5G-RG, establish one or more child IPsec SAs (see operation 524). Based on the received PDU Session ID, the UE 205 determines that the child IPsec SAs are part of the PDU session requested in operation 502. In other words, the UE determines that the network has decided to establish a MA-PDU session instead of the requested single-access network PDU session) or during address allocation by the residential gateway device, wherein the message is, for example, an Association Response message, an ICMPv6 Router Advertisement message, a DCHP Offer message or a DHCP Ack message (Zhang, See ¶.272, when the terminal is the FN-RG, the AGF-CP generates a NAS message based on the first message (for example, any one of the DHCP discovery, the DHCP request message) sent by the FN-RG, and then forwards the NAS message to an AMF. The NAS message may be a PDU session establishment request message).”
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to apply “during address allocation by the residential gateway device, wherein the message is, for example, an Association Response message, an ICMPv6 Router Advertisement message, a DCHP Offer message or a DHCP Ack message” as taught by Zhang into the system of Liao and Salkintzis, so that it provides a way of completing an operation related to session establishment on a core network control plane (Zhang, See ¶.272).
Regarding claim 7, Liao and Salkintzis do not explicitly discloses what Zhang discloses “the access request by the UE is configured to include the reference in an Association Request, an ICMPv6 Router Solicitation, a DHCP Discover request or a DHCP Request to the residential gateway device (Zhang, See ¶.272, when the terminal is the FN-RG, the AGF-CP generates a NAS message based on the first message (for example, any one of the DHCP discovery, the DHCP request message) sent by the FN-RG, and then forwards the NAS message to an AMF. The NAS message may be a PDU session establishment request message).” Therefore, this claim is rejected with the similar reasons and motivation set forth in the rejection of claim 4.
Regarding claim 16, Zhu does not explicitly disclose what Zhang discloses “the residential gateway device is configured to receive an address of the UE from the telecommunications network and to compare the received address with the address allocated to the UE over the local network (Zhang, See ¶.7, the access gateway function network element sends the virtual interface information and the at least one of the session identifier and the address of the terminal to the terminal; See ¶.8, an association relationship is established by the terminal and the access gateway function network element between the virtual interface information and the at least one of the session identifier and the address of the terminal, for distinguishing between different services based on the association relationship. In this way, an end-to-end user plane connection between the terminal and the access gateway function network element is implemented, and end-to-end quality of service is ensured; See ¶.38, the terminal receives an address of the terminal from the access gateway function network element, where the address of the terminal corresponds to the first service information. The first service information may include domain name information and/or virtual interface information).”
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date to apply “the residential gateway device being configured to receive an address of the UE from the telecommunications network and to compare the received address with the address allocated to the UE over the local network” as taught by Zhang into the system of Zhu, so that it provides a way for an association relationship to be established by the terminal and the access gateway function network element (Zhang, See ¶.7).
Regarding claim 20, it is a claim corresponding to the claim 7 and is therefore rejected for the similar reasons set forth in the rejection of the claim.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed have been considered. But, in view of the applicant’s amendment to the claims, examiner has clarified and totally remapped the rejection to the argued claim limitations, using the prior art of record in the current prosecution of the claims. Also, the previous 102 rejection by Salkintzis has been replaced with a new 103 rejection over Liao in view of Salkintzis for independent claim 1.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the date of this final action.
Contact Information
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Jung H Park whose telephone number is 571-272-8565. The examiner can normally be reached M-F: 7:00 AM-3:00 PM.
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/JUNG H PARK/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2411
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