DETAILED ACTION
Notice of 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 .
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.
Priority
This Application claims foreign priority to an Indian application that was filed on 29 Mar 2022. Receipt is acknowledged of certified copies of papers required by 37 CFR 1.55.
Information Disclosure Statements
The information disclosure statements, submitted on 1 Nov 2023 and 14 Aug 2025, are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
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and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114.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 25 Nov 2025 has been entered.
Response to Arguments
The Reply alleges “the Office action has not shown that the PLMN ID [of Lee] is actually included in a URSP rule.” Reply, 7-8. Instead, the Reply finds “the PLMN ID is included in a UPSI – a UE policy section index.” Id. at 8. In Lee, each policy section identifier (PSI) contains one or more URSP rules and each PSI is “encoded by” a UPSI. Lee, ¶73. Each UPSI includes a visited PLMN ID or a home PLMN ID, where the PLMN ID “denote[s] an operator who generated a URSP or ANSP rule associated with the UPSI.” Ibid. In other words, Lee associates a PLMN ID with a policy section, which may contain one or more URSP rules. Id. at ¶101. The URSP rules are then associated with a PLMN ID, but do not necessarily contain a PLMN ID, as required by the claimed invention. However, Kumar (cited below) teaches a URSP rule that may contain a PLMN ID. Kumar, ¶42 (table 1 – “new information” column man be “PLMN-ID”); compare Spec., table 3 (route selection descriptor in H-PLMN Combined URSP rule includes “PLM Criteria: PLMN ID”).
Regarding claims 23, the Reply contends “Lee is still deficient about applying a URSP rule having a higher precedence than that of a descriptor without a network identifier as covered by claim 23.” Reply, 9.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 12-16 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
Claim Objections
Claims 23 and 24 are objected to under Rule 1.75(d)(1), which states that “the terms and phrases used in the claims must find clear support or antecedent basis in the description. Claim 23 recites, in part, “a higher precedence that a third route selection descriptor without a network identifier.” Claim 24 recites, in part, “a second route selection descriptor with a partial network identifier and such that the second route selection descriptor has a higher precedence than a third route selection descriptor without a network identifier.” The corresponding language used in both claims is not found with the disclosure. In particular, “higher,” “without a network identifier,” and “partial” do not appear in the disclosure. This leads to confusion as to written description support for the claims. Supra.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 112
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of 35 U.S.C. 112(a):
(a) IN GENERAL.—The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor or joint inventor of carrying out the invention.
The following is a quotation of the first paragraph of pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112:
The specification shall contain a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it, in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which it pertains, or with which it is most nearly connected, to make and use the same, and shall set forth the best mode contemplated by the inventor of carrying out his invention.
Claims 23 and 24 rejected under 35 U.S.C. 112(a) or 35 U.S.C. 112 (pre-AIA ), first paragraph, as failing to comply with the written description requirement. The claim(s) contains subject matter which was not described in the specification in such a way as to reasonably convey to one skilled in the relevant art that the inventor or a joint inventor, or for applications subject to pre-AIA 35 U.S.C. 112, the inventor(s), at the time the application was filed, had possession of the claimed invention.
The inventor does not appear to have been in possession of the claimed invention of claim 23 in which precedence is assigned such that a route selection descriptor with a specific visited PLMN ID has a higher precedence than a route selection descriptor with an unspecific visited PLMN ID, which in turn has a higher precedence than a route selection descriptor that lacks a PLMN ID.
The inventor does not appear to be have been in possession of the claimed invention of claim 24 in which precedence is assigned such that a route selection descriptor with a specific visited PLMN ID has higher precedence than a route selection descriptor with a partial PLMN ID, which in turn has a high precedence than a route selection descriptor without a PLMN ID.
The Reply does not identify any particular portions of the disclosure as providing support for the most recent claim amendments. Reply, passim. As best the Examiner can tell, the described invention seems to “update” precedence of a URSP’s route selection descriptor. The claimed invention’s tiers of precedence, where route selector descriptors with no network identifiers are at the bottom do not appear in the disclosure. Nor does a “partial” network identifier.
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 1-6 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee (US 20220386100) in view of Kumar (US 20240244502).
Regarding claim 1, Lee teaches an apparatus comprising: processing circuitry (Lee, figure 14), configure the UE to:
process rule information received from a visited network and indicating a set of user equipment (UE) route selection policy (URSP) rules for a UE (Lee, ¶146 – UE receives policy container from V-PCF; Lee, figure 17 – in step 16, policy container contains two URSPs – H-URSP and V-URSP),
wherein the visited network is configured to provide roaming connectivity to the UE (Lee, ¶¶52, 53, 181 – UE is roaming in VPLMN),
wherein . . . [a rule] is generated by a home network of the UE (Lee, ¶¶, 68, 129 – in step 12, H-PCF sends H-URSP to V-PCF, which enables the V-PCF to forward a policy container with both V-URSP and H-URSP to the AMF in step 14), and
wherein a URSP rule of the set of URSP rules includes . . . a precedence value assigned by the home network (Lee, ¶73, last three sentences and ¶¶101, 177 – PLMN ID of at least one of the visited network or home network that generated a URSP is included in the UPSI section; Lee, ¶178, table 3, note 1 – each rule in a URSP has a different precedence value; Lee, ¶179 – URSP be a H-URSP provided by a H-PCF of a home PLMN);
determine the URSP rule from the set of URSP rules to use for traffic of the UE (Lee, ¶147 – UE updates its policy; Lee, ¶126 – precedence dictates which of V-URSP and H-URSP is implemented by the UE); and
cause the traffic to be sent to the visited network based on the URSP rule (Lee, ¶62 - URSP dictates how UE routes traffic, such as via a pre-existing PDU session, offloading to a Wi-Fi network, or via a new PDU session); and
a communication interface coupled with the processing circuitry. Lee, figure 14.
Lee does not explicitly teach (1) the H-PCF generating “the set of URSP rules,” but instead teaches the generation of a single USRP, H-USRP. Lee also does not explicitly teach (2) a URSP rule “includes a network identifier or the home network or the visited network.” However, Kumar teaches (1) a UE receiving “one or more URSP rules” from a H-PLMN. Kumar, claim 11. Kumar also teaches (2) a URSP that includes new information, such as a PLMN-ID. Kumar, ¶42 (table 1).
At the time of the invention (pre-AIA ) or at the effective filing date of the invention (AIA ), it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to enable the H-PCF, taught by Lee, to generate multiple USRP rules, where each rule included a PLMN ID, as taught by Kumar, in order to maintain URSP rules per PLMN for each access type, which provides business flexibility to the operator. Kumar, ¶37.
Regarding claim 2, the combination of Lee and Kumar also teaches “stor[ing] the set of URSP rules in the one or more memories, wherein the URSP rule of the set further includes a route selection descriptor. Lee, ¶¶178, table 3 (V-URSP includes traffic descriptor); Lee, ¶77, figure 14 (element 1420 – memory of UE stores policy [i.e. URSP rules]).
Regarding claim 3, the combination of Lee and Kumar also teaches wherein the identifier of the network is a public land mobile network (PLMN) identifier (ID) (Lee, e.g. ¶101 - URSP rules include visited PLMN ID), and wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to: determine that the traffic is associated with an application (Lee, ¶69, table 1 – application identifier in URSP); determine that the URSP rule applies to the application based on a traffic descriptor of the URSP rule (Lee, ¶69, table 1 – Route Selection Descriptor list as shown in table 2); and determine a match between the PLMN ID of the route selection descriptor and an identifier of a network to which the UE is connected. Lee, figure 11 and ¶¶192-194 (UE determines if new traffic matches a URSP rule [i.e. policy] by comparing the traffic’s attributes to the contents of the URSP); Lee, ¶10 and ¶189 (policy section of the container received by the UE includes the PLMN ID).
Regarding claim 4, the combination of Lee and Kumar also teaches wherein the rule information is received as part of a UE registration with the visited network or a UE configuration update procedure. Lee, ¶64 (policy [i.e. URSP] is distribute to the UE during initial registration or a change in UE location or mobility).
Regarding claim 5, the combination of Lee and Kumar also teaches wherein the set of URSP rules is generated by the home network based on guidance information of the visited network to the home network, wherein the guidance information indicates the set of URSP rules or a different set of URSP rules. Lee, ¶¶68, 138 (V-PCF sends a V-URSP request indicator to H-PCF; Lee ¶¶ 184, table 4 (V-URSP includes “URSP rules” [i.e. a set]).
Regarding claim 6, the combination of Lee and Kumar also teaches wherein the set of URSP rules includes a combined URSP rule that is generated by the home network based on a first URSP rule of the visited network and on a second URSP rule of the home network. Lee, ¶¶100-101 (policy container received by UE includes V-URSP and H-URSP); Lee, figure 7 (step 16).
Claims 7-10, 17, and 21-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee (US 20220386100) in view of Nokia (NPL 4 of IDS, filed 1 Nov 2023) and further in view of Kumar (US 20240244502).
Regarding claim 7, Lee teaches a method comprising:
process guidance information that is received from a visited network and that indicates a first user equipment (UE) route selection policy (URSP) rule of the visited network for a UE (Lee, ¶138 – H-PCF receives a V-URSP request from V-PCF),
wherein the visited network is configured to provide roaming connectivity to the UE (Lee, ¶¶52, 53, 181 – UE is roaming in VPLMN);
generating a second URSP rule for the UE . . . and on a set of URSP rules stored by the home network for the UE (Lee, ¶139 – V-PCF receives V-URSP allowance indicator and a UE policy container with H-USRP [a second rule] from H-PCF, Lee, ¶¶68, 73 – URSP may include URSP rules having an order of precedence that are provided by the home network),
wherein the second URSP rule includes. . . a precedence value assigned by the home network (Lee, ¶73, last three sentences and ¶¶101, 177 – PLMN ID of at least one of the visited network or home network that generated a URSP is included in the UPSI section; Lee, ¶178, table 3, note 1 – each rule in a URSP has a different precedence value; Lee, ¶179 – URSP be a H-URSP provided by a H-PCF of a home PLMN); and
generating, for transmission via the visited network, rule information to the UE, wherein the rule information indicates the second URSP rule. Lee, figure 7 (steps 12, 14, and 16 relay the H-URSP from H-PCF to V-PCF to AMF to UE).
Lee does not explicitly teach (1) its URSP rule “based on the guidance information” or (2) a URSP rule that includes “a network identifier of the home network or the visited network.” However, Nokia teaches (1) AF or application “guidance for URSP rules determination,” where the “VPLMN act[s] as an AF of the HPLMN.” Nokia, pg. 2, section 6.X.1, 2nd and 3rd paragraphs. At the time of the invention (pre-AIA ) or at the effective filing date of the invention (AIA ), it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to for the H-PCF, taught by Lee, to use the guidance information, taught by Nokia, when generating H-URSP in order to enable the VPLMN to specify a DNN and slice to be used by the traffic that is being offloaded from the HPLMN to the VPLMN as a result of the URSP rule.
The combination of Lee and Nokia does not explicitly teach (2) a URSP rule “includes a network identifier or the home network or the visited network.” However, Kumar teaches (1) a UE receiving “one or more URSP rules” from a H-PLMN. Kumar, claim 11. Kumar also teaches (2) a URSP that includes new information, such as a PLMN-ID. Kumar, ¶42 (table 1).
At the time of the invention (pre-AIA ) or at the effective filing date of the invention (AIA ), it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to enable the URSP rule, taught by the Lee and Nokia, to include a PLMN ID, as taught by Kumar, in order to maintain URSP rules per PLMN for each access type, which provides business flexibility to the operator. Kumar, ¶37.
Regarding claim 8, the combination of Lee, Nokia, and Kumar also teaches wherein the guidance information is received from the visited network in a Npcf_UEPolicyControl_Create_Request message and the rule information is sent to the visited network in a Npcf_UEPolicyControl_Create_Response message for sending to the UE. Lee, figure 7 (operations 9 and 10).
Regarding claim 9, the combination of Lee, Nokia, and Kumar also teaches evaluating the guidance information based on at least one of: the set of URSP rules, a local configuration of the home network, an operator policy of the home network, or an application function of the home network (Nokia, pg. 2, section 6.X.1 3rd and 4th paragraphs – URSP are (1) provided by H-PCF for users roaming in VPLMN may have a validity condition based on the VPLMN and slice information [S-NSSAI] defined by the HPLMN, (2) when the VPLMN acts as an application function for the HPLMN, and (3) “based on local policies”); and
determining based on the evaluating that the second URSP rule is to be created as a copy of the guidance information, as an update to the guidance information, or as a combination of the guidance information with a URSP rule from the set of URSP rules. Lee, ¶139 (H-PCF may allow or deny the transmission of the V-URSP, which allows the V-URSP to be transmitted to the UE with the H-URSP [i.e. creating a combination of H-URSP and V-URSP]); Lee, ¶¶133-134 (home PLMN stores V-URSP allowance indicator).
Regarding claim 10, the combination of Lee, Nokia, and Kumar also teaches wherein the guidance information indicates a third URSP rule of the visited network (Lee, ¶¶68, 73 - URSP may include URSP rules [see ¶184, table 4 for V-URSP with “URSP rules,” including a third rule]), and wherein the method further comprises: determining that the third URSP rule is to be rejected; and sending, to the visited network, response information indicating that the third URSP rule is rejected. Lee, ¶¶105, 117 (H-PCF may transmit to V-PCF an indication that V-URSP transmission to the UE is not allowed).
Regarding claim 17, Lee teaches a network comprising: one or more processors; and one or more memory storing computer-readable instructions that, upon execution by the one or more processors (Lee, figure 15 and ¶223 – V-PCF), configure the network to:
send, to a home network of a user equipment (UE), guidance information indicating a first UE route selection policy (URSP) rule of the network for the UE (Lee, ¶138 – V-PCF sends a V-URSP request indicator to H-PCF),
wherein the network is configured as a visited network to provide roaming connectivity to the UE (Lee, ¶¶52, 53, 181 – UE is roaming in VPLMN);
receive, from the home network, rule information indicating a second URSP rule that is generated for the UE by the home network . . . (Lee, ¶139 – V-PCF receives V-URSP allowance indicator and a UE policy container with H-USRP [a second rule] from H-PCF),
wherein the second URSP rule includes . . . a precedence value assigned by the home network (Lee, ¶73, last three sentences and ¶¶101, 177 – PLMN ID of at least one of the visited network or home network that generated a URSP is included in the UPSI section; Lee, ¶178, table 3, note 1 – each rule in a URSP has a different precedence value; Lee, ¶179 – URSP be a H-URSP provided by a H-PCF of a home PLMN); and
send the rule information to the UE. Lee, figure 7 (steps 14 and 16, H-USRP is sent from V-PCR to UE).
Lee does not explicitly teach (1) its URSP rule “based on the guidance information” or (2) a URSP rule that includes “a network identifier of the home network or the visited network.” However, Nokia teaches (1) AF or application “guidance for URSP rules determination,” where the “VPLMN act[s] as an AF of the HPLMN.” Nokia, pg. 2, section 6.X.1, 2nd and 3rd paragraphs. At the time of the invention (pre-AIA ) or at the effective filing date of the invention (AIA ), it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to for the H-PCF, taught by Lee, to use the guidance information, taught by Nokia, when generating H-URSP in order to enable the VPLMN to specify a DNN and slice to be used by the traffic that is being offloaded from the HPLMN to the VPLMN as a result of the URSP rule.
The combination of Lee and Nokia does not explicitly teach (2) a URSP rule “includes a network identifier or the home network or the visited network.” However, Kumar teaches (1) a UE receiving “one or more URSP rules” from a H-PLMN. Kumar, claim 11. Kumar also teaches (2) a URSP that includes new information, such as a PLMN-ID. Kumar, ¶42 (table 1).
At the time of the invention (pre-AIA ) or at the effective filing date of the invention (AIA ), it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to enable the URSP rule, taught by the Lee and Nokia, to include a PLMN ID, as taught by Kumar, in order to maintain URSP rules per PLMN for each access type, which provides business flexibility to the operator. Kumar, ¶37.
Regarding claim 21, the combination of Lee, Nokia, and Kumar also teaches wherein the precedence value is assigned such that a first route selection descriptor with a specific visited network identifier has a higher precedence than a second route selection descriptor without a visited network identifier. Lee, ¶184 and figure 11 (when V-URSP rule precedence is provided, the URSP of the visited network may be given greater precedence than URSPs of the home network) and see rejection of claim 23 for a discussion of figure 11.
Regarding claim 22, the combination of Lee, Nokia, and Kumar also teaches when the UE registered in the visited network (Lee, ¶99 – by definition a visited PLMN is a network in which the UE is currently registered), apply a route selection descriptor with the highest precedence and a network identifier matching the visited network. Lee, ¶¶112, 184 (UE applies the higher-order precedence V-URSP when selecting a policy); Lee, ¶69, table 1 (URSP rule includes route selection descriptor); Lee, ¶71, table 2 (route selection descriptor includes route selector descriptor precedence).
Regarding claim 23, the combination of Lee, Nokia, and Kumar also teaches wherein the precedence value is assigned such that a first route selection descriptor with a specific visited network identifier has a higher precedence than a second route selection descriptor without a specific visited network identifier and such that the second route selection descriptor has a higher precedence than a third route selection descriptor without a network identifier. Lee, figure 11 (when a visited URSP precedence is indicated [step 1103], the UE (1) attempts to match the non-match-all V-URSP rules first [step 1121], then if none match, (2) attempts to match H-URSP rules second [step 1123], and then if none match, (3) attempts to match to the match-all rules [steps 1125 and 1127]). Lee does not explicitly teach a traffic descriptor “without a network identifier.” However, a “match all” traffic descriptor means that any missing UE local configuration information, such as a network ID, needed for a PDU session establishment request may come from a default URSP rule. At the time of the effective filing date of the invention, it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to have match-all rules, as taught by Lee, to include a traffic descriptor without a network ID, in order to enable a basic level of service even when some information is missing.
Claim 11 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lee in view of Nokia and Kumar (all of record) and further in view of Tamura (US 20070249339).
Regarding claim 11, the combination of Lee and Kumar teaches the method of claim 7, further comprising: determining that the guidance information has no match with the set of URSP rules, wherein the second URSP rule is generated as a copy of the guidance information. Lee, ¶¶53,183 (different URSP rules for both the HPLMN and VPLMN); Lee, ¶183 (if no URSPs of the HPLMN match the new traffic, then a visited URSP rule is used). The combination of Lee and Kumar has a UE and not a home network device perform the comparison of URSP rules between the HPLMN and VPLMN.
However, Tamara teaches a home policy controlling device execute a comparison between the policies of the VPLMN and the HPLMN. Tamara, ¶8, 50 (step 105 in figure 2). At the time of the invention (pre-AIA ) or at the effective filing date of the invention (AIA ), it would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art to enable the home policy controlling device (i.e. H-PCF), as taught by Tamara, compare the URSP rules of the VPLMN and the HPLMN, as taught by the combination of Lee and Kumar, in order to provide improved network control of the end-to-end service by matching the amount of resources provided for a bearer in visited network and the home network. Tamara, ¶54.
Conclusion
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/Benjamin Lamont/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2461