Prosecution Insights
Last updated: April 19, 2026
Application No. 18/125,363

FAIL OPEN MECHANISM FOR N10 INTERFACE

Non-Final OA §102§103
Filed
Mar 23, 2023
Examiner
NOORISTANY, SULAIMAN
Art Unit
2415
Tech Center
2400 — Computer Networks
Assignee
T-Mobile Innovations LLC
OA Round
1 (Non-Final)
77%
Grant Probability
Favorable
1-2
OA Rounds
3y 6m
To Grant
99%
With Interview

Examiner Intelligence

Grants 77% — above average
77%
Career Allow Rate
703 granted / 911 resolved
+19.2% vs TC avg
Strong +24% interview lift
Without
With
+24.4%
Interview Lift
resolved cases with interview
Typical timeline
3y 6m
Avg Prosecution
33 currently pending
Career history
944
Total Applications
across all art units

Statute-Specific Performance

§101
6.1%
-33.9% vs TC avg
§103
51.5%
+11.5% vs TC avg
§102
19.8%
-20.2% vs TC avg
§112
14.0%
-26.0% vs TC avg
Black line = Tech Center average estimate • Based on career data from 911 resolved cases

Office Action

§102 §103
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 . 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 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. Claim(s) 1, 5-7 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102 as being by Sun CN 116133018 1. A system for managing a session between a user equipment (UE) and a cellular telecommunications network, the system comprising: one or more processors; and one or more computer-readable media storing computer-usable instructions that, when executed by the one or more processors (Sun: fig. 7, unit 71-72), cause the one or more processors to: determine an N10 interface between a Session Management function (SMF) and a Unified Data Management function (UDM) is degraded (Sun: fig. 1-5, page. 6 - the SMF network element obtains the user subscription data from the UDM network element through the N10 interface and under the condition that the UDM network element has fault, such as congestion, link abnormality, UDR failure and so on); access one or more profile parameters for a UE from a profile stored locally at the SMF (Sun: fig. 1-5, page. 6 - SMF network element senses that the UDM network element has fault, then using the local subscription data, the user enters into the bypass state); and communicate the one or more profile parameters from the profile stored locally at the SMF to one or more components of the cellular core network to establish a first session for the UE (Sun: fig. 1-5, page. 6 - the user enters into the bypass state ensuring the user in the UDM network element fault period, still using the basic network service). 5. The system of claim 1, wherein degradation is congestion above a congestion threshold identified at the UDM (Sun: page. 6 - the UDM has a fault, such as congestion, link abnormality). 6. The system of claim 1, wherein the degradation is a failure of the N10 interface (Sun: page. 6 - SMF network element cannot obtain the user subscription data through N8 or N10 interface, causing registration failure, voice/data session access failure and so on). 7. The system of claim 1, wherein the processors: initiate a retry query to the UDM after the first session has terminated; receive a subscription fetch response from the UDM comprising QoS parameters for the UE; and communicate the QoS parameters from the UDM to the one or more components of the cellular core network to establish a second session for the UE (Sun: page. 6 - periodically detecting whether the UDM network element is recovered, if so…recovering the normal service). 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. Claim(s) 2 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sun CN 116133018 in view of Mirza US 20200359239 2. The system of claim 1, wherein the profile is accessed from a plurality of default profiles, each default profile of the plurality of default profiles being associated with an Access Point Name (APN), and wherein a UE APN of the UE corresponds to a profile APN of the profile (Mirza: [0027, 0048] the management element 106 can look up a profile associated with the UE 102, for example by retrieving a subscriber profile…, and find a default APN listed in the profile for the UE, such as the IMS 110). Thus, it would have been obvious to one skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claim invention to include the above recited limitation into the Sun’s invention in order to retrieving profiles of subscribers associated with the UEs [0027], as taught by Mirza Claim(s) 3 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sun CN 116133018 in view of Steben US 20230397021 3. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more profile parameters is communicated to a Policy Control function (PCF) (Steben: [0026] provide the PremRetFlag to PCF 210-1 via a modified N7 interface). Thus, it would have been obvious to one skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claim invention to include the above recited limitation into the Sun’s invention in order to receive premium session retainability indicators and update notifications [0027], as taught by Steben Claim(s) 4 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Sun CN 116133018 in view of Yang US 20220124550 4. The system of claim 1, wherein the one or more profile parameters comprises one or more of: a Quality of Service (QOS) Class Identifier (QCI) value, Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) information, Protocol Data Unit (PDU) session types, and uplink and downlink Aggregate Maximum Bit Rate (AMBR) values (Yang: [0032] QoS flow parameter, for example, including a 5QI, a GBR, an MBR, an APR, etc). Thus, it would have been obvious to one skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claim invention to include the above recited limitation into the Sun’s invention in order to effectively perform service transmission and ensure quality of service (QoS) requirements [0003], as taught by Yang. Remark(s) Applicant's remark(s) filed on 2/5/26 have been fully considered. Claims 1-7 are drawn to the elected Group I. Claims 8-20 are withdrawn from consideration as being directed to a non-elected invention, Group II, in accordance with the restriction requirement mailed on 12/05/25, which was elected without traverse. Conclusion Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Sulaiman Nooristany whose telephone number is (571) 270-1929. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F from 9 to 5. If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner's supervisor, Jeffrey Rutkowski, can be reached on (571) 270-1215. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300. Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. Should you have questions on access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at 866-217-9197 (toll-free). /SULAIMAN NOORISTANY/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2415
Read full office action

Prosecution Timeline

Mar 23, 2023
Application Filed
Feb 26, 2026
Non-Final Rejection — §102, §103 (current)

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Study what changed to get past this examiner. Based on 5 most recent grants.

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Prosecution Projections

1-2
Expected OA Rounds
77%
Grant Probability
99%
With Interview (+24.4%)
3y 6m
Median Time to Grant
Low
PTA Risk
Based on 911 resolved cases by this examiner. Grant probability derived from career allow rate.

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