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 .
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 1-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over 3GPP TR 23.700-07 V1.2.0 (2020-11), hereinafter “TR23700”, in view of S2-2008464, “KI#2, Conclusion update with regard to release UE to RRC-Inactive”, SA WG2 Meeting #142e, 16 - 20 November, 2020, Source Ericsson, hereinafter “Ericsson”.
Claims 1, 9, and 17:
Regarding claim 1, Ericsson teaches, a method comprising: receiving, by a first access and mobility management function (AMF) of a first network (TR23700: Figure 6.14.3-1: Procedure to secure that the UE is always released to RRC Inactive) from a first network function (SMF/UPF as described below from disclosure by TR23700).
Regarding claim element, a first indication that a session of a wireless device with a second network is released, TR23700 discloses, “The AMF includes in the RRC Inactive Assistance Information that this UE shall only be released to RRC Inactive and sends the RRC Inactive Assistance Information to the RAN. This behaviour in the AMF is triggered by: … b. Informed by the SMF/UPF” (§ 6.14.3)).
TR23700 does not however disclose that session of a wireless device with a second network is released .
In the same field of endeavor, Ericsson in § 1 discloses, “when there are issues to keep all UEs in RRC inactive that there is a need to decide which UEs to release to RRC idle.”; and in § 2 discloses, “the related QoS Flows can be given an appropriate ARP that can be used by RAN e.g. when there is a need to release some of the resources – including when there is a need of releasing the RRC connection to RRC-IDLE instead of keeping the RRC connection in RRC-INACTIVE.”.
It would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to modify disclosure of TR23700 by disclosure in Ericsson, and come up with the claimed invention motivated by handling the scenario of resource limitation as described in Ericsson, “make use of ARP for deciding which UEs to release in case of resource limitations in target.” (§ 1).
Regarding the claim, sending, by the first AMF to a base station and based on the session being released, a second indication that transition of the wireless device to a radio resource control (RRC) idle state is allowed, a person of ordinary skill in the art would be motivated to combine the disclosure , “sends the RRC Inactive Assistance Information to the RAN.” (TR23700 § 6.14.3) with that of Ericsson to release the RRC connection to RRC-IDLE) so as to handle resource limited issue as discussed above.
Claim 9 is for an access an mobility management function (AMF), an apparatus, implementing method of claim 1. Claim is a change in category with respect to claim 1. Existence of a processor and memory is implied. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 1.
Claim 17 is for a non-transitory computer-readable medium. Claim is a change in category with respect to claim 1. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 1.
Claims 2, 10, and 18:
Regarding claim 2, combination of TR2300 and Ericsson teaches the method of claim 1, (discussed above), wherein the first network function comprises at least one of: a second AMF of the second network; a first session management function (SMF) of the first network; a second SMF of the second network; or an application function (AF) of the second network (TR23700: Figure 6.14.3-1: Procedure to secure that the UE is always released to RRC Inactive; § 6.14.3, b. Informed by the SMF/UPF).
Claim 10 is for an access an mobility management function (AMF), implementing method of claim 2. Claim is a change in category with respect to claim 2. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 2.
Claim 18 is for a non-transitory computer-readable medium. Claim is a change in category with respect to claim 2. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 2.
Claims 3, 11, and 19:
Regarding claim 3, combination of TR2300 and Ericsson teaches the method of claim 1, (discussed above), wherein the first AMF receives the first indication via a network exposure function (NEF), and wherein the NEF is in at least one of: the first network; or the second network (implied by disclosure in § 6.14.3, item 4c, “The AF requests the PLMN AMF via the NEF to forward specific information to a UE with the GPSI.”.
Claim 11 is for an access an mobility management function (AMF), implementing method of claim 3. Claim is a change in category with respect to claim 3. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 3.
Claim 19 is for a non-transitory computer-readable medium. Claim is a change in category with respect to claim 3. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 3.
Claims 4, 12, and 20:
Regarding claim 4, combination of TR2300 and Ericsson teaches the method of claim 1, (discussed above), wherein the first indication indicates at least one of: an indication of release of an IPSec tunnel; or that the wireless device is in a CM-IDLE state in the second network (implied based on discussion above in claim 1 and the following disclosure in TR23700 § 6.14.3:
1. UE register to the NPN
2. UE request service in order to setup an IPsec tunnel to the N3IWF. The Service Requests may need to indicate the specific service (connection to the PLMN/network B).
The service is being provided through IPsec tunnel to the N3IWF. It is implied that when release happens, the IPsec tunnel is to be released.
Claim 12 is for an access an mobility management function (AMF), implementing method of claim 4. Claim is a change in category with respect to claim 4. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 4.
Claim 20 is for a non-transitory computer-readable medium. Claim is a change in category with respect to claim 4. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 4.
Claims 5 and 13:
Regarding claim 5, combination of TR2300 and Ericsson teaches the method of claim 1, (discussed above), wherein the first indication comprises at least one of: an identifier of the session; an identifier of the second network; or an address of a non-3GPP interworking function (N3IWF) of the second network (TR23700: § 6.14.3, item 4c, “The SMF/UPF, during step 5, detects that the target address for the IPSec tunnel is a well-known N3IWF of a PLMN (in this case the RRC Inactive Assistance IE may need to be updated if already sent”).
Claim 13 is for an access an mobility management function (AMF), implementing method of claim 5. Claim is a change in category with respect to claim 5. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 5.
.
Claims 6 and 14:
Regarding claim 6, combination of TR2300 and Ericsson teaches the method of claim 1, (discussed above), wherein the first indication is received in response to detection of inactivity for data packet transmission of the session (implied based on combination of disclosure in claim 1 regarding release to RRC-idle, instead of RRC-inactive and disclosure by TR23700, “6. Due to inactivity in the NPN the RAN releases the UE to RRC Inactive mode. The RAN always releases the UE to RRC-Inactive based on the indication included in the RRC Inactive Assistance Information in step 4.” ).
Claim 14 is for an access an mobility management function (AMF), implementing method of claim 6. Claim is a change in category with respect to claim 6. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 6.
Claims 7 and 15:
Regarding claim 7, combination of TR2300 and Ericsson teaches the method of claim 6, (discussed above), wherein the detection is based on a packet detection rule (PDR) comprising: a differentiated service code point (DSCP) for an IPSec tunnel (TR23700: § 8.2 - After the UE selects the SNPN or PLMN, the UE obtains VIAPA service with or without Rel-16 N3IWF architecture specified in clause D.3 of TS 23.501 [4]; - It is proposed to add an informative guideline for mapping between standardized 5QI/ARP and DSCP marking value in TS 23.501 [4], Annex D, so that the PLMN and SNPN may use the same mapping values for UL and DL user plane traffic within SNPN and PLMN.”); and
an address of a non-3GPP interworking function (N3IWF) of the second network (discussed above in claim 5).
Claim 15 is for an access an mobility management function (AMF), implementing method of claim 7. Claim is a change in category with respect to claim 7. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 7.
Claims 8 and 16:
Regarding claim 8, combination of TR2300 and Ericsson teaches the method of claim 1, (discussed above), wherein the base station is of the first network (implied based on discussion in claim 1 regarding release of the connection and disclosure in TR23700 Figure 6.14.3-1: step 4c; also as per disclosure in Ericsson § 1, “To improve the latency to resume a service provided by the overlay network, the following optimization is concluded. The RAN node in the underlay network can receive an indication that the NG-RAN can use as input to decide whether it is preferred to release a UE to RRC-Inactive” (§ 1).
Claim 16 is for an access an mobility management function (AMF), implementing method of claim 8. Claim is a change in category with respect to claim 8. Claim is rejected based on rejection of claim 8.
Conclusion
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/INTEKHAAB A SIDDIQUEE/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2462