DETAILED ACTION
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 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.
This action is in response to claims filed on 8/10/2023.
Claims 1-20 have been examined and are rejected.
Priority
This application is a continuation of PCT/CN22/95096 and claims foreign priority to CN202110750883.8 filed 7/1/2021.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statements (IDS) submitted on 9/26/2023, 2/5/2024, and 7/24/2024 are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statements are being considered by the examiner.
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.
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 1-4, 6-11, 13-17, & 19-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Duan (US 2023/0199436 A1) in view of Li et al. (US 2023/0345310 A1).
With regard to Claim 1, Duan teaches:
A communication method for a multicast and broadcast service performed by an electronic device acting as an Application Function (AF) entity, the method comprising:
performing communication negotiation of a Multicast and Broadcast Service (MBS) service with a core network element, to determine a transmission policy of MBS service status indication information; (in a 5G multicast broadcast service (MBS), a core network (CN) function such as an Application Function (AF) updates MBS service parameters according to analytics information and sends the updated MBS service parameters to a policy control function (PCF) directly or through the NEF [Duan: 0153; 0257; 308-12; Fig. 4]);
receiving, based on the transmission policy, the MBS service status indication information transmitted by the core network element; (the NWDAF sends a response which carries the analytics information corresponding to the subscribed or requested type by the AF [Duan: 0297-98; Fig. 4]);
and transmitting MBS service data matching the MBS service status indication information to the core network element, wherein the core network element is configured to transmit the MBS service data to a terminal device; (the core network (CN) function such as the Application Function (AF) determines MBS assistance information [Duan: 0256-57; 0264] and provides the MBS assistance information/suggested policy information to the AN function [Duan: 0361-63], wherein if the MBS assistance information includes the delivery mode information of a specific service/application/session or QoS flow, the AN further needs to rely on the assistance information and the information of the MBS service or the QoS parameter of the QoS flow corresponding to the MBS service to determine the radio delivery mode that the MBS service/application/session or QoS flow is allowed to use and/or whether to allow the change of the delivery mode [Duan: 0384; 0264]).
However, Duan does not explicitly teach:
wherein the core network element transmits the MBS service data to a terminal device.
In a similar field of endeavor involving selecting delivery modes for a multicast and broadcast service in a 5G network, Li discloses:
and transmitting MBS service data matching the MBS service status indication information to the core network element, wherein the core network element transmits the MBS service data to a terminal device; (data is transferred between a UE and the AF through the network, wherein AF can make a delivery mode determination and provide a switch request to MBMF or AMF if it decides to trigger the switch [Li: 0193-94; 0215-20]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Duan in view of Li in order to provide a core network element which transmits the MBS service data to a terminal device in the system of Duan.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine Duan with Li as doing so would allow the data of the MBS service flow to be communicated to the UE according to parameters determined by the core network function.
With regard to Claim 2, Duan-Li teaches:
The method according to claim 1, wherein the core network element comprises a policy control function entity; and the performing communication negotiation of a Multicast and Broadcast Service (MBS) service with a core network element comprises:
performing the communication negotiation of the MBS service with the policy control function entity through a network exposure function entity; or performing the communication negotiation of the MBS service directly with the policy control function entity; (in a 5G multicast broadcast service (MBS), a core network (CN) function such as an Application Function (AF) updates MBS service parameters according to analytics information and sends the updated MBS service parameters to a policy control function (PCF) directly or through the NEF [Duan: 0153; 0257; 308-12; Fig. 4]).
With regard to Claim 3, Duan-Li teaches:
The method according to claim 1, further comprising: transmitting a subscription request for the MBS service status indication information to the core network element before receiving the MBS service status indication information transmitted by the core network element; (in a 5G multicast broadcast service (MBS), Application Function (AF) can request analytics information of the network from the NWDAF through the NEF [Duan: 0152; 0277-79; Fig. 4]).
With regard to Claim 4, Duan-Li teaches:
The method according to claim 3, wherein the receiving the MBS service status indication information transmitted by the core network element comprises: receiving the MBS service status indication information transmitted by the core network element after receiving a subscription response returned by the core network element for the subscription request; (the NWDAF sends a notification or response which carries the analytics information corresponding to the subscribed or requested type by the AF [Duan: 0297-98; Fig. 4]).
With regard to Claim 6, Duan-Li teaches:
The method according to claim 1 wherein the transmission policy of the MBS service status indication information comprises at least one of the following: an information type comprised in the MBS service status indication information, to-be-negotiated information content comprised in the MBS service status indication information, and a transmission frequency of the MBS service status indication information; (MBS service parameters comprise MBS service area, MBS QoS parameters, information on the delivery mode of service data flow, etc. [Duan: 0311] and MBS policy may include a number of UEs receiving a specific MBS service/session to be determined using statistics and/or predictions, suggested information or policy of the delivery mode determined based on statistics and/or predictions of network performance or service experience [Duan: 0317-25]).
With regard to Claim 7, Duan-Li teaches:
The method according to claim 1, wherein the transmitting MBS service data matching the MBS service status indication information to the core network element according to the MBS service status indication information comprises at least one of the following: suspending transmitting the MBS service data when the MBS service status indication information indicates that the PDU session for processing the MBS service has been released or has not been established; transmitting the MBS service data normally when the MBS service status indication information indicates that a network status related to the processing of the MBS service meets a quality of service requirement of the MBS service; and reducing the to-be-transmitted MBS service data when the MBS service status indication information indicates that the network status related to the processing of the MBS service does not meet the quality of service requirement of the MBS service; (AN can determine a delivery mode for a new MBS service or an ongoing MBS service based on AN performance information statistically analyzed or predicted by the CN, as well as a local policy (for example, multicast or broadcast is used when the load of AN or one cell of the AN reaches 70% or the congestion level is medium-high) [Duan: 0184-89]. Li teaches that the switch from multicast to unicast could be initiated by the core network entity, including a request from AF, when the content provider finds that the number of users receiving data on the multicast session decreases and it becomes less efficient to continue multicast from resource management aspect, when the content provider finds out that the data transfer performance degrades and cannot meet requirement at application layer, or when NWDAF finds or predicts that the data transfer performance within core network cannot meet requirement, or that UE moves out of MBS session service area [Li: 0215-18]).
With regard to Claims 8-11, 13-17, & 19-20, they appear substantially similar to the limitations recited by claims 1-4 & 6-7 and consequently do not appear to teach or further define over the citations provided for said claims. Accordingly, claims 8-11, 13-17, & 19-20 are rejected for the same reasons as set forth in claims 1-4 & 6-7.
Claims 5, 12, & 18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Duan (US 2023/0199436 A1) in view of Li et al. (US 2023/0345310 A1) as applied to Claims 1, 8, & 15 above, and further in view of Mohammed Mikaeil et al. (US 2023/0353986 A1).
With regard to Claim 5, Duan-Li teaches:
The method according to claim 1, wherein the core network element comprises a network exposure function entity, a policy control function entity, and a session management function entity; ([Duan: Fig. 4]);
the session management function entity is used for generating the MBS service status indication information; (NWDAF collects network data or service data from SMF and analyzes the collected data and/or locally stored (previously collected) data to obtain the analytics information requested [Duan: 0287; 0296]);
and the receiving the MBS service status indication information transmitted by the core network element comprises:
receiving the MBS service status indication information forwarded from the session management function entity by the network exposure function entity, wherein the MBS service status indication information is forwarded from the NWDAF entity to the network exposure function entity; (NWDAF sends the collected analytics information to the AF through the NEF [Duan: 0297-98]);
or receiving the MBS service status indication information forwarded from the session management function entity by the policy control function entity.
However, Duan-Li does not teach (where underlining indicates the portion of each limitation not taught):
wherein the MBS service status indication information is forwarded from the policy control function entity to the network exposure function entity.
In a similar field of endeavor involving determining optimal delivery of a multicast/broadcast service (MBS), Mohammed discloses:
receiving the MBS service status indication information forwarded from the session management function entity by the network exposure function entity, wherein the MBS service status indication information is forwarded from the policy control function entity to the network exposure function entity; (the AF communicates with a policy control function (PCF) and a network exposure function (NEF) to exchange 5G MBS QoS and service area related information and also exchange session data policy related information with a session data management function (SMF) [Mohammed: 0196; Fig. 4]).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify Duan-Li in view of Mohammed in order to forward MBS service status indication information from the policy control function entity to the network exposure function entity in the system of Duan-Li.
One of ordinary skill in the art would have been motivated to combine Duan-Li with Mohammed as doing so would allow the PCF to be a central communication point for controlling network policy decision which can then provide policy decisions to the SMF for policy enforcement.
With regard to Claims 12 & 18, they appear substantially similar to the limitations recited by claim 5 and consequently do not appear to teach or further define over the citations provided for said claims. Accordingly, claims 12 & 18 are rejected for the same reasons as set forth in claim 5.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure:
Shi et al. (US 2023/0199894 A1) which teaches the SMF may notify the WTRU about the PDU session suspending/resuming, may decide MBMS information (i.e., packets to be discarded) based on the multicast session context or the WTRU's location, and may decide to deactivate/reactivate unicast delivery mode based on criteria received from AF (application layer), e.g., an area with a user number threshold (if the number of MBMS users exceeds the threshold, multicast/broadcast delivery mode may be used) [Shi: 0085].
In the case of amendments, Applicant is respectfully requested to indicate the portion(s) of the specification which dictate(s) the structure relied on for proper interpretation and support, for ascertaining the metes and bounds of the claimed invention.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to AUSTIN J MOREAU whose telephone number is (571) 272-5179. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday 9:00 - 6:00 ET.
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/AUSTIN J MOREAU/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2446