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 .
Election/Restrictions
Claims 8-15 are withdrawn from further consideration pursuant to 37 CFR 1.142(b) as being drawn to nonelected inventions, there being no allowable generic or linking claim. Election was made without traverse in the reply filed on December 29, 2025.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on July 12, 2023 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Drawings
The drawings were received on July 12, 2023. These drawings are acceptable.
Claim Objections
Claims 24-27 are objected to because of the following informalities:
Claims 24-25, and 27 should be dependent upon independent claim 23.
Claim 26 should be dependent upon independent claim 23.
In addition, the phrase “The apparatus of claim…” as currently recited in claims 24-27 should be corrected as - - The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim… - -
Appropriate correction is required.
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.
Claim(s) 1-5, 7, 16-20, and 22-28 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Park et al. (hereinafter “Park”, US 2022/0330197) in view of Ferdi et al. (hereinafter “Ferdi”, US 2023/0133187).
Regarding claims 1, 16, and 23, Park discloses a method, an apparatus, and a non-transitory computer-readable medium having code for wireless communication stored thereon that, when executed by a session management function (“SMF”), causes the SMF to:
first request message comprising an indication to establish for unmanned aerial system (“UAS”) services for an unmanned aerial vehicle (“UAV”) device (i.e., UAV 301 and UAV controller (UAC) terminal 302 performs an initial registration process for a communication service through a wireless communication network as described in paragraph 0087. Also see step 911 & 912 PDU session establishment request of Fig. 9, and its descriptions); and
retrieve subscription information from a unified data management node (“UDM”) (i.e., retrieving subscription data from UDM as described in paragraph 0088), the subscription information indicating that UAV authorization is required by a UAS server (i.e., the wireless communication network determines that an additional authorization process with UTM for flight approval as described in paragraph 0089), the UAS server comprising a UAS service subscriber (“USS”) server or a UAS traffic management (“UTM”) server (i.e., UTM as described in paragraph 0089-0090).
Park, however, does not expressly disclose:
receive, from an access and mobility management function (“AMF”), a first request message comprising an indication to establish user plane resources for unmanned aerial system (“UAS”) services for an unmanned aerial vehicle (“UAV”) device; and
transmit a second request message to a UAS network function (“UAS-NF”) to initiate the UAV authorization.
In a similar endeavor, Ferdi discloses unmanned aerial vehicle authentication and authorization by unmanned aerial system traffic management over user plane. Ferdi also discloses:
receive, from an access and mobility management function (“AMF”), a first request message comprising an indication to establish user plane resources for unmanned aerial system (“UAS”) services for an unmanned aerial vehicle (“UAV”) device (i.e., receiving a PDU Session Establishment Request 4 at AMF/SMF as shown in Fig. 4, and as described in paragraph 0117. It is also noted that AMF is connected to SMF as shown in Fig. 1D and as described in paragraphs 0064-0065); and
transmit a second request message to a UAS network function (“UAS-NF”) to initiate the UAV authorization (i.e., transmitting a Session Establishment Registration 6 to USS/UTM as shown in Fig. 4).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skilled in the art to modify the teachings of the cited references, and arrive at the present invention.
The motivation/suggestion for doing so would have been to authenticate the UAV and to provide the subscribed UAS services to the UAV.
With further regard to claim 16, even though the combination of Park and Ferdi does not expressly disclose the session management function comprising: a memory, and a processor coupled with the memory. However, it is obvious and/or well known in the art that the memory and the processor are included in the session management function in order to process the information in the wireless networks.
Regarding claims 2, 17, and 24, Park, and Ferdi disclose all limitations recited within claims as described above. Ferdi also wherein the UAV authorization comprises one or more of: a command and control (“C2”) authorization for the UAV device, and a UAV USS authorization and authentication (“UUAA”) for the UAV device (i.e., C2 communications as described in paragraph 0073), wherein the second request message includes an indication of whether authorization is for C2 operation or for UUAA, or both (i.e., indicating C2 communication type as seen in step 5 & 6 of Fig. 3).
Regarding claims 3, 18, and 25, Park, and Ferdi disclose all limitations recited within claims as described above. Ferdi also discloses wherein the first request message comprises a UAV identifier or flight authorization information, or both (i.e., UAV ID included in the PDU Session Establishment Request 4, and as described in paragraph 0117), and wherein the processor is further configured to cause the apparatus to receive an authorization response comprising a UAV authorization token or a flight authorization identifier, or both (i.e., PDU Session Establishment Accept 8 including key as described in paragraph 0124).
Regarding claims 4, 19, and 26, Park, and Ferdi disclose all limitations recited within claims as described above. Ferdi also discloses wherein the second request message to the UAS-NF comprises: an address of the UAS server for authorization, the UAV identifier, and the flight authorization information provided by the UAV (i.e., an UAV ID in the Session Establishment Reg 6 as shown in Fig. 4, and as described in paragraph 0117).
Regarding claims 5, 20, and 27, Park, and Ferdi disclose all limitations recited within claims as described above. Ferdi also discloses wherein the subscription information comprises session management subscription data that includes network slice-level data (i.e., S-NSSAI as described in paragraph 0116), wherein the session management subscription data comprises, for each DNN, an indication of whether a request to establish user plane resources requires UAV authorization from the UAS server (i.e., the S-NSSAI (e.g., an UAV operation specific S-NSSAI in the allowed NSSAI) and/or a DNN associated with the third-party service provider as described in paragraphs 0116-0117).
Regarding claims 7, 22, and 28, Park, and Ferdi disclose all limitations recited within claims as described above. Ferdi also discloses wherein the authorization response is contained within a UAS payload received from the UAS server via the UAS-NF, wherein the UAS payload includes a UAV authorization result for the UAV for one or more network slices (i.e., Session Establishment Response 6 sent from USS/UTM a show in Fig. 4 as described in paragraphs 0122-0124).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6, 21 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.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to WAYNE CAI whose telephone number is (571)272-7798. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Thursday, 7:00 AM-5:00 PM.
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/Wayne H Cai/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2644