DETAILED ACTION
Notice of Pre-AIA or AIA Status
1. The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA .
Information Disclosure Statement
2. The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 12/18/2025 is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Response to Amendments
3.. Applicant's arguments with respect to claims 3-18 have been considered but are moot in view of the new ground(s) of rejection.
4. Applicant newly added claims 3-18.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. Claims 3-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Rajadura et al (US 2022/0030425), hereinafter “Rajadura“, in view of Bangolae et al (US 2022/0038948), hereinafter “Bangolae“, further in view of Young et al (US 2021/0320878), “Young”.
Regarding claim 3, the combination of Rajadura and Bangolae teach the method of claim 1, Rajadura and Bangolae do not teach wherein determining that the first CU-UP requires service comprises the first CU-UP informing an OpenRAN Service Management and Orchestrator (SMO) of an overload condition.
Young, in the same field of endeavor, teaches wherein determining that the first CU-UP requires service comprises the first CU-UP informing an OpenRAN Service Management and Orchestrator (SMO) of an overload condition. (pars [0009-0010] [0020] teach Network Functions Virtualization (NFV) and/or cloud-native network with a flexible and scalable architecture that enables dynamic load-balancing, intelligent traffic steering).
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide the above teaching of Rajadura and Bangolae to Young, in order to provide management to ensure that transport performance for a network slice serving a particular network customer meets the customer's service requirements (as suggested by Young in paragraph [0010]).
Regarding claim 4, the combination of Rajadura and Bangolae teach the method of claim 3, Rajadura and Bangolae do not teach wherein the first CU-UP further informs a Centralized Unit-Control Plane (CU-CP) of the overload condition.
Young, in the same field of endeavor, teaches wherein the first CU-UP further informs a Centralized Unit-Control Plane (CU-CP) of the overload condition (pars [0009] [0016-0017] [0020]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide the above teaching of Rajadura and Bangolae to Young, in order to provide management to ensure that transport performance for a network slice serving a particular network customer meets the customer's service requirements (as suggested by Young in paragraph [0010]).
Regarding claim 5, the combination of Rajadura and Bangolae teach the method of claim 1, Rajadura and Bangolae do not teach wherein determining that the first CU-UP requires service comprises the first CU-UP providing information regarding possible actions to mitigate an overload condition.
Young, in the same field of endeavor, teaches wherein determining that the first CU-UP requires service comprises the first CU-UP providing information regarding possible actions to mitigate an overload condition (pars [0009] [0016-0017] [0020]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide the above teaching of Rajadura and Bangolae to Young, in order to provide management to ensure that transport performance for a network slice serving a particular network customer meets the customer's service requirements (as suggested by Young in paragraph [0010]).
Regarding claim 6, the combination of Rajadura and Bangolae teach the method of claim 1, Rajadura and Bangolae do not teach wherein spawning the second CU-UP instance comprises an OpenRAN SMO initiating spawning based on input provided by the first CU-UP instance.
Young, in the same field of endeavor, teaches wherein spawning the second CU-UP instance comprises an OpenRAN SMO initiating spawning based on input provided by the first CU-UP instance (pars [0009] [0020]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide the above teaching of Rajadura and Bangolae to Young, in order to provide management to ensure that transport performance for a network slice serving a particular network customer meets the customer's service requirements (as suggested by Young in paragraph [0010]).
Regarding claim 7, the combination of Rajadura and Bangolae teach the method of claim 1, Rajadura further teaches comprising the second CU-UP instance initiating a registration procedure with a CU-CP after spawning (pars [0070-0071]).
Regarding claim 8, the combination of Rajadura and Bangolae teach the method of claim 7, Rajadura and Bangolae do not teach wherein the registration procedure comprises the second CU-UP instance providing maximum throughput capacity information to the CU-CP.
Young, in the same field of endeavor, teaches wherein the registration procedure comprises the second CU-UP instance providing maximum throughput capacity information to the CU-CP (pars [0043-0044]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide the above teaching of Rajadura and Bangolae to Young, in order to provide management to ensure that transport performance for a network slice serving a particular network customer meets the customer's service requirements (as suggested by Young in paragraph [0010]).
Regarding claim 9, the combination of Rajadura and Bangolae teach the method of claim 7, Rajadura further teaches wherein the registration procedure comprises the second CU-UP instance providing subscriber capacity information to the CU-CP (pars [0070-0071]).
Regarding claim 10, the combination of Rajadura and Bangolae teach the method of claim 1, Rajadura and Bangolae do not teach wherein migrating the subscriber comprises a CU-CP selecting the second CU-UP instance as a least loaded CU-UP instance.
Young, in the same field of endeavor, teaches wherein migrating the subscriber comprises a CU-CP selecting the second CU-UP instance as a least loaded CU-UP instance (pars [0049-0050] teach instantiating a VNF(s)/CNF(s) for collecting/deploying performance-related data).
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide the above teaching of Rajadura and Bangolae to Young, in order to provide management to ensure that transport performance for a network slice serving a particular network customer meets the customer's service requirements (as suggested by Young in paragraph [0010]).
Regarding claim 11, the combination of Rajadura and Bangolae teach the method of claim 1, Rajadura and Bangolae do not teach wherein migrating the subscriber comprises migrating the subscriber based on a configured policy at a CU-CP.
Young, in the same field of endeavor, teaches teach wherein migrating the subscriber comprises migrating the subscriber based on a configured policy at a CU-CP (pars [0049-0050] teach instantiating a VNF(s)/CNF(s) for collecting/deploying performance-related data).
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide the above teaching of Rajadura and Bangolae to Young, in order to provide management to ensure that transport performance for a network slice serving a particular network customer meets the customer's service requirements (as suggested by Young in paragraph [0010]).
Regarding claim 12, the combination of Rajadura and Bangolae teach the
method of claim 1, Rajadura and Bangolae do not teach comprising distributing new subscribers to a least loaded CU-UP instance after spawning the second CU-UP instance.
Young, in the same field of endeavor, teaches comprising distributing new subscribers to a least loaded CU-UP instance after spawning the second CU-UP instance (pars [0030-0031]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide the above teaching of Rajadura and Bangolae to Young, in order to provide management to ensure that transport performance for a network slice serving a particular network customer meets the customer's service requirements (as suggested by Young in paragraph [0010]).
Regarding claim 13, the combination of Rajadura and Bangolae teach the method of claim 1, Rajadura and Bangolae do not teach wherein the first CU-UP instance and the second CU-UP instance are implemented as cloud-native network functions (CNFs).
Young, in the same field of endeavor, teaches wherein the first CU-UP instance and the second CU-UP instance are implemented as cloud-native network functions (CNFs) (pars [0030-0031]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide the above teaching of Rajadura and Bangolae to Young, in order to provide management to ensure that transport performance for a network slice serving a particular network customer meets the customer's service requirements (as suggested by Young in paragraph [0010]).
Regarding claim 14, the combination of Rajadura and Bangolae teach the method of claim 1, Rajadura and Bangolae do not teach wherein the first CU-UP instance comprises a user plane manager that manages user plane pod instances.
Young, in the same field of endeavor, teaches wherein the first CU-UP instance comprises a user plane manager that manages user plane pod instances (pars [0030-0031]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide the above teaching of Rajadura and Bangolae to Young, in order to provide management to ensure that transport performance for a network slice serving a particular network customer meets the customer's service requirements (as suggested by Young in paragraph [0010]).
Regarding claim 15, the combination of Rajadura and Bangolae teach the method of claim 1, Rajadura and Bangolae do not teach wherein spawning the second CU-UP instance occurs without service disruption to active subscribers on the first CU-UP instance.
Young, in the same field of endeavor, teaches wherein spawning the second CU-UP instance occurs without service disruption to active subscribers on the first CU-UP instance (pars [0030-0031]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide the above teaching of Rajadura and Bangolae to Young, in order to provide management to ensure that transport performance for a network slice serving a particular network customer meets the customer's service requirements (as suggested by Young in paragraph [0010]).
Regarding claim 16, the combination of Rajadura and Bangolae teach the method of claim 2, Rajadura and Bangolae do not teach wherein the first CU-UP requires service comprises the first CU-UP being overloaded, and wherein spawning occurs during peak hours to handle increased throughput requirements.
Young, in the same field of endeavor, teaches wherein the first CU-UP requires service comprises the first CU-UP being overloaded, and wherein spawning occurs during peak hours to handle increased throughput requirement (par [0009] teaches including a flexible and scalable architecture that enables dynamic load-balancing, intelligent traffic steering reads on spawning occurs during peak hours to handle increased throughput requirement).
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide the above teaching of Rajadura and Bangolae to Young, in order to provide management to ensure that transport performance for a network slice serving a particular network customer meets the customer's service requirements (as suggested by Young in paragraph [0010]).
Regarding claim 17, the combination of Rajadura and Bangolae teach the method of claim 2, Rajadura and Bangolae do not teach wherein the first CU-UP requires service comprises the first CU-UP being underloaded, and wherein migrating the subscriber comprises consolidating subscribers from the first CU-UP instance to the second CU-UP instance during non-peak hours.
Young, in the same field of endeavor, teaches wherein the first CU-UP requires service comprises the first CU-UP being underloaded, and wherein migrating the subscriber comprises consolidating subscribers from the first CU-UP instance to the second CU-UP instance during non-peak hours (pars [0009-0010] [0012]teach including a flexible and scalable architecture that enables dynamic load-balancing, intelligent traffic steering reads on spawning occurs during peak hours to handle increased throughput requirement).
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide the above teaching of Rajadura and Bangolae to Young, in order to provide management to ensure that transport performance for a network slice serving a particular network customer meets the customer's service requirements (as suggested by Young in paragraph [0010]).
Regarding claim 18, the combination of Rajadura and Bangolae teach the method of claim 2, Rajadura and Bangolae do not teach wherein the first CU-UP requires service comprises the first CU-UP requiring a software upgrade, and wherein spawning the second CU-UP instance enables seamless version upgrade without impacting subscriber services
Young, in the same field of endeavor, teaches wherein the first CU-UP requires service comprises the first CU-UP requiring a software upgrade, and wherein spawning the second CU-UP instance enables seamless version upgrade without impacting subscriber service (pars [0009-0010] [0012] teach operate to service traffic of one or more network slices. While deploying and managing network slices for customers with specific service requirements (e.g., specific Service Level Agreements (SLAs)).
Therefore, it would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to one of ordinary skill in the art to provide the above teaching of Rajadura and Bangolae to Young, in order to provide management to ensure that transport performance for a network slice serving a particular network customer meets the customer's service requirements (as suggested by Young in paragraph [0010]).
Response to Arguments
8. Applicant's Remarks/Arguments filed 12/05/2025 on claim 1, have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. However, applicant newly added claims 3-18.
9. In response to applicant’s Remarks/Arguments in claim 1 that “nowhere else does Rajadura teach or suggest spawning a second CU-UP” on page 2, lines 23-24.
Examiner respectfully disagrees. The Applicant does not define what or how is a second CU-UP works. However, the examiner must give the broadest reasonable interpretation to claim 1, Rajadure indeed teaches relates to a communication method and system for converging a (5G) Radio Access Network (RAN), wherein there is support provided for multiple Centralized Unit-User Planes (CU-UPs) for supporting higher data rates (See Abstract).
Rajadura further teaches the communicates with CU-CP over E1 interface and with DU over F1-U interface in which providing or generating the connectivity between the Centralized Unit User Plane (CU-UP), the Centralized Unit Control Plane CU-CP, and the Distributed Unit that connected through the E1 and F1 interfaces for generating the data between EDC-1, EDC-2, and includes gNB-DU in which clearly reads on “spawning a second CU-UP” (see Figs. 1-2).
Moreover, Rajadura (paragraph [0002]) teaches the methods and systems for generating unique integrity protection keys or ciphering keys for each CU-UP associated with a CU-Control Plane (CU-CP) of a Next Generation Node B (gNB), and generating for each CU-UP associated with a CU-Control Plane (CU-CP), in which reads on “spawning a second CU-UP” (See Figs. 1-2).
Rajadura (paragraph [0006]) teaches a Next Generation Node B (gNB) with a disaggregated architecture can provide support for multiple Centralized Unit-User Planes (CU-UPs), if it is determined that the support is necessary or is essential in certain deployment scenarios. The CU-UPs may be deployed in different entities. The entities may be in same location or in different locations, the word deployed means upgraded, created, and/or generated data, this clearly reads on “spawning a second CU-UP”. Furthermore, (paragraph [0011]) teaches number of CU-Ups deployed by the operator in the RAN, in which reads on spawning a second CU-UP.
Rajadura does not clearly teach a second CU-UP instances, however, Bangolae teaches the second, another or the other CU-UP instances (see paragraphs [0063] [0068-0069], and claim 13).
Conclusion
10. THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any extension fee pursuant to 37 CFR 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MICHAEL T VU whose telephone number is (571)272-8131. The examiner can normally be reached on 8:00AM to 6:00PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Charles Appiah can be reached on 571-272-7904. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MICHAEL T VU/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2641