DETAILED ACTION
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 Office Action is in response to the communication filed on 12/19/2025.
Claims 3, 7-8, 12 and 16 have been canceled.
Claims 1, 5, 10, and 14 have been amended.
Claims 1-2, 4-6, 9-11, 13-15 and 17 are pending for consideration.
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 .
Response to Arguments
The 112 rejection under 35 USC of claim 4, 9 and 17 has been withdrawn as Applicant’s arguments are persuasive.
Applicant’s arguments (i.e., “wherein the procedure is associated with performing handover of the protocol data unit (PDU) session of the wireless terminal from the first network to a second network as the packet data network connectivity”) with respect to claim(s) 1-2, 4-6, 9-11, 13-15 and 17 have been considered but are moot.
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) 1-2, 4-6, 9-11, 13-15 and 17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Gundavelli et al. (US 11785456) (hereinafter Gundavelli) in view of Salkintzis et al. (US 20230146052) (hereinafter Salkintzis), and further in view of Zong et al. (US 11159933) (hereinafter Zong).
Regarding claim 1, Gundavelli discloses a wireless communication method for use in a network entity, the method comprising: receiving, (Gundavelli: column 7 lines 35-45, “after validating the credentials of the UE as part of the UE's access authentication [NOTE: after validating the credentials, meaning the UE’s credential has been validated, or the UE has registered in the first network]”; and column 17 lines 17-35, “the UE 102 registers with the public MNO WWA access network/infrastructure 110c/111c, which determines at 702b that the UE 102 is to complete a secondary authentication with the enterprise authentication server”) and that has established a (Gundavelli: column 17 lines 5-29; and column 16 lines 5-20, “complete an authentication (e.g., a secondary authentication) to enterprise authentication server 123 (e.g., a DN-AAA server) for a Protocol Data Unit Session (PDU) session in order to obtain SNPN credentials from enterprise network 120. Various example operational details for the public MNO WWA Off-premise use case 600 are illustrated”), an indicator associated with a capability of supporting at least one method of interacting with an external network for a packet data connection authentication and/or authorization of the external network (Gundavelli: fig. 7A element 702c, “… using UE capability and indication or network policy”; column 17 lines 30-35 … “At 704, the enterprise authentication server 123 determines whether UE 102 is to receive the SNPN provisioning service, as discussed above at 304 for FIG. 3A”; Gundavelli (56) Returning to FIG. 3A, … UE 102 is to receive the SNPN credential provisioning service through any combination of a UE 102 capability and/or indication and/or an enterprise network policy obtained by the enterprise authentication server 123. Additional determinations that the UE 102 is to receive the SNPN credential provisioning service can also be based on various validations, as discussed at 306, below. ); column 11, lines 35-42, “UE 102 is to receive the SNPN credential provisioning service through any combination of a UE 102 capability and/or indication and/or an enterprise network policy obtained by the enterprise authentication server 123. Additional determinations that the UE 102 is to receive the SNPN credential provisioning service can also be based on various validations, as discussed at 306, below”), transmitting, to the wireless terminal, an extensible authentication protocol (EAP) authentication request (Gundavelli: fig. 7A, element 720), and performing a procedure based on the EAP authentication request (Gundavelli: column 17 lines 53-60, “720 analogous operations 320”; column 13 lines 44-56, “For UE 102, the signed SNPN credentials object and subtype of the credentials (SIM or non-SIM) are delivered to the EAP supplicant logic 103, which delivers the signed SNPN credentials object (202) to the enterprise application logic 104 (e.g., which could be an MDM agent operating on the UE), as shown at 322. At 324, the enterprise application logic 104 validates the integrity of the signed SNPN credentials object (202) and interprets the object as an SIM credentials (e.g., an eSIM profile) or non-SIM credentials as per the SubType indication. In one example, the validation may include decrypting the signed SNPN credentials object using the public key contained in the digital certificate to obtain the (unsigned/unencrypted) SNPN credentials (eSIM profile or non-SIM credentials) and network identifier metadata contained in the signed SNPN credentials object”), wherein the first network is associated with a 5G system and the second network is associated with an evolved packet system (Gundavelli: column 2 lines 51-67, “a wireless wide area (WWA) access network, such as a cellular/Third (3rd) Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) access networks, may be characterized as a Radio Access Network (RAN) having radio nodes such as evolved Node Bs (eNBs or eNodeBs) for Fourth (4th) Generation (4G)/Long Term Evolution (LTE) access networks, next generation Node Bs (gNBs or gNodeBs) for Fifth (5th) Generation (5G) and/or next Generation (nG) access networks, and/or the like that provide a larger RAN coverage area”; Gundavelli in fig. 1 teaches Access Network 110, labeled with “WWA/WLA”. Gundavelli in fig. 1 further teaches Enterprise SNPN (element 130) connecting to Data network(s) (element 140), with element 130 also labeled with (WWA). Gundavelli teaches that WWA can be any network of type 4G/LTE or 5G. See also (column 5 lines 1-67)).
Gundavelli does not explicitly disclose the following limitations which are disclosed by Salkintzis, a wireless terminal sends an indicator (Salkintzis: paragraphs 0043, 0046, 0056-0057, 0060 and 0065-0067, “the UE 205 sends an IKE_AUTH Request to N3IWF-1 211 (see messaging 233), which includes an EAP-Response/5G-NAS packet that contains Access Network parameters (AN-Params) and a Registration Request message (or a Service Request message). The AN-Params contains a UE identity (e.g., SUCI or 5G-GUTI), the Selected PLMN identity, an Establishment cause and (optionally) a Requested NSSAI.”) and receiving from the wireless terminal that has established a protocol data unit session (Salkintzis: paragraphs 0056-0057, “the remote units 105 communicate with an application server (or other communication peer) via a network connection with the mobile core network 140. For example, an application in a remote unit 105 (e.g., web browser, media client, telephone/VoIP application) may trigger the remote unit 105 to establish a PDU session (or other data connection) with the mobile core network 140 using the TNAN 120 and/or untrusted AN 130.”).
Gundavelli and Salkintzis are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor, network management. Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Gundavelli and Salkintzis before him or her, to modify the system of Gundavelli to include a wireless terminal that sends an indicator and receiving from the wireless terminal that has established a protocol data unit session of Salkintzis. The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to setup a secure connection with the UE (i.e., the wireless terminal) (Salkintzis: paragraph 0084).
Gundavelli in view of Salkintzis does not explicitly disclose the following limitation which is disclosed by Zong, wherein the procedure is associated with performing handover of the protocol data unit (PDU) session of the wireless terminal from the first network to a second network as the packet data network connectivity (Zong: paragraphs (20), (149) and (166), “When determining that an inter-network handover of the UE from 5G to 4G occurs, the AMF maps the information about the established PDU session in the 5G network to the information about the PDN connection, and determines a proper MME based on the 4G subscription data, to implement a fast inter-network handover”), wherein the first network is associated with a 5G system and the second network is associated with an evolved packet system (Zong: paragraphs (20), (149) and (166), “When determining that an inter-network handover of the UE from 5G to 4G occurs, the AMF maps the information about the established PDU session in the 5G network to the information about the PDN connection, and determines a proper MME based on the 4G subscription data, to implement a fast inter-network handover”).
Gundavelli in view of Salkintzis and Zong are analogous art because they are from the same field of endeavor, network management. Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, having the teachings of Gundavelli in view of Salkintzis and Zong before him or her, to modify the system of Gundavelli in view of Salkintzis to include a procedure is associated with performing handover of a protocol data unit (PDU) session of a wireless terminal from a first network to a second network as the packet data network connectivity of Zong. The suggestion/motivation for doing so would have been to ensure that an UE can enjoy an equivalent network service when moving from 5G to 4G (Zong: paragraph (149)).
Regarding claim 5, claim 5 discloses a method claim that is substantially equivalent to the method of claim 1. Therefore, the arguments set forth above with respect to claim 1 are equally applicable to claim 5 and rejected for the same reasons.
Regarding claim 10, claim 10 discloses a network entity claim that is substantially equivalent to the method of claim 1. Therefore, the arguments set forth above with respect to claim 1 are equally applicable to claim 10 and rejected for the same reasons.
Regarding claim 14, claim 14 discloses a terminal claim that is substantially equivalent to the method of claim 1. Therefore, the arguments set forth above with respect to claim 1 are equally applicable to claim 14 and rejected for the same reasons.
Regarding claims 2, 6, 11 and 15, Gundavelli as modified discloses wherein the at least one method comprises at least one of: an EAP (Gundavelli: column 13 lines 34-44, “the enterprise authentication server 123 sends the signed SNPN credentials object (202) to UE 102, as shown at 320, in an EAP-REQUEST message with various information/indications including but not limited to: Type=EAP-SNPN-CFG, SubType=SIM or Non-SIM (credential type indicator set depending on the type of credentials), Signed data=signed SNPN credentials object [e.g., signed eSIM profile or signed non-SIM credentials], and an operation type indicator, such as Operation=Installation and Activation.”).
Regarding claims 4, and 13, Gundavelli as modified discloses wherein the network entity is associated with the second network, and wherein the indicator is received in a create session request message (Zong: paragraphs (143-144), “The AMF sends a second handover request to the target MME….The second handover request includes the UE usage type and information about a PDN connection mapped from information about an established PDU session of the UE in the 5G network.”). The same motivation to modify Gundavelli in view of Salkintzis and Zong, as applied in claim 1 above, applies here.
Regarding claims 9 and 17, Gundavelli as modified discloses wherein the network entity is associated with the second network, and wherein the indicator is transmitted in an Attach Request message or a PDN connectivity request message (Zong: paragraphs (129-137 and 139-144), “The AMF sends a second handover request to the target MME….The second handover request includes the UE usage type and information about a PDN connection mapped from information about an established PDU session of the UE in the 5G network.”). The same motivation to modify Gundavelli in view of Salkintzis and Zong, as applied in claim 1 above, applies here.
Conclusion
Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). 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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) 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.
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/TRANG T DOAN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2431