DETAILED ACTION
This Office Action is in response to the Amendment filed on March 12th, 2026.
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.
In the instant Amendment, claims 1, 8 & 15 have been amended; and claims 1, 8 & 15 are independent. Claims 1-20 have been examined and are pending. This Action is made FINAL.
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
Applicant’s arguments, see page 8, filed 03/12/2026, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1-4, 7-12, 15-17, and 20 under 35 U.S.C. § 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Yu.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103(a) which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
(a) A patent may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1-4, 7-12, 15-17 & 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C 103(a) as being unpatentable over Skuratovich et al. (Skuratovich), U.S. Pub. Number 2017/0163607, in view of Kim et al. (Kim), U.S. Pub. Number 2023/0042442, and further in view of Yu, U.S. Pub. Number 2021/0058780.
Regarding claim 1; Sturatovich discloses a method, comprising:
generating, by the UDM device and based on receiving a response from the UDR, a session key (par. 0083; an unencrypted version of a session key or a pair of secrets that can be used to generate it.) and a session key identifier that is associated with the session key (par. 0087; the session key identifier may be generated by the communications controller.); and
transmitting, by the UDM device and to the UDR, an authentication status message, wherein the authentication status message indicates the session key and the session key identifier for storage in the UDR (par. 0152; fig. 5B; provided the request was received within T1 and there is no request with RequestID already in the shared memory; the call controller 210 processes the decrypted request contents, including RequqestPayload and provided certain timing constraints are met, generates a response message (“Response”) comprising RequestID from the request contents, Timestamp, and a response message payload (“ResponsePayload”), including RequestID in the response allows the client 205a to distinguish between multiple copies of the response, which may be sent for reliability.).
Sturatovich fails to explicitly disclose transmitting, by a unified data management (UDM) device, to a unified data repository (UDR), and based on receiving a generate authentication data message from an authentication server function (AUSF) in a network, an authentication subscription message.
However, in the same field of endeavor, Kim discloses method and terminal for processing security policy for V2X comprising transmitting, by a unified data management (UDM) device, to a unified data repository (UDR), and based on receiving a generate authentication data message from an authentication server function (AUSF), an authentication subscription message (Kim: par. 0131; SMF transmits subscriber data request message to UDM; the subscriber data request message may include a subscriber permanent ID and DNN; UDM may transmit subscription data response message to SMF.).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Kim into the method and device of Sturatovich comprising transmitting, by a unified data management (UDM) device, to a unified data repository (UDR), and based on receiving a generate authentication data message from an authentication server function (AUSF), an authentication subscription message to process a security policy for different devices (Kim: par. 0071).
Sturatovich and Kim fail to explicitly disclose the session key is retrievable from the UDR by any AUSF in the network including the AUSF, using the session key identifier stored in the UDR.
However, in the same field of endeavor, Yu discloses session establishment method and means and communication system wherein the session key is retrievable from the UDR by any AUSF in the network including the AUSF, using the session key identifier stored in the UDR (Yu: pars. 0032, 0042 & 0073; PCF 210 communicates a request for information pertaining to a subscription for UE 202; in response to PCF 210 determining that PCF 210 does not have subscription data relating to UE 202, PCF 210 sends the request for subscription data to another network entity; PCF 210 communicates the request for subscription data to unified data repository (UDR) 212; data relating to the PDU session can be obtained based at least in part on the request for subscription data; for instance, in response to receiving the request for subscription data, UDR 212 can obtain the data relating to the PDU session (e.g., subscription data relating to UE202); in response to receiving the PDU session establishment request, SMF 208 is selected based at least in part on the PDU session establishment request; for instance, SMF 208 can be selected based at leaset in part on the KAKMA ID included in the PDU session establishment request; AMF 206 selects SMF 208 based at least in part on the PDU session establishment request message; if SMFs corresponding to all available slices are preset in AMF 206, AMF 206 can use the key identifier included in the session establishment request as a basis to select the SMF that supports providing a special session policy based on the key identifier (e.g., KAKMA ID).).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teaching of Yu into the method and device of Sturatovich and the method and terminal of Kim wherein the session key is retrievable from the UDR by any AUSF in the network including the AUSF, using the session key identifier stored in the UDR to provide a method and system for communicating information pertaining to services that can be differentiable based at least in part on application-layer keys (Yu: par. 0008).
Regarding claim 2; Sturatovich, Kim and Yu disclose the method of claim 1, wherein Sturatovich further discloses the session key is a root key or a master session key that is available to the AUSF (Sturatovich: par. 0157; the call controller 210 utilizes shared ephemeral WrappingKey-s; each server of the call controller 210 is provisioned with asymmetric keypair (RSA, 2048 bits); WrappingKey in ephemeral storage is encrypted with server’s public key (RSA-OAEP padding); network access to ephemeral storage is via TLS only and authentication is based on either client TLS certificates or Azure Active Directory.).
Regarding claim 3; Sturatovich, Kim and Yu disclose the method of claim 1, wherein Sturatovich further discloses the session key identifier is a pseudo-random value or a decorated identifier that is used to uniquely identify the session key (Sturatovich: par. 0157; service performing key rotation encrypts newly generated cryptographically secure random 256-bit key using server’s public key and places result into ephemeral storage.).
Regarding claim 4; Sturatovich, Kim and Yu disclose the method of claim 1, Sturatovich further discloses comprising: storing the session key identifier locally at the UDM device (Sturatovich: pars. 0289-0290; the session key data may comprise the session key identifier and a version of the session key may be stored in a memory location accessible to the communications controller in association with the session key identifier.).
Regarding claim 7; Sturatovich, Kim and Yu disclose the method of claim 6, wherein Sturatovich further discloses the session key is associated with a user equipment (UE) (Sturatovich: par. 0102; smartwatch, television, set-top box.).
Regarding claim 8; Claim 8 is directed to a method which has similar scope as claim 1. Therefore, claim 8 remains un-patentable for the same reasons.
Regarding claims 9-12; Claims 9-12 are directed to the method of claim 8 which have similar scope as claims 2-4 & 7. Therefore, claims 9-12 remain un-patentable for the same reasons.
Regarding claim 15; Claim 8 is directed to a device which has similar scope as claim 1. Therefore, claim 15 remains un-patentable for the same reasons.
Regarding claims 16-17 & 20; Claims 16-17 & 20 are directed to the device of claim 15 which have similar scope as claims 2-4 & 7. Therefore, claims 16-17 & 20 remain un-patentable for the same reasons.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 5-6, 13-14, or 18-19 is 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
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 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 date of this final action.
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/KHOI V LE/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2436