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 .
Continued Examination Under 37 CFR 1.114
A request for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, including the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e), was filed in this application after final rejection. Since this application is eligible for continued examination under 37 CFR 1.114, and the fee set forth in 37 CFR 1.17(e) has been timely paid, the finality of the previous Office action has been withdrawn pursuant to 37 CFR 1.114. Applicant's submission filed on 02/02/2026 has been entered.
Response to Amendments
Applicant has amended claim 11 and added new claim 14. No new matter appears to be included by this amendment. Claims 11 and 14 remain pending.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claim(s) 11 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
Claim Objections
Claim 14 is objected to because of the following informalities: Claim 14 recites “a plurality of subscriber identity module.” It is recommended to pluralize “module” as “modules” for clarity and correctness. Appropriate correction is required.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
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) 11 and 14 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Ozturk et al. (US 2021/0092706, hereinafter Ozturk) in view of Lundsjo (US 2006/0189331, hereinafter Lundsjo).
Regarding claims 11 and 14. Ozturk teaches a user equipment (par. 6 and 35, figure 3 item 350, and base station in figure 3, item 310) configured to communicate with a plurality of networks including a first mobile network and a second mobile network (par. 35) by using a plurality of subscriber identity modules (par. 36; Examiners note: it is recommended to include these limitations in the body of the claim to ensure they are positively recited. Currently, they are not required as the body does not tie back to this limitation), the user equipment comprising:
a memory storing a program (Figure 3, UE is item 250, memory is item 360; BS is item 310 memory is 376); and
one or more processors configured to execute the program (Figure 3, UE processor is item 359, BS is item 370) to, in a case where the user equipment is in a radio resource control (RRC) idle state or an RRC inactive state in the first mobile network and is in an RRC connected state in the second mobile network (par. 35, “Many user equipments (UEs) support multiple Universal Subscriber Identity Modules (USIMs) which allow UEs to communicate with different systems.”; “Therefore, while actively communicating using a first USIM, a MUSIM UE may need to occasionally monitor for paging requests from the different system associated with a second USIM.” and par. 36, “Therefore, if a first USIM is in the connected mode and the second USIM is in the idle or inactive mode…” It is clear from par. 35-36 that the one SIM can be in connected mode on a one mobile network while the other SIM is idle or inactive in a different mobile network.):
receive from a base station included in the first mobile network, information indicating whether a service for paging to the user equipment is a voice service, the information being received with a paging message for the paging (Figure 6, item 602 and par 107, is a paging message sent from the base station to the UE, which includes information indicating whether a service for paging to the user equipment is a voice service as shown in figure 4, which shows the paging information can include if the service for the paging is a voice service); and
determine, based on the information indicating whether the service for the paging to the user equipment is the voice service, whether or not to respond to the paging message from the base station included in the first mobile network (par. 115, “For instance, if the UE 502 determines that the paging information (such as paging information 404 in FIG. 4) is a higher priority IMS voice call, the UE may possibly determine to accept the call and subsequently receive downlink data 562 from the BS 504. However, if the UE 502 determines that the paging information is a lower priority data message, the UE may possibly determine to reject the call and refrain from communicating with the BS 504.” As can be seen in par. 115 and shown in figure 6, the UE receives a paging message from one BS (figure 6, item 602), it decrypts the paging information which includes type of service such as a high priority voice call (figure 6 604), and it determines whether or not to respond to the paging message based on the paging information, i.e. the type of service such as priority voice call);
wherein the paging message includes a paging record corresponding to the user equipment and the information is included in the paging record corresponding to the user equipment (par. 6; paging message includes encrypted paging information (i.e. the encrypted paging information reads on the paging record which is included in the paging message, while the decrypted paging information reads on the information indicating the service (service type of voice call)) and par. 9; the encrypted paging information may include a TMSI associated with the UE, where the information includes an association of different TMSI with different paging information, and the encrypted paging information may be decrypted based on the association. Thus the paging record corresponds to the UE based on the associated TMSI (temporary mobile subscriber identifier) and the information is decrypted based on the TMSI association with the UE to identify the paging information to finally make the determination to communicate with the second BS based on whether the service type is a priority voice call). However, although Ozturk teaches the paging message including a “record” (i.e. the encrypted paging information) corresponding to the user (i.e. the TMSI identifier corresponds the user and is used to decrypt the information, thus the information corresponds to the user), he doesn’t explicitly recite the “paging record”. “wherein the paging message includes a paging record corresponding to the user equipment and the information is included in the paging record corresponding to the user”.
Lundsjo, in the same field of endeavor, teaches a multi access communication method and system (par. 1). Lundsjo further teaches the UE receives, from the base station, information indicating whether a service for paging to the user equipment is a voice service, the information being received with a paging message (par. 52-53, UE receives the paging report and compares the included UE identity in the report with its own, if there is a match the UE reads the paging cause. The paging cause is the information indicating whether the service is a voice service, as can be seen in the examples of cause in par. 52, i.e. “conversational call”. It is further noted that identifying if it is a “voice service” is also disclosed in Bao par. 74, where it teaches the concept of reporting which service/paging reason to trigger paging; and in par. 75, it discloses the service may include voice service);
wherein the paging message includes a paging record corresponding to the user equipment (par. 52, paging message includes paging records carrying specific UE identity) and the information is included in the paging record corresponding to the user equipment (par. 52, paging message includes paging records carrying specific UE identity AND a paging cause…paging cause represents QoS class of service). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art at the time of (effective) filing to incorporate the paging record with identification and cause in the paging message of Lundsjo into the method and system of Ozturk. The motivation for doing so would have been to provide a multi-access communication system providing for a fast, resource-efficient call set-up in any reachable access network (Lundsjo par. 11).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
The below prior art all disclose similar concepts to applicants claimed invention and could all be used similarly as the rejection provided above. It is suggested these are reviewed prior to filing a response.
Xu et al. (US 2022/0312372)
LY et al. (US 2022/0240213)
Ryu et al. (US 2021/0352619)
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/Michael Thier/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2474
Michael Thier
Supervisory Patent Examiner
Art Unit 2474
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