DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the AIA . This action is in response to the communication filed on 3/23/2026. Claims 1-8 are pending. In 3/23/2026 communication applicant elected with traverse claims 1-8.
Examiner Note
The examiner is here to serve, to assist, and to help applicant to the very best of his ability. The Primary Patent Examiner position is a position of serving and it is an honor to externally serve the applicant and attorney and to internally serve junior examiners and supervisors. The goal of the examiner is to work with and assist applicant to move cases along as efficiently as possible.
Applicant is encouraged to call examiner to schedule an interview if applicant has any questions about this action, wants to discuss any possible paths forward, has proposed amendments to the claims to run by the examiner, or for any other issues that applicant would like to discuss.
Examiner can normally be reached at (571) 270-3863 or michael.keller@uspto.gov, Monday-Friday, from about 6 AM - 10 PM EST and if your call is missed examiner will try to return call quickly, thank you.
Priority
This application claims priority of KR10-2023-0002416, filed 1/6/2023. The assignee of record is Electronics and Telecommunications Research Institute. The listed inventor(s) is/are: HA, Jeoung Lak; KIM, Changki; LEE, Jaewook; CHOI, Seung Han.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed 3/23/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Applicant argues:
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a. Examiner respectfully disagrees. Examiner indicated claims 1-8 are classified in H04W24/08 and claims 9-17 are classified in H04L41/5067, therefore the examiner has shown separate classifications and different field of searches for the two sets of claims.
Further evidence is found in the below prior art rejections and references used to make the rejections of claims 1-8 below, which do not appear to be prior art for mapping the claim limitations of claims 9-17.
Response to Amendment
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.
The factual inquiries for establishing a background for determining obviousness under 35 U.S.C. 103 are summarized as follows:
1. Determining the scope and contents of the prior art.
2. Ascertaining the differences between the prior art and the claims at issue.
3. Resolving the level of ordinary skill in the pertinent art.
4. Considering objective evidence present in the application indicating obviousness or nonobviousness.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claim(s) 1-8 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Talebi Fard et al. (US 20250274810 A1, Provisional 63/410,525 filed 9/27/2022; hereinafter Tal) in view of Yao et al. (US 20210289393 A1, published 9/16/2021; hereinafter Yao).
For Claim 1, Tal teaches an operation method of a user plane function (UPF) in a wireless communication system, the method comprising: receiving a QoS monitoring request from a session management function (SMF), wherein the QoS monitoring request comprises monitoring of at least one of a data rate, a congestion level, a packet transmission count, a packet retransmission count, a packet retransmission ratio, a packet drop count, or a packet drop ratio (Tal ¶ 0380 The SMF may generate the QoS Monitoring configuration for RAN: RAN congestion measurement indication, measure frequency, report threshold).
Tal does not explicitly teach a request.
However, Yao teaches a request (Yao Claim 29 An apparatus configured to operate as packet data unit (PDU) session anchor (PSA) user plane function (UPF) in a 5.sup.th generation (5G) system, the apparatus comprising: processing circuitry configured to: receive, from a session management function (SMF), a request to perform quality of service (QoS) monitoring, the request comprising an indication that event-triggered QoS monitoring is supported and thresholds to trigger reporting of the QoS monitoring if the event-triggered QoS monitoring is supported, the QoS monitoring comprising at least one of: QoS monitoring per QoS flow per user equipment (UE) for ultra-reliable low-latency communication (URLLC) service between the PSA UPF and a next generation radio access network (NG-RAN), or General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) Tunneling Protocol (GTP) user plane (GTP-U) path QoS monitoring; in response to reception of the request, perform the QoS monitoring, the QoS monitoring including: uplink (UL) or downlink (DL) packet delay and round trip time (RTT) between the PSA UPF and UE for QoS monitoring per QoS flow per UE, and packet delays between the PSA UPF and NG-RAN for GTP-U path QoS monitoring; send, to the SMF in response to at least one of the thresholds having been met, a report containing measurements of the QoS monitoring associated with the at least one of the thresholds; and determine, based on the report for GTP-U path QoS monitoring, QoS flow mapping to a network instance, and a memory configured to store the measurements.)
Yao and Tal are analogous art because they are both related to QoS.
Before the effective filing date of the claimed invention it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art to use the request techniques of Yao with the system of Tal because of ability to determine QoS flow mapping (Yao Claim 29).
For Claim 2, Tal-Yao teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the QoS monitoring request further comprises at least one of a threshold of the data rate, a threshold of the congestion level, a threshold of the packet transmission count, a threshold of the packet retransmission count, a threshold of the packet retransmission ratio, a threshold of the packet drop count, or a threshold of the packet drop ratio (Tal ¶ 0380).
For Claim 3, Tal-Yao teaches the method of claim 1, wherein in the receiving of the QoS monitoring request from the session management function further comprises at least one of a session identifier, a QoS flow identifier, a reporting method, a monitoring period, a reporting frequency, an event notification URI to which report is sent directly, a notification correlation identifier, or a duplicate reporting flag (Tal ¶ 0380).
For Claim 4, Tal-Yao teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the data rate comprises a data rate for an uplink or a data rate for a downlink, the congestion level comprises a congestion level for an uplink or a congestion level for a downlink, the packet transmission count comprises a packet transmission count for an uplink or a packet transmission count for a downlink, the packet retransmission count comprises a packet retransmission count for an uplink or a packet retransmission count for a downlink, the packet retransmission ratio comprises a packet retransmission ratio for an uplink or a packet retransmission ratio for a downlink, the packet drop count comprises a packet drop count for an uplink or a packet drop count for a downlink, or the packet drop ratio comprises a packet drop ratio for an uplink or a packet drop ratio for a downlink (Tal ¶ 0161).
For Claim 5, Tal-Yao teaches the method of claim 3, wherein the reporting frequency comprises at least one of periodic reporting, event triggered reporting, or reporting when PDU session is released (Tal ¶ 0380).
For Claim 6, Tal-Yao teaches an operation method of a radio access network (RAN) in a wireless communication system, the method comprising: receiving a QoS monitoring request from a session management function (SMF), wherein the receiving QoS monitoring request comprises requesting monitoring of at least one of a data rate, a congestion level, a packet transmission count, a packet retransmission count, a packet retransmission ratio, a packet drop count, or a packet drop ratio (Tal ¶ 0380).
For Claim 7, Tal-Yao teaches the method of claim 6, wherein the QoS monitoring request further comprises at least one of a threshold of the data rate, a threshold of the congestion level, a threshold of the packet transmission count, a threshold of the packet retransmission count, a threshold of the packet retransmission ratio, a threshold of the packet drop count, or a threshold of the packet drop ratio (Tal ¶ 0380).
For Claim 8, Tal-Yao teaches the method of claim 6, wherein the receiving of the QoS monitoring request from the session management function (SMF) comprises requesting at least one of a session identifier to be measured, a QoS flow identifier to be measured, a reporting method, a monitoring period, or a reporting frequency (Tal ¶ 0380).
Citation of Pertinent Prior Art
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure is listed below, thank you:
i. WO 2020224755 A1, NETWORK NODES FOR HANDLING NON-FULFILMENT OF QOS REQUIRMENTS
Please see PTO-892 for additional listing of relevant prior art made of record but not relied upon, thank you.
Conclusion
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/MICHAEL A KELLER/
Primary Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2446
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