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 8/12/2026. 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.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement(s) (IDS) submitted on 5/15/2026 is/are in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the IDS(s) is/are being considered by the examiner.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments filed 8/12/2026 have been considered but are moot because the arguments do not apply to any of the references being used in the current rejection.
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 Dao (WO 2020069662 A1, published 4/9/2020) and further in view of Palanisamy et al. (US 20210176816 A1, published 6/10/2021; hereinafter Pal).
For Claim 1, Tal teaches an operation method of a user plane function (UPF) in a wireless communication system, the method comprising: receiving a quality of service QoS monitoring request from a session management function (SMF), wherein the QoS monitoring request from the SMF comprises instructions for the UPF to monitor a data rate and a congestion level (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 for a packet data unit (PDU) session or a QoS flow, wherein the data rate comprises an uplink data rate or a downlink data rate, wherein the congestion level comprises an uplink congestion level or a downlink congestion level, and wherein the congestion level is expressed as a percentage.
However, Dao teaches for a packet data unit (PDU) session or a QoS flow, wherein the data rate comprises an uplink data rate or a downlink data rate, wherein the congestion level comprises an uplink congestion level or a downlink congestion level (Please see Dao Screenshots of Figs. 10A & 10B below and please note at 1035 SMF sends a N2 SM QoS request toward the RAN through the AMF and at 1055 the SMF sends a N4 QoS report request to the UPF including PDU Session/QFI information, congestion levels, and UL/DL bit-rate information.
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Please see related description of Figs. 10A-10B in the Dao reference, thank you).
Dao and Tal are analogous art because they are both related to QoS monitoring.
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 QoS monitoring and reporting techniques of Dao with the system of Tal to provide a method and apparatus for notifying Quality of Service (QoS) information to User Equipment (UE) , Users, and Application server (Dao ¶ 0008).
Tal-Dao does not explicitly teach wherein the congestion level is expressed as a percentage.
However, Pal teaches wherein the congestion level is expressed as a percentage (Pal Claim 5 wherein the second congestion report comprises an affected IP domain or Packet Data Network (PDN) or uplink data rate or downlink data rate or required percentage/volume of data rate reduction).
Pal and Tal-Dao 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 congestion reporting techniques of Pal with the system of Tal-Dao to provide efficient congestion control mechanisms (Pal ¶ 0158).
For Claim 2, Tal-Dao-Pal teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the QoS monitoring request further comprises at least one of a threshold of the data rate or a threshold of the congestion level (Tal ¶ 0380, Pal ¶ 0012-0014).
For Claim 3, Tal-Dao-Pal 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-Dao-Pal teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the QoS monitoring request further comprises instructions for the UPF to monitor at least one of a packet transmission count, a packet retransmission count, a packet retransmission ratio, a packet drop count, or a packet drop ratio (Tal ¶ 0161, Pal ¶ 0012-0014, Dao Figs. 10A-10B).
For Claim 5, Tal-Dao-Pal 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-Dao-Pal teaches an operation method of a radio access network (RAN) in a wireless communication system, the method comprising: receiving a quality of service QoS monitoring request from a session management function (SMF), wherein the QoS monitoring request from the SMF comprises instructions requesting the RAN to monitor a data rate and a congestion level (Tal ¶ 0380).
Tal does not explicitly teach for a packet data unit (PDU) session or a QoS flow, wherein the data rate comprises an uplink data rate or a downlink data rate, wherein the congestion level comprises an uplink congestion level or a downlink congestion level, and wherein the congestion level is expressed as a percentage.
However, Dao teaches for a packet data unit (PDU) session or a QoS flow, wherein the data rate comprises an uplink data rate or a downlink data rate, wherein the congestion level comprises an uplink congestion level or a downlink congestion level (Dao Figs. 10A & 10B).
Dao and Tal are analogous art because they are both related to QoS monitoring.
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 QoS monitoring and reporting techniques of Dao with the system of Tal to provide a method and apparatus for notifying Quality of Service (QoS) information to User Equipment (UE) , Users, and Application server (Dao ¶ 0008).
Tal-Dao does not explicitly teach wherein the congestion level is expressed as a percentage.
However, Pal teaches wherein the congestion level is expressed as a percentage (Pal Claim 5).
Pal and Tal-Dao 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 congestion reporting techniques of Pal with the system of Tal-Dao to provide efficient congestion control mechanisms (Pal ¶ 0158).
For Claim 7, Tal-Dao-Pal teaches the method of claim 6, wherein the QoS monitoring request further comprises at least one of a threshold of the data rate or a threshold of the congestion level (Tal ¶ 0380, Pal ¶ 0012-0014).
For Claim 8, Tal-Dao-Pal 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).
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.
Any inquiry concerning communications from the examiner should be directed to Michael Keller at (571)270-3863 or michael.keller@uspto.gov. If attempts to reach the examiner are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Moo Jeong can be reached at 571-272-9617.
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/MICHAEL A KELLER/
Primary Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2418
Prosecution Insights