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 .
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.
Claims 11, 15-17, and 20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Wu et al (US Publication 2022/0182966 A1) in view of Abdelmalek et al (US Publication 2023/0370963 A1).
Regarding to claim 11, Wu discloses a communication device 600 (fig. 6) comprising: one or more processors 606; and a plurality of programming instructions executable by the one or more processors (page 12 paragraph 0176) to perform operations including: receiving, a registration with tracking area identity TAI group lists (fig. 3A page 5 paragraphs 0070 and 0073; TAI lists from last and current serving cells) including a duplicate tracking area code TAC range (page 5 paragraph 00074; TAC #1 and TAC #2); identifying the duplicate TAC range (page 5 paragraph 0073); and based at least in part on the identifying, responding to the registration with a rejection of the registration (page 5 paragraph 0074; noted if there is duplicate TAC range registration is not perform).
Wu fails to teach for a network repository function NRF comprising a service management function SMF performing registration.
However, Abdelmalek discloses a network repository function NRF 170 comprising a service management function SMF 145 performing registration (fig. 1 page 2 paragraph 0018).
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to arrange for the NRF 170 and SMF as taught by Abdelmalek into Wu’s system to provide 5G core network functions.
Regarding to claim 15, Wu discloses at least one of the first TAI group list, the second TAI group list, and the third TAI group list includes the duplicate TAC range (page 5 paragraph 0073).
Regarding to claim 16, Wu discloses a non-transitory computer storage medium (fig. 6) having a plurality of programming instructions stored thereon that (page 12 paragraph 0176), when executed by one or more processors 606 cause to perform operations comprising: receiving multiple tracking area identity TAI group lists (fig. 3A page 5 paragraphs 0070 and 0073; TAI lists from last and current serving cells); determining that the multiple TAI group lists include a duplicate TAC range (page 5 paragraph 0073); and responding to receiving the multiple TAI group lists, to a source (serving cells) that provided the multiple TAI group lists, with an error message (page 5 paragraphs 0063 and 0074; noted if there is duplicate TAC range registration is not perform via message registration incomplete).
Wu fails to teach for a service management function SMF to provision tracking area code TAC.
However, Abdelmalek discloses a service management function SMF 145 (fig. 1 page 2 paragraph 0018) for provision tracking area code TAC (page 5 paragraph 0038).
Thus, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to arrange for the SMF as taught by Abdelmalek into Wu’s system to provide 5G core network functions.
Regarding to claim 17, Wu discloses the source enters the multiple TAI group lists (page 5 paragraph 0070).
Regarding to claim 20, Wu discloses at least one of the first TAI group list, the second TAI group list, and the third TAI group list includes the duplicate TAC range (page 5 paragraph 0073).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 12-14, 18, and 19 are 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.
Claims 1-10 are allowed.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter: The prior art of record fails to teach or make obvious for “providing, by the NRF, at least a subset of the multiple TAI group lists, to an access and mobility management function (AMF); and storing, by the AMF, the subset of the multiple TAI group lists, wherein one of the SMF, the NRF, and the AMF removes a duplicate TAC range from multiple TAI group lists before the AMF stores the subset of the multiple TAI group lists”, when the providing and storing are considered within the specific combination of steps recited in the method of claim 1.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to Duc T Duong whose telephone number is (571)272-3122. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Fri; 9am-6pm.
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/DUC T DUONG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2467