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 § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 8-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to non-statutory subject matter. The claims do not fall within at least one of the four categories of patent eligible subject matter because claims 8-12 recite a system comprising a first policy control network element and binding support function network element. Paragraph 95 of Applicant’s Specification recites “It may be understood that the foregoing network element or function network element may be a network element in a hardware device, may be a software function running on dedicated hardware, or may be a virtualized function instantiated on a platform (for example, a cloud platform)”. Based on this definition, the claimed system can read on comprising only software.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1-7 and 13-20 allowed.
The following is a statement of reasons for the indication of allowable subject matter:
With regard to claims 1 and 13, US 2024/0365088 (Hong et al.) teaches an application function (AF, fig 11) sending a session policy creation request (s1102, fig 11) to an NEF that in turn sends a policy request (s1104, fig 11) to a first policy control network element (PCF1, fig 11). The AF determines a policy (s1105, fig 11) for a user equipment (UE1, fig 11) and sends a message (s1107, fig 11) for other UEs to a binding support function (BSF, fig 11). The BSF sends information about a second policy control network element (PCF2, fig 11) in response (s1107, fig 11) (see paragraphs 112-120 for description of these steps).
However, Hong is explicitly silent as to several features recited in claims 1 and 13, including the first policy control network element receiving first information from the application function by, and deciding a mobility management policy from that first information. Hong also explicitly lacks the first indication information indicating a condition for sending the information about the second policy control network element.
It is the examiner’s belief that these collective deficiencies constitute a non-obvious inventive step over Hong. Therefor claims 1 and 13 are believed to be in condition for allowance.
Claims 2-7 and 14-20 depend on claims 1 and 13.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. US 2023/0017217 (Zhu et al.) teaches multicast or broadcast session establishment and management. US 2024/0244414 (Zhao et al.) teaches a session binding relationship processing, method and apparatus. US 2023/0065081 (Mantha et al.) teaches integration of standalone NPN and PLMN using an application function session.
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/MAZDA SABOURI/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2641
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