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 .
Preliminary Amendment Acknowledgement
The Preliminary Amendment filed on 08/18/2025 has been acknowledged and considered.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1, 4-5, 9, 12 and 16-22 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Shen (Pub. No. US 2025/0113240).
Regarding claim 1. (Currently Amended) Shen teaches a method performed by a consumer network exposure function (NEF) in a wireless communication system (Shen, the Abstract), the method comprising:
receiving, from an application function (AF), a first message requesting an event subscription for a network slice (Shen, Fig. 1, pp [53]: S21 request for an event of subscription associated with a network slice);
transmitting, to a network slice access control function (NSACF), a second message requesting the event subscription for the network slice (Shen, Fig. 6, pp [160]-[161], [164]: S61, a second request is sent to NSACF); and
receiving, from the NSACF in response to the second message, event reporting information including information on a number of user equipments (UEs) along with at least one of a protocol data unit (PDU) session or a packet data network (PDN) connection (Shen, pp [48]-[51]: the NSACF receives a number of UEs and with a number of PDU sessions), wherein the first message and the second message include an event identifier and a single-network selection assistance information (S-NSSAI) as an event filter parameter (Shen, pp [48], [124], [287]: the first and second subscribe requests include an event identifier).
Regarding claim 5. (Currently Amended) Shen teaches a method performed by a network slice access control function (NSACF) in a wireless communication system (Shen, the Abstract), the method comprising:
receiving, from a network exposure function (NEF), a second message requesting an event subscription for a network slice, wherein the second message is associated with a first message that is transmitted to the NEF from an application function (AF), requesting the event subscription for the network slice (Shen, Fig. 1, pp [53]: S21 request for an event of subscription associated with a network slice; Fig. 6, pp [160]-[161], [164]: S61, a second request is sent to NSACF); and
in response to the second message, transmitting, to the consumer NEF, event reporting information including information on a number of user equipments (UEs) along with at least one of a protocol data unit (PDU) session or a packet data network (PDN) connection (Shen, pp [48]-[51]: the NSACF receives a number of UEs and with a number of PDU sessions),
wherein the first message and the second message include an event identifier and a single-network selection assistance information (S-NSSAI) as an event filter parameter (Shen, pp [48], [124], [287]: the first and second subscribe requests include an event identifier).
Regarding claim 9. (Currently Amended) Shen teaches a consumer network exposure function (NEF) in a wireless communication system (Shen, the Abstract), the consumer NEF comprising:
a transceiver; and a controller (Shen, Fig. 1, pp [41]), operably coupled with the transceiver and configured to:
receive, from an application function (AF), a first message requesting an event subscription for a network slice (Shen, Fig. 1, pp [53]: S21 request for an event of subscription associated with a network slice), transmit, to a network slice access control function (NSACF), a second message requesting the event subscription for the network slice in response to receiving, from the AF, the first message, and receive, from the NSACF in response to the second message (Shen, Fig. 6, pp [160]-[161], [164]: S61, a second request is sent to NSACF), event reporting information including information on a number of user equipments (UEs) along with at least one of a protocol data unit (PDU) session or a packet data network (PDN) connection (Shen, pp [48]-[51]: the NSACF receives a number of UEs and with a number of PDU sessions), wherein the first message and the second message include an event identifier and a single-network selection assistance information (S-NSSAI) as an event filter parameter (Shen, pp [48], [124], [287]: the first and second subscribe requests include an event identifier).
Regarding claim 20. (New) Shen teaches a method performed by a consumer network function (NF) in a wireless communication system (Shen, the Abstract, pp [55]), the method comprising:
transmitting, to a network slice access control function (NSACF), a subscription request message for a number of user equipments (UEs) (Shen, pp [48]-[51]: the NSACF receives a number of UEs and with a number of PDU sessions; Fig. 6, pp [160]-[161], [164]: S61, a second request is sent to NSACF);
receiving, from the NSACF, information on the number of UEs with at least one of a PDU session or a PDN connection (Shen, Fig. 6, pp [160]-[161], [164]: S61, a second request is sent to NSACF); and
configuring network quota based on the information on the number of UEs (Shen, pp [238], [241]: the NSACF determines the number of currently registered UEs is greater or equal to a threshold for trigger the event reporting of network slice associated with access types to the NEF).
Regarding claim 4. (Currently Amended) Shen teaches the method of claim 1, further comprising:
transmitting, to the AF, the event reporting information including an event identifier and information indicating a satisfaction of the event (Shen, pp [73], [75], [95]-[96], [106], [124]).
Regarding claim 12. (Currently Amended) Shen teaches the consumer NEF of claim 9, wherein the controller is further configured to:
transmit, to the AF, the event reporting information including an event identifier and information indicating a satisfaction of the event (Shen, pp [73], [75], [95]-[96], [106], [124]).
Regarding claim 16. (New) Shen teaches the method of claim 1, wherein in case that multiple NSACFs are associated with the S-NSSAI, the event reporting information further includes information associated with periodic reporting (Shen, Fig. 10, pp [242], [244], [247], [253]: event report in periodic or interval reporting fashion).
Regarding claim 17. (New) Shen teaches the method of The method of wherein the event reporting information further includes information associated with the number of active UEs (Shen, pp [48]-[49], [237]-[238]: current access UEs report information).
Regarding claim 18. (New) Shen teaches the method of claim 5, further comprising:
receiving information associated with periodic reporting in case that the S-NSSAI is associated with multiple NSACFs (Shen, Fig. 10, pp [242], [244], [247], [253]: event report in periodic or interval reporting fashion).
Regarding claim 19. (New) Shen teaches the method of claim 5, wherein the event reporting information further includes information associated with the number of active UEs (Shen, pp [48]-[49], [237]-[238]: current access UEs report information).
Regarding claim 21. (New) Shen teaches the NEF of claim 9, wherein in case that multiple NSACFs are associated with the S-NSSAI, the event reporting information further includes information associated with periodic reporting (Shen, Fig. 10, pp [242], [244], [247], [253]: event report in periodic or interval reporting fashion).
Regarding claim 22. (New) Shen teaches the NEF of claim 9, wherein the event reporting information further includes information associated with the number of active UEs (Shen, pp [48]-[49], [237]-[238]: current access UEs report information).
Related reference(s) but is/are not used in the rejection
Zhu et al. (Pub. No. US 2024/0031930), teaches a network slice admission control method comprising a UE sends a registration request message, the registration request message carrying identification information of a network slice that the UE requests to access. When a quantity of UEs that access a network slice subject to admission control in the network slice that the UE requests to access is greater than or equal to a first threshold, the AMF sends a registration accept message that carries identification information of a first network slice that is allowed to access the first network slice. When the quantity of UEs that access the network slice subject to admission control in the network slice that the UE requests to access is greater than or equal to the first threshold, it can be ensured that the UE can successfully register with and access the network slice.
The terminal device may request to access one network slice, or at least two network slices, for example, two or three network slices. The first threshold is used for measuring whether the terminal device is further allowed to access the network slice subject to admission control in the network slice that the terminal device requests to access, when there are two or more network slices subject to admission control in the network slice that the terminal device requests to access, whether first thresholds corresponding to the two or more network slices are the same is not limited in this embodiment of this application. If network slices subject to admission control in the network slice that the terminal device requests to access are a network slice 1 and a network slice 2, a first threshold used for measuring the network slice 1 may be different from a first threshold used for measuring the network slice 2.
The network slice subject to admission control in the network slice that the terminal device requests to access includes a second network slice. That a quantity of terminal devices that access the second network slice is greater than or equal to the first threshold may also be understood as follows: A quantity of terminal devices that have currently accessed the second network slice is greater than or equal to the first threshold, a quantity of terminal devices that have accessed the second network slice exceeds a quota a new terminal device cannot be allowed to access the second network slice, or a quantity of terminal devices that have accessed the second network slice reaches a maximum quantity (the first threshold) of terminal devices that are allowed to access the second network slice. Because the quantity of terminal devices that access the second network slice is greater than or equal to the first threshold, the terminal device cannot access the second network slice.
If a quantity of terminal devices that have accessed the network slice subject to admission control in the network slice that the terminal device requests to access exceeds a quota, the terminal device cannot access the network slice. Consequently, registration of the terminal device is unsuccessful. However, in this embodiment of this application, even if the quantity of terminal devices that access the network slice subject to admission control in the network slice that the terminal device requests exceeds the quota, there is still a network slice, for example, the first network slice, that the terminal device is allowed to access. Therefore, the registration of the terminal device is successful, and it can be ensured that the terminal device can perform service communication and the like in time via the first network slice.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to HUY C HO whose telephone number is (571)270-1108. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 8AM-5PM.
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/HUY C HO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2644