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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This office action is in response to the amendment and remarks filed on 03/03/2026.
Claims 20-21, 24-29, 32-35, 38-41 are currently pending.
Claims 1-20, 22-23, 30-31, 36-37 are canceled.
Claims 20, 27-28, 34 are amended.
Claims 39-41 are newly added.
Claims 20-21, 24-29, 32-35, 38-41 are rejected.
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.
Claims 20, 24-28, 32-34, 38-41 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JICHEOL Lee et al (WO 2021049782 A1) in view of Zhi Wang (US 20210385724 A1).
For Claim 20, Lee discloses a method (Lee teaches, on page 4 [32], an operating method of a visited-policy control function (V-PCF) of a visited public land mobile network (PLMN) providing a policy for processing traffic of a user equipment in a wireless communication system), comprising:
receiving a first user equipment (UE) route selection policy (URSP) rule and an identifier of a visited public land mobile network (VPLMN) of a terminal device corresponding to the first URSP from a policy control network element in a home public land mobile network (PLMN)- (Lee teaches, on page 17 [119], In operation 405, the Home Policy Control Function (H-PCF) may transmit, to the V-PCF, an indicator indicating whether the transmission of the V-URSP of the V-PCF is allowed, based on the determination. Lee teaches, on page 14 [103], that the UE may identify a URSP rule included in a policy section to which a visited PLMN ID is assigned as a V-URSP);
determining to use the first URSP rule (Lee teaches, on page 9 [57], When the URSP rules are received from both the home network operator and the visited network operator, the UE may determine which rule to apply first) based on a serving public land mobile network (PLMN) of the terminal device (Lee teaches, on page 17 [114], that The UE may apply a higher order of precedence to the V-URSP than the H-URSP when selecting a policy. Lee explains on page 14 [102] that a V-URSP may denote a URSP configured by the visited PLMN), wherein the VPLMN corresponding to the first URSP rule is the same as the serving PLMN (Lee teaches, on page 8 [53], that different URSP rules may be provided for a video reproducing application (for example, Netflix) where a visited PLMN (V-PLMN) and a home PLMN (H-PLMN) are the same) and a first application (Lee teaches, on page 10 [62], that the URSP may be used to determine whether to associate traffic of an application detected by the UE with a pre-generated PDU session); and
associating the first application to an existing session or establishing a new session for the first application, according to the first URSP rule (Lee teaches, on page 10 [62], the URSP may be used to determine whether to associate traffic of an application detected by the UE with a pre-generated PDU session, offload the traffic to the non-3GPP access network outside the PDU session, or request to generate a new PDU session).
Lee fails to expressly teach determining to use the first URSP rule based on a first application.
However, Wang, in the analogous art, discloses determining to use the first URSP rule based on a first application (Wang teaches, in ¶ 0047, that after determining the URSP rule(s) for the application(s) and/or service(s) indicated in the route selection policy request, the computing device may send, to the user device 101, a message indicating the determined URSP rule(s) in step 415. Wang teaches, in ¶ 0050, that The user device 101 may determine whether the network slice and/or PDU session indicated in the URSP rule received from the computing device satisfies (e.g., meets or exceeds) the expected performance parameters associated with the application or service. If so, the user device 101 may accept the URSP rule, may indicate the acceptance to the computing device, and may apply the URSP rule).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the URSP rule taught in Lee with the application-related information taught in Wang. The motivation is so that user device 101 may accept a URSP rule that satisfies the expected performance parameters of the application.
For Claim 24, Lee discloses a method, wherein the first URSP rule comprises an identifier of the VPLMN (Lee teaches, on page 22 [155], that a H-PCF of a home PLMN may provide, to a UE, an identifier (home PLMN ID) of an operator that provided a policy together with a URSP rule).
For Claim 25, Lee discloses a method, wherein the method is performed by the terminal device or a chip in the terminal device (Lee teaches, on page 4 [32], an operating method of a visited-policy control function (V-PCF) of a visited public land mobile network (PLMN) providing a policy for processing traffic of a user equipment in a wireless communication system).
For Claim 26, Lee discloses a method, further comprising: sending, by a policy control network element, the first URSP rule (Lee teaches, on page 5 [35], transmit, to a home-PCF (H-PCF) of a home PLMN, an indicator requesting transmission or allowance of transmission of a visited-user equipment route selection policy (V-URSP) of the V-PCF; receive, from the H-PCF, an indicator indicating whether transmission of the V-URSP of the V-PCF is allowed; receive a home-URSP (H-URSP) from the H-PCF).
For Claim 27, Lee discloses a method, further comprising: sending, by the policy control network element, the first URSP rule and the identifier of the VPLMN (Lee teaches, on page 14 [103], that the UE may identify a URSP rule included in a policy section to which a visited PLMN ID is assigned as a V-URSP. In other words, the V-PCF and the H-PCF transmits the URSP by including the URSP in the UE policy container, and the UE may distinguish the URSP as the V-URSP or the H-URSP by referring to the PLMN ID or the like assigned to the policy section).
For Claim 28, please refer to the rejection of claim 20, above.
For Claims 32-33, please refer to the rejection of Claims 24-25, above.
For Claim 34, Lee discloses a system, comprising: a terminal device; and a policy control network element in a home public land mobile network (PLMN) (Lee teaches, in Fig. 7, a system comprising a UE, V-PCF, H-PCF ); wherein the terminal device is configured to:
receive a first user equipment (UE) route selection policy (URSP) rule and an identifier of a visited public land mobile network (VPLMN) of the terminal device corresponding to the first URSP from the policy control network element (Lee teaches, on page 19 [119], In operation 405, the H-PCF may transmit, to the V-PCF, an indicator indicating whether the transmission of the V-URSP of the V-PCF is allowed, based on the determination. Lee teaches, on page 16 [103], that the UE may identify a URSP rule included in a policy section to which a visited PLMN ID is assigned as a V-URSP);
determining to use the first URSP rule (Lee teaches, on page 9 [57], When the URSP rules are received from both the home network operator and the visited network operator, the UE may determine which rule to apply first) based on a serving PLMN of the terminal device (Lee teaches, on page 17 [114], that The UE may apply a higher order of precedence to the V-URSP than the H-URSP when selecting a policy. Lee explains on page 14 [102] that a V-URSP may denote a URSP configured by the visited PLMN), wherein the VPLMN corresponding to the first URSP rule is the same as the serving PLMN (Lee teaches, on page 8 [53], that different URSP rules may be provided for a video reproducing application (for example, Netflix) where a visited PLMN (V-PLMN) and a home PLMN (H-PLMN) are the same) and a first application (Lee teaches, on page 10 [62], that the URSP may be used to determine whether to associate traffic of an application detected by the UE with a pre-generated PDU session) and
associate the first application to an existing session or establishing a new session for the first application, according to the first URSP rule (Lee teaches, on page 10 [62], the URSP may be used to determine whether to associate traffic of an application detected by the UE with a pre-generated PDU session, offload the traffic to the non-3GPP access network outside the PDU session, or request to generate a new PDU session); and wherein the policy control network element is configured to send the first URSP rule and the identifier of the VPLMN to the terminal device to the terminal device (Lee teaches, on page 14 [103], that the UE may identify a URSP rule included in a policy section to which a visited PLMN ID is assigned as a V-URSP. In other words, the V-PCF and the H-PCF transmits the URSP by including the URSP in the UE policy container, and the UE may distinguish the URSP as the V-URSP or the H-URSP by referring to the PLMN ID or the like assigned to the policy section).
Lee fails to expressly teach determining to use the first URSP rule based on a first application.
However, Wang, in the analogous art, discloses determining to use the first URSP rule based on a first application (Wang teaches, in ¶ 0047, that after determining the URSP rule(s) for the application(s) and/or service(s) indicated in the route selection policy request, the computing device may send, to the user device 101, a message indicating the determined URSP rule(s) in step 415. Wang teaches, in ¶ 0050, that The user device 101 may determine whether the network slice and/or PDU session indicated in the URSP rule received from the computing device satisfies (e.g., meets or exceeds) the expected performance parameters associated with the application or service. If so, the user device 101 may accept the URSP rule, may indicate the acceptance to the computing device, and may apply the URSP rule).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the URSP rule taught in Lee with the application-related information taught in Wang. The motivation is so that user device 101 may accept a URSP rule that satisfies the expected performance parameters of the application.
For Claim 38, please refer to the rejection of Claim 24, above.
For Claim 39, Lee discloses a method, further comprising: receiving first indication information, where the first indication information indicates that the first URSP rule corresponds to the VPLMN (Lee teaches, on page 17 [119], In operation 405, the Home Policy Control Function (H-PCF) may transmit, to the V-PCF, an indicator indicating whether the transmission of the V-URSP of the V-PCF is allowed, based on the determination. Lee teaches, on page 14 [103], that the UE may identify a URSP rule included in a policy section to which a visited PLMN ID is assigned as a V-URSP).
For Claim 40, Lee discloses a method, wherein determining to use the first URSP rule based on the serving PLMN of the terminal device and the first application comprises: the serving PLMN of the terminal device being the same as the VPLMN (Lee teaches, on page 8 [52], that different URSP rules may be provided for a video reproducing application (for example, Netflix) where a visited PLMN (V-PLMN) and a home PLMN (H-PLMN) are the same), and the first URSP rule corresponding to the VPLMN (Lee teaches, on page 14 [103], that the UE may identify a URSP rule included in a policy section to which a visited PLMN ID is assigned as a V-URSP).
Lee fails to expressly teach determining to use the first URSP rule based on the first application.
However, Wang, in the analogous art, discloses determining to use the first URSP rule based on the first application (Wang teaches, in ¶ 0047, that after determining the URSP rule(s) for the application(s) and/or service(s) indicated in the route selection policy request, the computing device may send, to the user device 101, a message indicating the determined URSP rule(s) in step 415. Wang teaches, in ¶ 0050, that The user device 101 may determine whether the network slice and/or PDU session indicated in the URSP rule received from the computing device satisfies (e.g., meets or exceeds) the expected performance parameters associated with the application or service. If so, the user device 101 may accept the URSP rule, may indicate the acceptance to the computing device, and may apply the URSP rule).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the URSP rule taught in Lee with the application-related information taught in Wang. The motivation is so that user device 101 may accept a URSP rule that satisfies the expected performance parameters of the application.
For Claim 41, Lee discloses all of the claimed subject matter with the exception of determining to use the first URSP rule from at least two URSP rules based on the first application.
Lee fails to expressly teach determining to use the first URSP rule from at least two URSP rules based on the first application.
However, Wang, in the analogous art, discloses determining to use the first URSP rule from at least two URSP rules based on the first application (Wang teaches, in ¶ 0047, that after determining the URSP rule(s) for the application(s) and/or service(s) indicated in the route selection policy request, the computing device may send, to the user device 101, a message indicating the determined URSP rule(s) in step 415. The user device 101 may determine whether to accept or reject the URSP rule(s) received from the computing device based on various criteria. If the user device 101 determines to reject one or more URSP rules received from the computing device, the user device 101 may initiate URSP rule negotiations with computing device in step 417).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the URSP rule taught in Lee with the application-related information taught in Wang. The motivation is so that user device 101 may accept a URSP rule that satisfies the expected performance parameters of the application.
Claims 21, 29, 35 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over JICHEOL Lee et al (WO 2021049782 A1) in view of Zhi Wang (US 20210385724 A1) as applied to claims 20, 28 or 34 above, and further in view of Sree Ram Kodali et al (US 20220353780 A1).
For Claims 21, 29, 35, Lee & Wang disclose all of the claimed subject matter with the exception of starting the first application.
However, Kodali, in the analogous art, discloses starting the first application (Kodali teaches, in ¶ 0146, lines 1-4, Then, at some later point in time (e.g., after the UE has received URSP information), an application 1016 may launch on UE 106. The application 1016 may exchange data messages 1054 with an OS networking platform 1026 of UE 106).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the URSP rule taught in Lee & Wang with the application-related information taught in Kodali. The motivation is to route traffic according to URSP based on application connection information to one or more of DNNs [Kodali: ¶ 0146, lines 10-13].
Response to Amendments
Applicant’s amendment, filed on 03/03/2026, has also necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action.
Response to Arguments
Applicant's arguments filed on 03/03/2026 have been fully considered but they are not persuasive. Examiner will respond in the rebuttal that follows:
Claim Rejection - 35 USC 103
Examiner respectfully disagrees with Applicant’s argument that the prior art is completely silent on "determining to use the first URSP rule based on a serving PLMN of the terminal device and a first application," as recited in amended claim 20 (see remarks, page 7 of 8).
The reason being Lee teaches, on page 17 [119], In operation 405, the Home Policy Control Function (H-PCF) may transmit, to the V-PCF, an indicator indicating whether the transmission of the V-URSP of the V-PCF is allowed, based on the determination. Lee teaches, on page 14 [103], that the UE may identify a URSP rule included in a policy section to which a visited PLMN ID is assigned as a V-URSP.
Herein, Lee teaches to identify/select a URSP rule included in a policy section to which a visited PLMN ID is assigned as a V-URSP. Lee also teaches, on page 24 [175-178], The UE verifies PLMN in formation broadcasted via a system information block (SIB) of a camped network, selects a serving PLMN … When the PLMN ID successful in registration and the equivalent PLMN ID are not a home PLMNID, the UE determines a roaming situation. The registered PLMN ID and the equivalent PLMN ID are both considered as visited PLMN IDs.
Thus, the Lee reference teaches determining to use the first URSP rule based on a serving PLMN of the terminal device.
To make up of Lee’s deficiency, Examiner cites Wang for teaching, in ¶ 0047, that after determining the URSP rule(s) for the application(s) and/or service(s) indicated in the route selection policy request, the computing device may send, to the user device 101, a message indicating the determined URSP rule(s) in step 415. Wang teaches, in ¶ 0050, that The user device 101 may determine whether the network slice and/or PDU session indicated in the URSP rule received from the computing device satisfies (e.g., meets or exceeds) the expected performance parameters associated with the application or service. If so, the user device 101 may accept the URSP rule, may indicate the acceptance to the computing device, and may apply the URSP rule.
From Wang, Examiner notes that the citation teaches determining the URSP rule(s) for the application(s), and if the user device 101 accepts the URSP rule, the user device may apply the URSP rule. In other words, Wang teaches determining to use the first URSP rule based on an application.
Therefore, in combination, the applied art does disclose the features of claim 20 of "determining to use the first URSP rule based on a serving public land mobile network (PLMN) of the terminal device and a first application, wherein the VPLMN corresponding to the first URSP rule is the same as the serving PLMN".
MPEP 2145 admonishes Applicant to beware that “one cannot show nonobviousness by attacking references individually where the rejections are based on combinations of references. See In re Keller, 642 F.2d 413, 208 USPQ 871 (CCPA 1981); In re Merck & Co., 800 F.2d 1091, 231 USPQ 375 (Fed. Cir. 1986).”
For at least this reason, amended independent claim 20 is not yet patentable over the combination of art cited in the current office action.
Independent claims 28 and 34 are amended to recite features that are the same as, or similar to, the features disclosed in claim 20, above. For similar reasons as articulated above for amended claim 20, amended independent claims 28 and 34 are also not yet patentable over the combination of art cited in the current office action.
Similarly, dependent claims 21, 24-27, 29, 32-33, 35, 38-41 are also not yet patentable for depending from rejected base claims, as well as for being rejected on their own merits.
Accordingly, Examiner respectfully requests that the rejection of claims 20-21, 24-29, 32-35, 38-41, under 35 U.S.C. § 103, be maintained as proper.
In light of the above rebuttal and rejection, Examiner believes that this instant rejection should be made final.
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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) 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 mailing date of this final action.
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure: Jagannatha (US 20200187085 A1) is pertinent to a APH component, included in the UE, is capable of receiving, storing, and/or using a URSP rule, included in a URSP, associated with an application to establish a data session for the application, to route traffic associated with an application, and/or the like. In some implementations, a URSP can include a data structure (e.g., an electronic table, an electronic tree, an electronic database, an electronic file, and electronic file system, and/or the like) that includes information identifying one or more URSP rules.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to MOHAMED A KAMARA whose telephone number is (571)270-5629. The examiner can normally be reached M-F 9AM-4PM.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, CHARLES JIANG can be reached on 5712707191. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/MOHAMED A KAMARA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2412