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
Per Applicant’s Request for Continued Examination
Claims 1-2, 5, 7-9, 12, 14-16, 18 and 20 have been amended.
Claims 6, 13 and 19 have been canceled.
Claims 21-23 have been newly added.
Claims 1-5, 7-12, 14-18 and 20-23 are pending.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to the pending claims have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
CLAIM REJECTIONS - 35 USC § 103
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 1-5, 7-12, 14-18 and 20-23 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over NAIR et al (US 2021/0248025) in view of QIAO et al (US 2024/0349364) and ARENDS et al (US 2024/0073103).
Per claim 15, NAIR et al teach a method, comprising:
establishing, by a device, a communication session with a first Security Edge Protection Proxy ("SEPP") of a first network, and further with a second SEPP of a second network (paras 0010-11—establishing communication with a first SEPP with a first network and a second SEPP with a second network);
receiving, by the device and from one or more devices associated with the first network, criteria associated with one or more error conditions (Abstract, paras 0010-11, 0061-68—receiving SEPP element detecting error conditions, generating error and error codes for detection);
receiving, by the device, traffic from the first SEPP, wherein the traffic indicates that the second SEPP is a destination of the traffic (paras 0011, 0077, 0086-90—receiving messages from the first SEPP).
NAIR et al teach the method as applied above, and reporting the error condition associated with the message to the first or second SEPP and taking corrective actions (paras 0056-59, 0071-73) and detecting error conditions satisfied by the received messages (paras 0011, 0056, 0064-66 0083-87). Yet, NAIR et al fail to explicitly teach the limitation of “comparing, by the device, attributes of the traffic to the criteria associated with the one or more error conditions; determining, , by the device and based on the comparing, that the attributes of the traffic satisfy the criteria associated with the one or more error conditions; and outputting, by the device, to the first SEPP, and without forwarding the traffic to the second SEPP, an indication that the attributes of the traffic satisfy the criteria associated with the one or more error conditions”.
However, QIAO et al teach using subscription data and information about network conditions to determine policy rules relating to session management, triggering conditions and abnormal conditions based on differential currents exceeding the threshold (paras 0068, 0083, 0149, 0219) and using CRC parity bits to detect transmission errors, detecting logical error in messages (paras 0281, 0313, 0344). QIAO et al further teach comparing locally measured current attribute with current received from remote relay and comparing parameters of interest to determine if the threshold levels have been exceeded relating to the traffic criteria and conditions (paras 0059, 0075, 0083, 0209, 0212, 0219, 0222-224, 0397); and determining if traffic criteria and QOS requirements have been met associated with the resource mapping rules for the QOS flows, wireless device or network node configurations, traffic load, initial system set up, packet sizes, traffic characteristics (paras 0035, 0120, 0124).
ARENDS et al further teach forwarding, by the first network repository function, the query parameters to a root SEPP discovery node configured to store information about different SEPP network functions available globally or regionally and transmitting by the first network repository function information about the second SEPP network function to the first SEPP network function (paras 0017-18, 0022, 0026-0030). It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed the invention to combine the teachings of NAIR et al and QIAO et al with ARENDS et al for the purpose of comparing traffic attributes/parameters, threshold levels and criteria to determine if QOS requirements have been met while provisioning a SEPP that receives an output with of met requirements associated with QOS flows without forwarding the traffic to the second SEPP; which is well-known in the art for satisfying QOS traffic flow requirements based on the error conditions, parameters and criteria.
Claims 1 and 8 contain limitations that are substantially equivalent to the limitations of claim 15 and are therefore rejected under the same basis.
Per claim 16, NAIR et al and QIAO et al with ARENDS et al teach the method of claim 15, wherein determining that the attributes of the traffic satisfy the criteria associated with the one or more error conditions is performed by an intermediary gateway associated with the first SEPP (NAIR et al: paras 0022, 0029, 0045, 0047, 0056-57—error handling framework via serving gateway function via session management function and intermediaries between the two SEPPs; QIAO et al: paras 0035, 0120-124—QOS flows sent to an access network, AN, to apply resource mapping rules in order to meet QOS requirements; ARENDS et al: para 0021—Root SEPP discovery nodes implemented as a gateway database).
Claims 2 and 9 contain limitations that are substantially equivalent to the limitations of claim 16 and are therefore rejected under the same basis.
Per claim 3, NAIR et al and QIAO et al with ARENDS et al teach the device of claim 2, wherein the first SEPP indicates, to the second SEPP, that the intermediary gateway is associated with the first SEPP (NAIR et al: paras 0010-11, 0022, 0029, 0045, 0047, 0056-57—serving gateway function via session management function and intermediaries between the two SEPPs; ARENDS et al: Abstract, paras 0023-24).
Claim 10 contains limitations that are substantially equivalent to the limitations of claim 3 and are therefore rejected under the same basis.
Per claim 17, NAIR et al and QIAO et al with ARENDS et al teach the method of claim 16, wherein the first SEPP indicates, to the second SEPP, that the intermediary gateway is associated with the first SEPP, wherein indicating that the intermediary gateway is associated with the first SEPP includes outputting one or more messages, via an N32-C interface, to the second SEPP, wherein the one or more messages include an identifier of the intermediary gateway (ARENDS et al: paras 0018, 0026-28—first SEPP, second SEPP and N32-c interface; NAIR et al: paras 0045-56, 0072, 0075-77, 0086-90—first SEPP and second SEPP, first SEPP includes one or more messages including indicator flags via an N32 interface to the second SEPP).
Claims 4 and 11 contain limitations that are substantially equivalent to the limitations of claim 17 and are therefore rejected under the same basis.
Per claim 18, NAIR et al and QIAO et al with ARENDS et al teach the method of claim 15, wherein the communication session with the first SEPP and the second SEPP is associated with an N32-F interface, wherein the traffic, from the first SEPP includes receiving the traffic via the N32-F interface (ARENDS et al: paras 0004, 0018—traffic via N32-f interface associated with sending and receiving SEPP).
Claims 5 and 12 contain limitations that are substantially equivalent to the limitations of claim 18 and are therefore rejected under the same basis.
Per claim 20, NAIR et al and QIAO et al with ARENDS et al teach the method of claim 15, further comprising: maintaining an error reporting policy specifying that the first SEPP should be notified regarding the one or more error conditions and that the second SEPP should not be notified regarding the one or more error conditions, wherein outputting the indication that the attributes of the traffic satisfy the criteria associated with the one or more error conditions includes outputting the indication to the first SEPP without outputting, based on the error reporting policy, the indication to the second SEPP (NAIR et al: paras 0057, 0071-72, 0085, 0090—reporting on error conditions with the first SEPP of failure messages and error codes; QIAO et al: paras 0068, 0083, 0136, 0149, 0153, 0219-224, 0327-334, 0348, 0352-353—policy rules, QOS policy parameters and determination of error conditions and thresholds).
Claims 7 and 14 contain limitations that are substantially equivalent to the limitations of claim 20 and are therefore rejected under the same basis.
Per claim 21, NAIR et al and QIAO et al with ARENDS et al teach the method of claim 15, wherein the criteria associated with a particular error condition of the one or more error conditions include a threshold amount of usage associated with a particular User Equipment ("UE"), wherein the attributes of the traffic indicate an amount of usage that is greater than the threshold amount of usage associated with the particular UE, and wherein determining that the attributes of the traffic satisfy the criteria associated with the one or more error conditions includes determining that the amount of usage associated with the particular UE is greater than the threshold amount of usage included in the one or more error conditions (QIAO et al: paras 0059, 0074-75, 0083, 0212, 0222-223, 0351, 0376—collecting usage data for data analysis, a notification when a certain parameter, as measured by the NF exceeds a first threshold, usage report indicating triggering conditions and threshold events for different UE).
Claims 22-23 contain limitations that are substantially equivalent to the limitations of claim 21 and are therefore rejected under the same basis.
Conclusion
IV. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to Applicant's disclosure: SHAO (WO 2022/206462), RAJPUT et al (US 2024/0250989); SAXENA et al (US 2022/0303206); LEHTOVIRTA et al (US 2021/0014284).
V. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to KRISTIE D SHINGLES whose telephone number is (571)272-3888. The examiner can normally be reached on Monday-Thursday 10am-7pm.
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/KRISTIE D SHINGLES/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2453
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