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 § 102
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, 2, 5, 8, 9, 11, 12, 14, 15, 18, 21, 22, 24, and 25 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being antedated by United States Patent Application Publication No.: US 2022/0386120 A1 (KIM).
As Per Claim 1: KIM teaches: A communication method, comprising:
- obtaining, by an authentication server function AUSF, information that is usable to indicate a terminal device to perform onboarding;
(KIM, Paragraph [0086], “In order to solve the above-described problems, a disclosure of the present specification provides a method of operating an Authentication Server Function (AUSF) device. The method may comprise: requesting, from a Unified Data Management (UDM) device, information on a serving Access and mobility Management Function (AMF) device for a User Equipment (UE); receiving, from the UDM device, information informing that there is no serving AMF device for the UE and an indication informing or indicating maintenance of information on a network slice-specific authentication and authorization; receiving, from the UDM device, information on a new serving AMF device for the UE; and transmitting, to the new serving AMF device, information on authentication or authorization.”.).
- determining, by the AUSF, a network slice-specific and non-public network authentication and authorization function NSSAAF based on the information that is usable to indicate the terminal device to perform the onboarding, wherein the NSSAAF is configured to perform an authentication procedure of the terminal device; and
- sending, by the AUSF, authentication request information to the NSSAAF.
(KIM, Table 1 Reference Point SGi, “Reference point between PDN GW and PDN. The PDN may be a public or private PDN external to the operator or an intra-operator PDN for e.g., provision of an IMS service. This reference point corresponds to Gi of 3GPP access.”.).
(KIM, Paragraph [0191], “1) For S-NSSAIs that are requiring network slice-specific authentication and authorization, based on change of subscription information, or triggered by the AAA server (i.e., AAA-S), the AMF may trigger the start of the network slice-specific authentication and authorization procedure.”.).
(KIM, Paragraph [0192], “If Network slice-specific authentication and authorization is triggered as a result of registration procedure, the AMF may determine, based on UE context in the AMF, that for some or all S-NSSAI(s) subject to network slice-specific authentication and authorization, the UE has already been authenticated following a registration procedure on a first access. Depending on network slice-specific authentication and authorization result being success or failure from the previous registration, the AMF may decide, based on network policies, to skip network slice-specific authentication and authorization for these S-NSSAIs during the registration on a second access.”.).
(KIM, Paragraph [0196], “4) The AMF may send the EAP identity response by including in a Nausf_NSSAA_Authenticate Request (including EAP identity response, AAA server (i.e., AAA-S) address, GPSI, S-NSSAI).”.).
(KIM, Paragraph [0124], “In the accompanying drawings, a User Equipment (UE) is illustrated by way of example, but the illustrated UE may also be referred to in terms of UE 100 (terminal), Mobile Equipment (ME), and the like. In addition, the UE may be a portable device such as a notebook computer, a mobile phone, a PDA, a smartphone, or a multimedia device or may be a non-portable device such as a PC or vehicle-mounted device.”.).
As Per Claim 2: The rejection of claim 1 is incorporated and further KIM teaches:
- the obtaining the information that is usable to indicate the terminal device to perform onboarding includes obtaining the information that is usable to indicate the terminal device to perform the onboarding is sent by a mobility management device; or
- obtaining the information that is usable to indicate the terminal device to perform the onboarding sent by the terminal device.
(KIM, Paragraph [0086], “In order to solve the above-described problems, a disclosure of the present specification provides a method of operating an Authentication Server Function (AUSF) device. The method may comprise: requesting, from a Unified Data Management (UDM) device, information on a serving Access and mobility Management Function (AMF) device for a User Equipment (UE); receiving, from the UDM device, information informing that there is no serving AMF device for the UE and an indication informing or indicating maintenance of information on a network slice-specific authentication and authorization; receiving, from the UDM device, information on a new serving AMF device for the UE; and transmitting, to the new serving AMF device, information on authentication or authorization.”.).
(KIM, Paragraph [0124], “In the accompanying drawings, a User Equipment (UE) is illustrated by way of example, but the illustrated UE may also be referred to in terms of UE 100 (terminal), Mobile Equipment (ME), and the like. In addition, the UE may be a portable device such as a notebook computer, a mobile phone, a PDA, a smartphone, or a multimedia device or may be a non-portable device such as a PC or vehicle-mounted device.”.).
As Per Claim 5: The rejection of claim 1 is incorporated and further KIM teaches:
- the method further comprises: determining, by the AUSF based on configuration information and the information that is usable to indicate the terminal device to perform the onboarding, that the terminal device performs the onboarding.
(KIM, Paragraph [0192], “If Network slice-specific authentication and authorization is triggered as a result of registration procedure, the AMF may determine, based on UE context in the AMF, that for some or all S-NSSAI(s) subject to network slice-specific authentication and authorization, the UE has already been authenticated following a registration procedure on a first access. Depending on network slice-specific authentication and authorization result being success or failure from the previous registration, the AMF may decide, based on network policies, to skip network slice-specific authentication and authorization for these S-NSSAIs during the registration on a second access.”.).
As Per Claim 8: The rejection of claim 1 is incorporated and further KIM teaches:
- the method further comprises: skipping selecting, by the AUSF, a unified data management device.
(KIM, Paragraph [0192], “If Network slice-specific authentication and authorization is triggered as a result of registration procedure, the AMF may determine, based on UE context in the AMF, that for some or all S-NSSAI(s) subject to network slice-specific authentication and authorization, the UE has already been authenticated following a registration procedure on a first access. Depending on network slice-specific authentication and authorization result being success or failure from the previous registration, the AMF may decide, based on network policies, to skip network slice-specific authentication and authorization for these S-NSSAIs during the registration on a second access.”.).
As Per Claim 9: KIM teaches: A communication method, comprising:
- receiving, by a network storage device, request information from a mobility management device, wherein the request information includes a home network identifier and/or a routing indicator that are/is of a terminal device, the request information is usable to request to discover a second authentication server function AUSF of a second network, a credential of the terminal device belongs to the second network, and the second network uses an authentication, authorization, and accounting AAA server to perform primary authentication of the terminal device; and
(KIM, Paragraph [0036], “The Unified Data Management (UDM) node as shown refers to a type of a server that manages subscriber information, such as a Home Subscriber Server (HSS) of 4th generation mobile communication. The UDM node stores and manages the subscriber information in the Unified Data Repository (UDR).”.)
(KIM, Paragraph [0191], “1) For S-NSSAIs that are requiring network slice-specific authentication and authorization, based on change of subscription information, or triggered by the AAA server (i.e., AAA-S), the AMF may trigger the start of the network slice-specific authentication and authorization procedure.”.).
(KIM, Paragraph [0192], “If Network slice-specific authentication and authorization is triggered as a result of registration procedure, the AMF may determine, based on UE context in the AMF, that for some or all S-NSSAI(s) subject to network slice-specific authentication and authorization, the UE has already been authenticated following a registration procedure on a first access. Depending on network slice-specific authentication and authorization result being success or failure from the previous registration, the AMF may decide, based on network policies, to skip network slice-specific authentication and authorization for these S-NSSAIs during the registration on a second access.”.).
- sending, by the network storage device, response information to the mobility management device, wherein the response information includes an indication that the second AUSF is not discovered, and/or the response information includes identification information and/or address information that are/is of a first AUSF, wherein
(KIM, Paragraph [0225]-[0230], “I-1. AUSF Functions
The AUSF improved by the disclosure of the present specification may receive one or more of the following information from the UDM.
i) information that there is no serving AMF for the UE
ii) Indication of whether to maintain the network slice-specific re-authentication and re-authorization execution event received from the AAA server
In the case of maintaining the network slice-specific re-authentication and re-authorization execution event, the AUSF may manage network slice-specific events of the corresponding UE.
After receiving information about the serving AMF from the UDM (it may subscribe a service to be informed by the UDM when recognizing the serving AMF in advance), the AUSF may transmit network slice-specific events of the corresponding UE to the AMF.”.).
- the first AUSF, the network storage device, and the mobility management device belong to a first network.
(KIM, Abstract, “One disclosure of the present specification provides an operating method for an authentication server function (AUSF) apparatus. The operating method comprises the steps of: requesting a unified data management (UDM) apparatus for information about a serving access and mobility management function (AMF) apparatus for user equipment (UE); receiving, from the UDM apparatus, information indicating that the serving AMF apparatus for the UE is not present and an indication indicating or instructing maintenance of information about authentication and authorization for each network slice; receiving, from the UDM apparatus, information about a new serving AMF apparatus for the UE; and transmitting, to the new serving AMF apparatus, the information about authentication or authorization.”.).
As Per Claim 11: The rejection of claim 9 is incorporated and further KIM teaches:
- discovering, by the network storage device, no second AUSF.
(KIM, Paragraph [0225]-[0230], “I-1. AUSF Functions
The AUSF improved by the disclosure of the present specification may receive one or more of the following information from the UDM.
i) information that there is no serving AMF for the UE
ii) Indication of whether to maintain the network slice-specific re-authentication and re-authorization execution event received from the AAA server
In the case of maintaining the network slice-specific re-authentication and re-authorization execution event, the AUSF may manage network slice-specific events of the corresponding UE.
After receiving information about the serving AMF from the UDM (it may subscribe a service to be informed by the UDM when recognizing the serving AMF in advance), the AUSF may transmit network slice-specific events of the corresponding UE to the AMF.”.).
As Per Claim 12: The rejection of claim 9 is incorporated and further KIM teaches:
- in response to the home network identifier and/or the routing indicator that are/is of the terminal device matching configuration information, sending the response information, wherein the configuration information includes one or more home network identifiers and/or one or more routing indicators; or
- sending, by the network storage device, the response information based on the first indication information; or
- sending, by the network storage device, the response information when the second AUSF is not discovered.
(KIM, Paragraph [0036], “The Unified Data Management (UDM) node as shown refers to a type of a server that manages subscriber information, such as a Home Subscriber Server (HSS) of 4th generation mobile communication. The UDM node stores and manages the subscriber information in the Unified Data Repository (UDR).”.)
(KIM, Paragraph [0191], “1) For S-NSSAIs that are requiring network slice-specific authentication and authorization, based on change of subscription information, or triggered by the AAA server (i.e., AAA-S), the AMF may trigger the start of the network slice-specific authentication and authorization procedure.”.).
(KIM, Paragraph [0192], “If Network slice-specific authentication and authorization is triggered as a result of registration procedure, the AMF may determine, based on UE context in the AMF, that for some or all S-NSSAI(s) subject to network slice-specific authentication and authorization, the UE has already been authenticated following a registration procedure on a first access. Depending on network slice-specific authentication and authorization result being success or failure from the previous registration, the AMF may decide, based on network policies, to skip network slice-specific authentication and authorization for these S-NSSAIs during the registration on a second access.”.).
As Per Claim 14: Claim 14 is substantially a restatement of the method of claim 1 as a communication device and is rejected under substantially the same reasoning.
As Per Claim 15: The rejection of claim 14 is incorporated and further claim 15 is substantially a restatement of the method of claim 2 as a communication device and is rejected under substantially the same reasoning.
As Per Claim 18: The rejection of claim 14 is incorporated and further claim 18 is substantially a restatement of the method of claim 5 as a communication device and is rejected under substantially the same reasoning.
As Per Claim 21: The rejection of claim 8 is incorporated and further claim 21 is substantially a restatement of the method of claim 8 as a communication device and is rejected under substantially the same reasoning.
As Per Claim 22: Claim 22 is substantially a restatement of the method of claim 9 as a communication device and is rejected under substantially the same reasoning.
As Per Claim 24: The rejection of claim 22 is incorporated and further claim 24 is substantially a restatement of the method of claim 12 as a communication device and is rejected under substantially the same reasoning.
As Per Claim 25: Claim 25 is substantially a restatement of the method of claim 1 as a non-transitory computer-readable storage medium and is rejected under substantially the same reasoning.
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.
Claim(s) 3, 4, 6, 7, 16, 17, 19, and 20 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over United States Patent Application Publication No.: US 2022/0386120 A1 (KIM) in view of United States Patent Application Publication No.: US 2021/0051468 A1 (BASKARAN et al.).
As Per Claim 3: The rejection of claim 2 is incorporated and further KIM does not explicitly teach the following limitation however BASKARAN et al. in analogous art does teach the following limitation:
- in response to the obtaining the information that that is usable to indicate the terminal device to perform the onboarding sent by the terminal device includes obtaining the information that that is usable to indicate the terminal device to perform the onboarding is a subscription concealed identifier SUCI of the terminal device.
(BASKARAN et al., Paragraph [0066], “In case of single UDM deployed in a home operator network, a random number may be assigned to a SUPI as an UDM routing/discovery/selection information and may be pre-provisioned to the UE. The corresponding UE/USIM by the core network element such as UDM/ARPF. The UE may include this random number in the SUCI in the registration request or any message to the AMF/SEAF. Then the UDM consumer such as AMF/SEAF/AUSF/SIDF may discover the single UDM based on the random number sent by the UE and UDM routing information pre-configured at the UDM consumer or using the NRF.”.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of BASKARAN et al. into the method of KIM to include standard advances to AAA systems available with the 5g standards.
As Per Claim 4: The rejection of claim 3 is incorporated and further KIM does not explicitly teach the following limitation however BASKARAN et al. in analogous art does teach the following limitation:
- the obtaining the 4. information that is usable to indicate the terminal device to perform the onboarding including a SUCI of the terminal device includes obtaining a domain name information in the SUCI that is usable to indicate a default credential domain name.
(BASKARAN et al., Paragraph [0070], “The UDM catalogue function/Information may contain the detailed information about the UDM and its instances in an Operator domain (either shared or independent) to support the discovery or selection of the right UDM or UDM instance(s).”.).
(BASKARAN et al., Paragraph [0071], “Every UDM may have an unique UDM identifier (UDM ID) specific to an Operator domain which has the control of it's UDM instances.”.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of BASKARAN et al. into the method of KIM to include standard advances to AAA systems available with the 5g standards.
As Per Claim 6: The rejection of claim 5 is incorporated and further KIM does not explicitly teach the following limitation however BASKARAN et al. in analogous art does teach the following limitation:
- the determining, by the AUSF based on the configuration information and the information that is usable to indicate the terminal device to perform the onboarding is based the configuration information including one or more pieces of domain name information, and the one or more pieces of domain name information indicate one or more default credential domain names.
(BASKARAN et al., Paragraph [0070], “The UDM catalogue function/Information may contain the detailed information about the UDM and its instances in an Operator domain (either shared or independent) to support the discovery or selection of the right UDM or UDM instance(s).”.).
(BASKARAN et al., Paragraph [0071], “Every UDM may have an unique UDM identifier (UDM ID) specific to an Operator domain which has the control of it's UDM instances.”.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of BASKARAN et al. into the method of KIM to include standard advances to AAA systems available with the 5g standards.
As Per Claim 7: The rejection of claim 3 is incorporated and further KIM does not explicitly teach the following limitation however BASKARAN et al. in analogous art does teach the following limitation:
- obtaining, by the AUSF, a subscription permanent identifier SUPI of the terminal device based on the subscription concealed identifier SUCI of the terminal device, wherein the authentication request information includes the SUPI.
(BASKARAN et al., Paragraph [0005], “1) Lack of sufficient UDM instance discovery/routing information at SUCI: As the SUbscription Concealed Identifier (SUCI) is a one-time use subscription identifier, which contains the concealed subscription identifier, e.g., MSIN, using of SUPI ranges to discover the UDM instances is not feasible. More over as the SUCI contains only the Mobile Country Code (MCC) and Mobile Network Code (MNC) in the unencrypted form it can be used only to find a single UDM and further as such it cannot be used to identify the UDM instances if the UDM has multiple UDM instances.”.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of BASKARAN et al. into the method of KIM to include standard advances to AAA systems available with the 5g standards.
As Per Claim 16: The rejection of claim 15 is incorporated and further claim 16 is substantially a restatement of the method of claim 3 as a communication device and is rejected under substantially the same reasoning.
As Per Claim 17: The rejection of claim 16 is incorporated and further claim 17 is substantially a restatement of the method of claim 4 as a communication device and is rejected under substantially the same reasoning.
As Per Claim 19: The rejection of claim 18 is incorporated and further claim 19 is substantially a restatement of the method of claim 6 as a communication device and is rejected under substantially the same reasoning.
As Per Claim 20: The rejection of claim 16 is incorporated and further KIM does not explicitly teach the following limitation however BASKARAN et al. in analogous art does teach the following limitation:
- obtain a subscription permanent identifier SUPI of the terminal device based on the subscription concealed identifier SUCI of the terminal device, wherein the authentication request information comprises the SUPI.
(BASKARAN et al., Paragraph [0152], “During a re-authentication, if the AMF/SEAF has a valid 5G-GUTI, and then if AMF/SEAF include the SUPI (the one previously received from the AUSF during an initial/primary authentication) in the 5G-Authentication Initiation Request (5G-AIR) message to re-authenticate the UE, the AMF/SEAF may also include an indicator in the 5G-AIR message whether it has a SUPI in cleartext or in a concealed form (SUCI) to notify the AUSF.”.).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to incorporate the teachings of BASKARAN et al. into the method of KIM to include standard advances to AAA systems available with the 5g standards.
Claim(s) 10, 13, and 23 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over United States Patent Application Publication No.: US 2022/0386120 A1 (KIM) in view of United States Patent Application Publication No.: US 2021/0051468 A1 (BASKARAN et al.).
As Per Claim 10: The rejection of claim 9 is incorporated and further KIM does not explicitly teach the following limitation:
- the receiving, by the storage device the request information further includes receiving first indication information, and the first indication information is usable to indicate that the first network supports an external credential and/or that the terminal device uses the external credential.
However the Examiner is giving official notice that external credentials were well known in the art and would be an obvious interchangeable variation readily implemented with expectations of success to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention. The use of using a separate servers E.g. RADIUS, TACACS+, or an Identity Provider being standard external credentials for an AAA environment.
As Per Claim 13: The rejection of claim 9 is incorporated and further KIM does not explicitly teach the following limitation:
- the first network is an SNPN and the second network is a credentials holder.
However the Examiner is giving official notice that external credentials were well known in the art and would be an obvious interchangeable variation readily implemented with expectations of success to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention. The use of using a separate servers E.g. RADIUS, TACACS+, or an Identity Provider being standard external credentials for an AAA environment.
As Per Claim 23: The rejection of claim 22 is incorporated and further KIM does not explicitly teach the following limitation:
- the request information further comprises first indication information, and the first indication information indicates that the first network supports an external credential and/or that the terminal device uses the external credential.
However the Examiner is giving official notice that external credentials were well known in the art and would be an obvious interchangeable variation readily implemented with expectations of success to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention. The use of using a separate servers E.g. RADIUS, TACACS+, or an Identity Provider being standard external credentials for an AAA environment.
Additional Prior Art
United States Patent No.: US 9,264,898 B2 (Schroeder et al.) and United States Patent Application Publication No.: US 2023/0057968 A1 (SHARMA et al.) in analogous art present additional teachings in the AAA environment.
Conclusion
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/BENJAMIN A KAPLAN/Examiner, Art Unit 2434