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 .
Response to Amendment
Acknowledgement is made that no amendments were made to Claims 1-12 presented herein.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see pages 5-8 of Remarks, filed 18 June 2026, with respect to the rejection of claims 1-12 under 35 U.S.C. 103(a) have been fully considered and are persuasive. Applicants explicitly argue that 3GPP1 and 3PP3 do not teach wherein the PDU establishment request includes at least one indication of a multicast flow and at least one indication of a unicast flow. Examiner agrees. Therefore, the rejection has been withdrawn. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of newly discovered reference(s) below.
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.
Claims 1-12 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over 3GPP1 ("3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Services and System Aspects; Study on system enhancement for Proximity based Services (ProSe) in the 5G System (5GS) (Release 17) " cited in IDS, and in further view of Zong et al. (US 2022/0338088) (hereinafter as Zong).
Regarding Claim 1, 3GPP1 teaches a method implemented by a primary wireless transmit receive unit WTRU (page 130, fig. 6.40.1-1, UE-to-Network Relay), the method
comprising:
sending a PDU session establishment request (Fig. 6.40.2.1-1, step C. PDU Session Establishment) to establish a single, shared PDU session for the primary WTRU and one or more other WTRUs (Fig. 6.40.2.1-1, Remote UE), wherein the indicated multicast flow and the indicated unicast flow are associated with the single, shared PDU session (only PDU is created for the group communication, all the UEs necessarily use the same PDU, called "Shared Relay PDU", see fig. 6.40.1-1); and receiving a PDU session establishment response establishing the single, shared PDU session with the one or more other WTRUs (Fig. 6.40.2.1-1, step 8. Remote UE Authorization Accept).
3GPP1 further teaches a multicast flow session PDU types, see page 36, Editor's note: "Support of non-unicast mode communication (i.e. one-to-many communication/broadcast or multicast) between network and UE-to-Network Relay UE and between UE-to-Network Relay and Remote UE(s) depends on the result of FS_5MBS work" The unicast type of flow sessions is the default type of session).
3GPP1 does not teach wherein the PDU establishment request includes at least one indication of a multicast flow and at least one indication of a unicast flow.
However, Zong teaches a communication method and apparatus including
wherein the PDU establishment request includes at least one indication of a multicast flow and at least one indication of a unicast flow (the identifier of the multicast QoS flow and an identifier of the unicast QoS flow, abstract, pars [0007-0009] and [0054] and [0059]).
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 teachings of 3GPP1 with Zong to identify both unicast and multicast flows. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to combine the teachings of 3GPP1/Kong to improve access network elements with different capabilities and improve reliability.
Regarding Claim 2. The combined teachings of 3GPP1/Zong teach the method of claim 1 further comprising receiving an indication of the one or more other WTRUs from a discovery function (pages 31-32 of 3GPP1 discloses that the UEs that are interested in performing group communication for the requested application respond to the request by sending a Discovery Response message which includes an Application ID and Application Layer User ID).
Regarding Claim 3. The combined teachings of 3GPP1/Zong teach the method of claim 1, further comprising receiving information for a plurality of WTRUs, and selecting the one or more other WTRUs from the plurality of WTRUs based on the information (3GPP1: section 6.18.2.2 “Procedure for ProSe Discovery”).
Regarding Claim 4. The combined teachings of 3GPP1/Zong teach the method of claim 1, further comprising receiving data from one or more delivery networks, wherein the delivery network is an edge system, a cloud system, or a local access system source of data (3GPP1: fig. 6.4.2.1-1 “Application Server” of 3GPP1).
Regarding Claim 5. The combined teachings of 3GPP1/Kong teach the method of claim 1, wherein the one or more other WTRUs and the primary WTRU have a common PDU session ID (the terminal device may join an MBS session through the PDU session, par [0072]).
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 teachings of 3GPP1 with Zong to identify both unicast and multicast flows. One of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention would have been motivated to combine the teachings of 3GPP1/Kong to improve access network elements with different capabilities and improve reliability.
Regarding Claim 6. The combined teachings of 3GPP1/Zong teach the method of claim 1, wherein a multi-broadcast announcement precedes the PDU session establishment request (3GPP1: fig. 6.4.2.1-1, “discovery request”).
Regarding Claims 7-12, these device claims comprise limitations substantially the same, as those discussed in claims 1-6 above, same rationale of rejection is applicable. 3GPP1/Zong further teach and/or discuss a processor operatively coupled to a transceiver (UEs in 3GPP1).
Conclusion
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/ANTHONY MEJIA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2451
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