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 .
Examiner’s Note on Restriction
Based on Examiner’s request to choose one of three claim groups, Applicant has elected group I, claims 1-10, confirmed by a phone call by Attorney on file Mr. Phillip G Ammar on August 3, 2026. As such, claims 1-10 are pending for examination. Claims 11-20 are canceled.
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)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-3 and 10 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by ZHU et al. (WO 2021093062 A1, hereinafter Zhu)
Regarding Claim 1, Zhu teaches
receiving
(Zhu (Page 4, Detailed description 1. Technical problem #1, para 3) Requests from any SMF of same SMF Set shall be regarded as equivalent, e.g. the SMF Deregistration Request from any SMF within the same SMF set of the SMF in the SMF Registration Context shall be treated as legitimate by the UDM to de-register the SMF Registration Context from the UDM.)
releasing
(Zhu [Page 11, line 9] 18. The H-SMF1 release the resources of the MA-PDU session, and sends PDU Session Release Response to the UE.)
Regarding Claim 2, Zhu teaches
wherein the at least one resource comprises at least one of: PDU session resource, session management (SM) context, SM policy association, or N4 user plane (UP) resource.
(Zhu [Page 11, line 8] 17. The UDM sends SMF Deregistration response to the H-SMF1.
18. The H-SMF1 release the resources of the MA-PDU session, and sends PDU Session Release Response to the UE.)
(Note: Examiner is required to find one out of several limitation in the claim. Examiner has elaborated one and that is considered to be sufficient.)
Regarding Claim 3, Zhu teaches
skipping
(Zhu [Page 4, last line 2] a first registration request from a first session management function (SMF1) to register a first context of a protocol data unit (PDU) session of a wireless device, wherein the registration request identifies a first set of session management functions that includes SMF1; storing a record for the first context of the PDU session)
Regarding Claim 10, Zhu teaches
wherein the deregistration notification comprises Nudm_UECM_DeregistrationNotification.
(Zhu [page 12, B4] After release resources of the PDU session, the SMF2 sends SMF Deregistration request to the UDM, by invoking Nudm_UECM_Deregistration (PDU Session ID, SMF Instance ID, SMF Set ID))
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 4-5 and 7-9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ZHU et al. (WO 2021093062 A1, hereinafter Zhu) in view of Kim et al. (US 20210250788 A1, hereinafter Kim)
Regarding Claim 4, Zhu teaches all of Claim 3 but fails to teach
wherein the access and mobility node comprises access and mobility function (AMF).
However, in a similar endeavor, Kim teaches
wherein the access and mobility node comprises access and mobility function (AMF).
(Kim [0018, line 5] The CPF node includes an access and mobility management function (AMF) and a session management function (SMF))
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Zhu and by incorporating Kim for the system to have the node responsible for controlling how the UE connects to the network and moves between coverage areas is the AMF — the central control plane function for access and mobility in 5G.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled the system to have efficient operation.
Regarding Claim 5, Zhu teaches all of Claim 1 but fails to teach
sending
However, in a similar endeavor, Kim teaches
sending
(Kim [0291] In order to avoid reuse of same RSN by different SMFs and provide the information for the duplicated PDU sessions, when establishing the first PDU session for redundant transmission, the SMF #1 provides the PDU session ID and the allocated RSN with the DNN to UDM. Then, when establishing the second PDU session, SMF #2 retrieves from the UDM the value of the RSN allocated by SMF #1 and the corresponding PDU session ID using the associated DNN. Therefore, the SMF #2 can determine different RSN for disjoint paths and also indicate to the NG-RAN the information for the duplicated PDU sessions (i.e., PDU session pair ID))
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Zhu and by incorporating Kim for the system to have session release due to duplicated PDU session.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled the system to be able to release stale PDU session in a wrong SMF while a new correct SMF has already taken over. This improves efficient and uninterrupted connectivity.
Regarding Claim 7, Zhu teaches all of Claim 1 but fails to teach
sending
However, in a similar endeavor, Kim teaches
sending
(Kim [0291] In order to avoid reuse of same RSN by different SMFs and provide the information for the duplicated PDU sessions, when establishing the first PDU session for redundant transmission, the SMF #1 provides the PDU session ID and the allocated RSN with the DNN to UDM.
[0295] Step 3) SMF #1 tries to retrieve the Session Management Subscription data using Nudm_SDM_Get (SUPI, Session Management Subscription data, DNN, S-NSSAI, DNN pair) and subscribes to be notified when this subscription data is modified using Nudm_SDM_Subscribe (SUPI, Session Management Subscription data, DNN, S-NSSAI, DNN pair))
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Zhu and by incorporating Kim to have the deregistration notification during a duplicated PDU session.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled efficient acquisition and transmission.
Regarding Claim 8, Zhu teaches all of Claim 1 but fails to teach
wherein the first session management node comprises a session management function (SMF) or home SMF.
However, in a similar endeavor, Kim teaches
wherein the first session management node comprises a session management function (SMF) or home SMF.
(Kim [0018] The illustrated control plane function (CPF) node performs the entirety or part of a mobility management entity (MME) function of 4G mobile communication and the entirety or part of a control plane function of an S-serving gateway (SG) and PDN gateway (P-GW). The CPF node includes an access and mobility management function (AMF) and a session management function (SMF))
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Zhu and by incorporating Kim to have session management noted to perform session management function.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled node ensures session setup, modification, and release, allocates IP addresses, selects the user-plane path, and enforces QoS and policy rules.
Regarding Claim 9, Zhu teaches all of Claim 1 but fails to teach
wherein the data management node comprises a unified data management (UDM).
However, in a similar endeavor, Kim teaches
wherein the data management node comprises a unified data management (UDM).
(Kim [0022] The illustrated unified data management (UDM) is a type of a server which manages subscriber information, such as a home subscriber server (HSS) of 4G mobile communication.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Zhu and by incorporating Kim to have the data management node to be performing the function of UDM.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled the node to act as a centralized management of subscriber-related data across the network.
Claim 6 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over ZHU et al. (WO 2021093062 A1, hereinafter Zhu) in view of Kim et al. (US 20210250788 A1, hereinafter Kim) and in further view of YOUN et al. (EP 3920656 A1, hereinafter Youn)
Regarding Claim 6, Zhu and Kim teaches all of Claim 5 but fail to teach
wherein the second session management node comprises at least one of an intermediate session management function or a visited session management function.
Youn teaches wherein the second session management node comprises at least one of an intermediate session management function or a visited session management function.
(Youn [Page 13, line 41] When the SMF selects a new UPF acting as an I-UPF for a PDU session or when the SMF chooses to insert an I-UPF for a PDU session (which did not have an I-UPF), the SMF may transmit a N4 session establishment request to the UPF.)
(Note: One of the functions of SMF is to select the UPF(s) for a given session. Thus, one of the intermediate session management function in the claim limitation is the I-UPF in the reference.)
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the examined application to have modified Zhu and by incorporating Kim to have the second session management node to be one of a intermediate session management node.
The motivation of doing so would have enabled the system to provide localized session management when the UE connects via an access network that is different from the one served by its A-SMF, or when the UE moves into a data network locality that requires a separate user plane path.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to RANA HASSAN MAHMUD whose telephone number is (571)272-8939. The examiner can normally be reached Mon-Friday.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Kathy Wang-Hurst can be reached at 5712705371. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/RANA H MAHMUD/Examiner, Art Unit 2644
/KATHY W WANG-HURST/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2644
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