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 .
General Remarks
This communication is considered fully responsive to Applicant’s application filed 07/05/2024.
Application filed: 07/05/2024
PgPUB: 2025/0175507
Claims:
Claims 1-20 are pending.
Claims 1, 10 and 18-20 are independent.
Claims 21-36 are canceled.
Continuity/Priority Data:
This Application claims foreign priority to European Application No. EP22382011.9 filed 01/11/2022.
This Application is the 371 National Stage Entry of International Application No. PCT/EP2022/067161 filed 06/23/2022.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments, see Applicant’s response, filed 12/08/2025, with respect to the rejection(s) of claim(s) 1-20 under 35 U.S.C. 102 and 103 have been fully considered and are persuasive to overcome the prior rejection. However, upon further consideration, a new ground(s) of rejection is made in view of Printed Publication, “RFC 6733 – Diameter Base Protocol” to Fajardo et al. (“Fajardo”).
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 may not be obtained though the invention is not identically disclosed or described as set forth in section 102 of this title, if the differences between the subject matter sought to be patented and the prior art are such that the subject matter as a whole would have been obvious at the time the invention was made to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which said subject matter pertains. Patentability shall not be negatived by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claims 1, 7-10 and 18-20 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over International Patent Application No. WO 2020/200577 A1 to Foti et al. ("Foti") in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2017/0099202 A1 to Renzullo et al. (“Renzullo”) in further view of Printed Publication, “RFC 6733 – Diameter Base Protocol” to Fajardo et al. (“Fajardo”).
As to claim 1, Foti discloses:
a method performed by a first Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem, IMS, node for handling session initiation protocol, SIP, signalling in a communication network (p. 5 ll. 20-28 – Foti teaches ed a method in a first service based architecture, SBI, capable Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem, IMS, entity for providing information relating to a first Home Subscriber Service, HSS, instance.), the method comprising:
transmitting to a second IMS node (Fig. 3A, S-CSCF), a message related to SIP signalling for a user equipment (p. 11 ll. 19-26 – Foti teaches In step 7 of Figure 3A, the I-CSCF forwards the Register request (or other SIP message) to the S-CSCF, and includes in this case the first HSS Group ID. For example, the lCSCF may include the first HSS Group ID of the SBI capable HSS instances associated with the IMS user in an header field in SIP REGISTER and/or INVITE messages.), UE, wherein the message comprises an indication indicating a group of subscriber servers for the UE (Fig. 3A, Step 7 Register, HSS GID (i.e., group ID) of Foti). Renzullo discloses what Foti does not expressly disclose.
Renzullo discloses:
the indication comprising a Diameter Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI) that includes a group identity of the group of subscriber servers (¶0027, ¶0034, ¶0044 – Renzullo teaches use of Diameter AVPs that includes a group member field (i.e., group ID) including a plurality of URIs of Diameter nodes (i.e., subscriber servers)).
Foti and Renzullo are analogous arts because they are from the same field of endeavor with respect to Diameter.
Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate Diameter AVPs with Renzullo with IMS/SIP signaling system as discussed in Foti by adding the functionality of Renzullo to the system/method of Foti in order to address the need for transmitting Diameter peer status information (Renzullo, ¶0003).
Fajardo discloses what Foti and Renzullo do not expressly discloses.
Fajardo discloses:
a Diameter Uniform Resouces Identifier (URI) having a format that encodes a group identity (p. 45, UTF8String – Fajardo teaches The UTF8String format is derived from the OctetString Basic AVP Format. This is a human-readable string represented using the ISO/IEC IS 10646-1 character set, encoded as an OctetString using the UTF-8 transformation format. P. 54 – Fajardo discussed AVP encoding)
Foti, Renzullo and Fajardo are analogous arts because they are from the same field of endeavor with respect to Diameter.
Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate Diameter AVP encoding as discussed in Fajardo with Diameter AVPs with Renzullo with IMS/SIP signaling system as discussed in Foti by adding the functionality of Fajardo to the system/method of Foti and Renzullo in order to specify the message format, transport,
error reporting, accounting, and security services used by all
Diameter applications (Fajardo, p. 1, Abstract).
As to claim 7, Foti, Renzullo and Fajardo discloses:
method according to claim 1, and
Foti discloses:
wherein the message is related to a registering of the UE to an IMS network (Fig. 3A, Step 7 Register, HSS GID (i.e., group ID) of Foti).
As to claim 8, Foti, Renzullo and Fajardo discloses:
method according to claim 1, and
Foti discloses:
further comprising
receiving a network message from a first network node, wherein the network message indicates the group of subscriber servers comprising subscriber data of the UE (Fig. 3A, Step 7, p. 11 ll. 19-26 – Foti teaches In step 7 of Figure 3A, the I-CSCF forwards the Register request (or other SIP message) to the S-CSCF, and includes in this case the first HSS Group ID. For example, the lCSCF may include the first HSS Group ID of the SBI capable HSS instances associated with the IMS user in an header field in SIP REGISTER and/or INVITE messages.).
As to claim 9, Foti, Renzullo and Fajardo discloses:
method according to claim 8, and
Foti discloses:
wherein the network message comprises a response, to a discovery request, comprising one or more profiles of subscriber servers of the group of subscriber servers (Fig. 3A, Step 9, Foti teaches the S-CSCF fetches the registered IMPI/IMPU related subscriber information by sending to the UDM/HSS instance an Nhss_ims_SDM Get request and receiving the subscriber information profile in the corresponding response.).
As to claim 10, Foti discloses:
a method performed by a second Internet Protocol Multimedia Subsystem, IMS, node for handling session initiation protocol, SIP, signalling in a communication network, the method comprising:
receiving from a first IMS node, a message related to SIP signalling for a user equipment, UE, wherein the message comprises an indication indicating a group of subscriber servers for the UE (Fig. 3A, Step 7, p. 11 ll. 19-26 – Foti teaches In step 7 of Figure 3A, the I-CSCF forwards the Register request (or other SIP message) to the S-CSCF, and includes in this case the first HSS Group ID. For example, the lCSCF may include the first HSS Group ID of the SBI capable HSS instances associated with the IMS user in an header field in SIP REGISTER and/or INVITE messages.); and
retrieving subscriber data of the UE from a subscriber server based on the received indication (Fig. 3A, Step 9, Foti teaches the S-CSCF fetches the registered IMPI/IMPU related subscriber information by sending to the UDM/HSS instance an Nhss_ims_SDM Get request and receiving the subscriber information profile in the corresponding response.).
Renzullo discloses what Foti does not expressly disclose.
Renzullo discloses:
the indication comprising a Diameter Uniform Resource Identifiers (URI) that includes a group identity of the group of subscriber servers (¶0027, ¶0034, ¶0044 – Renzullo teaches use of Diameter AVPs that includes a group member field (i.e., group ID) including a plurality of URIs of Diameter nodes (i.e., subscriber servers)).
The suggestion/motivation and obviousness rejection as discussed in claim 1.
Fajardo discloses what Foti and Renzullo do not expressly discloses.
Fajardo discloses:
a Diameter Uniform Resouces Identifier (URI) having a format that encodes a group identity (p. 45, UTF8String – Fajardo teaches The UTF8String format is derived from the OctetString Basic AVP Format. This is a human-readable string represented using the ISO/IEC IS 10646-1 character set, encoded as an OctetString using the UTF-8 transformation format. P. 54 – Fajardo discussed AVP encoding)
The suggestion/motivation and obviousness rejection as discussed in claim 1.
As to claim 18, similar rejection as to claim 1.
As to claim 19, similar rejection as to claim 1.
As to claim 20, similar rejection as to claim 1.
Claims 2-4, 6, 11-13 and 15-17 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over International Patent Application No. WO 2020/200577 A1 to Foti et al. ("Foti") in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2017/0099202 A1 to Renzullo et al. (“Renzullo”) in further view of Printed Publication, “RFC 6733 – Diameter Base Protocol” to Fajardo et al. (“Fajardo”) in further view of Printed Publication, “Transport of HSS-GID in the HPLMN” to 3GPP (“3GPP”).
As to claim 2, Foti, Renzullo and Fajardo discloses:
method according to claim 1,
3GPP discloses what Foti, Renzullo and Fajardo does not expressly disclose.
3GPP discloses:
wherein the indication is comprised in a fully qualified domain name, FQDN, in a diameter uniform resource identifier, URI (p1. Reason for change of 3GPP).
Foti, Renzullo, Fajardo and 3GPP are analogous arts because they are from the same field of endeavor with respect to SIP and IMS.
Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate SIP header information as discussed in 3GPP with Diameter AVPs with Renzullo with IMS/SIP signaling system as discussed in Foti by adding the functionality of 3GPP to the system/method of Foti, Renzullo and Fajardo in order to add an option to send HSS group IDs within a SIP header (3GPP, p. 1, Summary of change).
As to claim 3, Foti, Renzullo and Fajardo discloses:
method according to claim 1,
3GPP discloses what Foti, Renzullo and Fajardo does not expressly disclose.
3GPP discloses:
wherein the indication comprises a token, a cookie or a format, which identifies that a diameter uniform resource identifier, URI, is not a valid URI (p1. Reason for change of 3GPP). The suggestion/motivation and obviousness rejection is the same as in claim 2.
As to claim 4, Foti, Renzullo and Fajardo discloses:
method according to claim 1,
3GPP discloses what Foti, Renzullo and Fajardo does not expressly disclose.
3GPP discloses:
wherein the indication is comprised in a P-User-Database header field (p1. Reason for change of 3GPP). The suggestion/motivation and obviousness rejection is the same as in claim 2.
As to claim 6, Foti, Renzullo and Fajardo discloses:
method according to claim 1,
3GPP discloses what Foti, Renzullo and Fajardo does not expressly disclose.
3GPP discloses:
wherein the indication is comprised in a header where the second IMS node is indicated and a uniform resource identifier, URI, parameter is appended indicating the group of subscriber servers (p1. Reason for change of 3GPP). The suggestion/motivation and obviousness rejection is the same as in claim 2.
As to claim 11, similar rejection as to claim 2.
As to claim 12, similar rejection as to claim 3.
As to claim 13, similar rejection as to claim 4.
As to claim 15, similar rejection as to claim 6.
As to claim 16, similar rejection as to claim 7.
As to claim 17, Foti, Renzullo and Fajardo discloses:
method according to claim 10,
3GPP discloses what Foti, Renzullo and Fajardo does not expressly disclose.
3GPP discloses:
wherein retrieving the subscriber data of the UE comprises detecting a format of a Diameter uniform resource identifier, URI, and fetching a group ID of home subscriber servers (p1. Reason for change of 3GPP). The suggestion/motivation and obviousness rejection is the same as in claim 2.
Claims 5 and 14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over International Patent Application No. WO 2020/200577 A1 to Foti et al. ("Foti") in view of U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2017/0099202 A1 to Renzullo et al. (“Renzullo”) in further view of Printed Publication, “RFC 6733 – Diameter Base Protocol” to Fajardo et al. (“Fajardo”) in further view of U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 2015/0120947 A1 to Guo et al. (“Guo”).
As to claim 5, Foti, Renzullo and Fajardo discloses:
method according to claim 1,
Guo discloses what Foti, Renzullo and Fajardo does not expressly disclosed.
Guo discloses:
wherein the indication is comprised in a new SIP header (¶0039 – Guo teaches use of a new SIP header).
Foti, Renzullo, Fajardo and Guo are analogous arts because they are from the same field of endeavor with respect to SIP.
Before the effective filing date, it would have been obvious to a person of ordinary skill in the art to incorporate new SIP header as discussed in Guo with Diameter AVPs with Renzullo with SIP/IMS signaling system as discussed in Foti by adding the functionality of Guo to the system/method of Foti and Renzullo in order to demonstrate usage of a new SIP header is used to send information (Guo, ¶0039).
As to claim 14, similar rejection as to claim 5.
Conclusion
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to TAYLOR A ELFERVIG whose telephone number is (571)270-5687. The examiner can normally be reached Monday (10:00 AM CST) - Friday (4:00 PM CST).
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Oscar Louie can be reached at (571) 270-1684. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/TAYLOR A ELFERVIG/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2445
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