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 .
Claim Objections
Claims 1-2, 5, 7, 10 are objected to because of the following informalities:
For claim 1:
At line 4, expand acronym “NAS” and enclose the acronym by parenthesis.
At line 7, expand acronym “PLMN” and enclose the acronym by parenthesis.
For claim 2:
At line 3, expand acronym “EPC” and enclose the acronym by parenthesis.
At line 3, expand acronym “5GCN” and enclose the acronym by parenthesis.
For claim 5:
At line 5, expand acronym “NAS” and enclose the acronym by parenthesis.
For claim 7:
At line 2, expand acronym “E-UTRA” and enclose the acronym by parenthesis.
At line 3, expand acronym “EPC” and enclose the acronym by parenthesis.
At line 3, expand acronym “5GCN” and enclose the acronym by parenthesis.
For claim 10:
At line 7, expand acronym “NAS” and enclose the acronym by parenthesis.
At line 10, expand acronym “PLMN” and enclose the acronym by parenthesis.
Appropriate correction is required.
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 of this title, 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 1-2, 5-7, 10-11, 14-16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kumar et al. (US Patent Application Publication No. 2021/0051466) in view of Youn et al. (US Patent Application Publication No. 2023/0239828).
Regarding claim 1, Kumar teaches a method for operating a user equipment (UE) (Fig. 2A), comprising:
monitoring an operation of the UE (UE tracking operation of the UE [Paragraph 40]); and
allowing the UE to establish a new [(the UE is then initiating a NAS registration for emergency procedures during an attempt to connect to high level PLMN [Paragraphs 10, 15, 48-49, 54, 56-58, 63]).
However, Kumar does not explicitly mention: N1 [NAS].
Youn teaches, in a similar field of endeavor of endeavor of communication systems, the following:
N1 [NAS] (for the disclosed system, N1 NAS interface is being established while connecting into a PLMN; hence, a person having ordinary skills in the art would recognize that the interface in Kumar would be also a N1 NAS as here in Youn [Paragraphs 207, 248, 294]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the communication system (as taught by Kumar) by implementing N1 NAS (as taught by Youn) for the purpose of enabling proper communication (Youn – Paragraph 6).
Regarding claim 2, Youn further teaches method according to claim 1, further comprising: allowing the UE to attempt to select an E-UTRA cell ([Paragraph 29]) connected to EPC or 5GCN ([Paragraphs 7, 208, 264]), in case of the emergency services fallback procedure fails ([Paragraph 174, 262]).
Regarding claim 5, Kumar teaches a method for operating a user equipment (UE) (Fig. 2A), comprising:
monitoring an operation of the UE (UE tracking operation of the UE [Paragraph 40]); and
controlling a receipt of a steering of roaming information not to trigger a release of a [(SOR is controlled for not releasing NAS when registration for emergency procedure has been started [Paragraphs 10, 15, 39-40, 46, 48-49, 54, 56-58, 63, 78, 80, 87, 115, 132]).
However, Kumar does not explicitly mention: N1 [NAS].
Youn teaches, in a similar field of endeavor of endeavor of communication systems, the following:
N1 [NAS] (for the disclosed system, N1 NAS interface is being established while connecting into a PLMN; hence, a person having ordinary skills in the art would recognize that the interface in Kumar would be also a N1 NAS as here in Youn [Paragraphs 207, 248, 294]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the communication system (as taught by Kumar) by implementing N1 NAS (as taught by Youn) for the purpose of enabling proper communication (Youn – Paragraph 6).
Regarding claim 6, Kumar further teaches the method according to claim 5, further comprising: controlling an expiry of a timer not to trigger a release of a N1 NAS signalling connection, if the UE has initiated the registration procedure to perform the emergency services fallback procedure ([Paragraphs 50, 82-83, 85-86]).
Regarding claim 7, Youn further teaches the method according to claim 5, further comprising: allowing the UE to attempt to select an E-UTRA cell ([Paragraph 29]) connected to EPC or 5GCN ([Paragraphs 7, 208, 264]), if the UE has initiated the registration procedure to perform the emergency services fallback procedure ([Paragraph 174, 262]).
Regarding claims 10-11, 14-16, these claims are rejected as applied to claims 1-2, 5-7.
Claims 3-4, 8-9, 12-13, 17-18 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kumar et al. (US Patent Application Publication No. 2021/0051466) in view of Youn et al. (US Patent Application Publication No. 2023/0239828) and further in view of Bakker (US Patent Application Publication No. 2022/0279411).
Regarding claim 3, the combination of Kumar and Youn teaches all the limitations recited in claim 1.
However, the combination of Kumar and Youn does not explicitly mention: allowing the UE to inform upper layers for a failure of the emergency services fallback procedure, in case of the emergency services fallback procedure fails.
Bakker teaches, in a similar field of endeavor of endeavor of communication systems, the following:
allowing the UE to inform upper layers for a failure of the emergency services fallback procedure, in case of the emergency services fallback procedure fails (for the disclosed system, UE informs upper layers about failure in the emergency procedure when it fails [Paragraphs 35-36, 47-48, 50, 58, 94-95]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the communication system (as taught by Kumar) by implementing N1 NAS (as taught by Youn) by informing upper layer (as taught by Bakker) for the purpose of identifying priorities in the calls (Bakker – Paragraph 3).
Regarding claim 4, the combination of Kumar and Youn teaches all the limitations recited in claim 1.
However, the combination of Kumar and Youn does not explicitly mention: allowing the UE to de-register locally and perform an emergency registration procedure, in case of the emergency services fallback procedure fails.
Bakker teaches, in a similar field of endeavor of endeavor of communication systems, the following:
allowing the UE to de-register locally and perform an emergency registration procedure, in case of the emergency services fallback procedure fails (for the disclosed system, UE deregisters when fallback fails [Paragraphs 51, 59, 141, 167, 194]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the communication system (as taught by Kumar) by implementing N1 NAS (as taught by Youn) by informing upper layer (as taught by Bakker) for the purpose of identifying priorities in the calls (Bakker – Paragraph 3).
Regarding claim 8, the combination of Kumar and Youn teaches all the limitations recited in claim 5.
However, the combination of Kumar and Youn does not explicitly mention: allowing the UE to inform upper layers for a failure of the emergency services fallback procedure, if the UE has initiated the registration procedure to perform the emergency services fallback procedure.
Bakker teaches, in a similar field of endeavor of endeavor of communication systems, the following:
allowing the UE to inform upper layers for a failure of the emergency services fallback procedure, if the UE has initiated the registration procedure to perform the emergency services fallback procedure (for the disclosed system, UE informs upper layers about failure in the emergency procedure when it fails [Paragraphs 35-36, 47-48, 50, 58, 94-95]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the communication system (as taught by Kumar) by implementing N1 NAS (as taught by Youn) by informing upper layer (as taught by Bakker) for the purpose of identifying priorities in the calls (Bakker – Paragraph 3).
Regarding claim 9, the combination of Kumar and Youn teaches all the limitations recited in claim 5.
However, the combination of Kumar and Youn does not explicitly mention: allowing the UE to de-register locally and perform an emergency registration procedure, if the UE has initiated the registration procedure to perform the emergency services fallback procedure.
Bakker teaches, in a similar field of endeavor of endeavor of communication systems, the following:
allowing the UE to de-register locally and perform an emergency registration procedure, if the UE has initiated the registration procedure to perform the emergency services fallback procedure (for the disclosed system, UE deregisters when fallback fails [Paragraphs 51, 59, 141, 167, 194]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to a person having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to modify the communication system (as taught by Kumar) by implementing N1 NAS (as taught by Youn) by informing upper layer (as taught by Bakker) for the purpose of identifying priorities in the calls (Bakker – Paragraph 3).
Regarding claims 12-13, 17-18, these claims are rejected as applied to claims 3-4, 8-9.
Conclusion
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August 20, 2026
/FABRICIO R MURILLO GARCIA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2633
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