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 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 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.
Claim(s) 1, 4, 5 and 8-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over 3GPP; TSG SA; Procedures for the 5G System (5GS); Stage 2 (Release 18), 3GPP TS 23.502 V18.2.0., June 29, 2023 (hereinafter 3GPP) in view of WO 2023131896 A1 (CENTONZA et al.) (hereinafter CENTONZA).
In re claims 1 and 5, 3GPP discloses a method performed by a user equipment (UE) in a wireless communication system (Page 83, lines 42-43, “If the UE Configuration Update procedure requires the UE to initiate a Registration procedure, the AMF indicates this to the UE explicitly”), the UE comprising: a transceiver; and at least one processor configured to: transmit, to an access and mobility management function (AMF), information indicating that the UE supports network slice replacement feature (Page 86, line 39, “If the UE indicated a support for the Network Slice Replacement feature in the 5GMM Core Network Capability”); and in case that there is a protocol data unit (PDU) session associated with a single network slice selection assistance information (S-NSSAI) that needs to be replaced (Page 86, lines 40-41, “and the AMF determines that an S-NSSAI from an Allowed NSSAI is to be replaced with an Alternative S-NSSAI”), receive, from the AMF, a mapping of the S-NSSAI to an alternative S-NSSAI (Page 86, lines 42-43, “the AMF includes the Mapping of Alternative NSSAI within the UE Configuration Update Command to the UE”), wherein, in case that the S-NSSAI is replaced by the alternative S-NSSAI, the PDU session is associated with both of the S-NSSAI and the alternative S-NSSAI (Page 158, lines 5-8, “For the AMF initiated the PDU Session Modification Procedure in step 1h due to network slice replacement, and if the SMF determines that the PDU Session is to be retained, the SMF includes the Alternative S-NSSAI in the PDU Session Modification Command to the UE and a cause value indicating that the S-NSSAI of the PDU Session is replaced with the Alternative S-NSSAI”).
3GPP does not explicitly disclose the UE comprising: a transceiver; and at least one processor.
CENTONZA discloses the UE comprising: a transceiver (Fig. 11, [0153], “The communication interface 1112 may include one or more transceivers used to communicate, such as by communicating with one or more remote transceivers of another device capable of wireless communication (e.g., another UE or a network node in an access network)”); and at least one processor (Fig. 11: 1102, [0148], “The processing circuitry 1102 is configured to process instructions and data and may be configured to implement any sequential state machine operative to execute instructions stored as machine-readable computer programs in the memory 1110”).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of 3GPP with CENTONZA to provide techniques to enable interworking between different networks, for example, 5GS network slicing and EPC (e.g., support for 4G) connectivity such that, for example, existing packet data unit (PDU) sessions are maintained and not dropped when a user equipment (UE) that uses network slices moves between a 5G network and a 4G network. The advantage of doing so is to improve service continuity.
In re claims 4 and 8, the combination discloses the method of claim 1 and the UE of claim 5, wherein 3GPP discloses wherein a registration response message or a UE configuration update message includes the mapping which is transmitted to the UE (Page 86, lines 39-42, “If the UE indicated a support for the Network Slice Replacement feature in the 5GMM Core Network Capability and the AMF determines that an S-NSSAJ from an Allowed NSSAI is to be replaced with an Alternative S-NSSAI....the AMF includes the Mapping Of Alternative NSSAI within the UE Configuration Update Command to the UE”).
In re claims 9 and 13, 3GPP discloses a method performed by an access and mobility management function (AMF) in a wireless communication system (Page 85, lines 44-46, “If the AMF also includes in the UE Configuration Update Command message a new Configured NSSAI for the Serving PLMN, then the AMF should also include a new Allowed NSSAI with, if available, the associated Mapping of Allowed NSSAI”), the AMF comprising: a transceiver; and at least one processor configured to: receive, from a user equipment (UE), information indicating that the UE supports network slice replacement feature (Page 86, line 39, “If the UE indicated a support for the Network Slice Replacement feature in the 5GMM Core Network Capability”); in case that single network slice selection assistance information (S-NSSAI) becomes unavailable or congested, determine that the S-NSSAI is to be replaced with an alternative S-NSSAI (Page 167, lines 40-41, “the Network Slice instance is congested or not available as described in clause 5.15.5.3 of TS 23.50[ [2]”. Page 86, lines 40-41, “and the AMF determines that an S-NSSAI from an Allowed NSSAI is to be replaced with an Alternative S-NSSAI”); and in case that there is a protocol data unit (PDU) session associated with the S-NSSAI that needs to be replaced, transmit, to the UE, a mapping of the S-NSSAI to the alternative S-NSSAI (Page 86, lines 42-43, “the AMF includes the Mapping of Alternative NSSAI within the UE Configuration Update Command to the UE”), wherein the mapping of the S-NSSAI to the alternative S-NSSAI is stored in UE context in the AMF (Page 104, lines 30-32, “If the UE is registered but the S-NSSAI is not in the Mapping of Allowed NSSAI, the AMF removes any status it may have kept of the corresponding S-NSSAI subject to Network Slice-Specific Authentication and Authorization in the UE context” (discloses implicitly that mapping of allowed NSSAI is stored in the UE context in AMF)).
3GPP does not explicitly disclose the AMF comprising: a transceiver; and at least one processor.
CENTONZA discloses the AMF comprising: a transceiver (Fig. 12:1212, [0165], “In some embodiments, the processing circuitry 1202 includes one or more of radio frequency (RF) transceiver circuitry 1212 and baseband processing circuitry 1214”); and at least one processor (Fig. 12:1202, [0164], “The processing circuitry 1202 may comprise a combination of one or more of a microprocessor, controller...”). CENTONZA also discloses wherein the mapping of the S-NSSAI to the alternative S-NSSAI is stored in UE context in the AMF ([0125], “In some embodiments, the network policy provides that the target NSSAI should be stored as part of a user equipment, UE, context for the wireless device”).
It would have been obvious for one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of 3GPP with CENTONZA to provide techniques to enable interworking between different networks, for example, 5GS network slicing and EPC (e.g., support for 4G) connectivity such that, for example, existing packet data unit (PDU) sessions are maintained and not dropped when a user equipment (UE) that uses network slices moves between a 5G network and a 4G network. The advantage of doing so is to improve service continuity.
In re claims 10 and 14, the combination discloses the method of claim 9 and the AMF of claim 13, wherein 3GPP discloses the method further comprising: identifying whether there is an established PDU session associated with the alternative S-NSSAI for the S-NSSAI being available again or not congested anymore; in case that there is the established PDU session associated with the alternative S-NSSAI for the S-NSSAI being available again or not congested anymore, identifying to cause the established PDU session to be transferred to the S-NSSAI; and transmitting, to a session management function (SMF), a PDU session update message to transfer the PDU session to the S-NSSAI (Page 129, lines 14-19, “If the AMF determined to replace the S-NSSAI received from the UE with an Alternative S-NSSAI and the AMF selected the SMF based on the Alternative S-NSSAI in step 2, the AMF sends both the S-NSSAI value of the Alternative S-NSSAI and the S-NSSAI value of the S-NSSAI received from the UE to the SMF”. Page 95, lines 20-24, “For each of the PDU sessions in the N2 UE Context Release Complete, the AMF invokes Nsmf _ PDUSession_ UpdateSMContext Request (PDU Session ID, PDU Session Deactivation, Cause, Operation Type, User Location Information, Age of Location Information, N2 SM Information”).
In re claims 11 and 15, the combination discloses the method of claim 9 and the AMF of claim 13, wherein 3GPP discloses wherein the alternative S-NSSAI is determined based on at least one of information from a network slice selection function (NSSF), information from a policy control function (PCF), information from an operations, administration and maintenance (OAM), or local configuration (Page 86, lines 16-20, “If the UE is needed to be redirected to the dedicated frequency band(s) for S-NSSAI(s), the AMF may determine a Target NSSAI...The AMF may determine RFSP index associated to the Target NSSAI by interacting with the PCF using Npcf_AMPolicyControl_Update which includes the Target NSSAI to retrieve a corresponding RFSP index”).
In re claim 12, the combination discloses the method of claim 9, wherein 3GPP discloses wherein a registration response message or a UE configuration update message includes the mapping which is transmitted to the UE (Page 86, lines 39-42, “If the UE indicated a support for the Network Slice Replacement feature in the 5GMM Core Network Capability and the AMF determines that an S-NSSAJ from an Allowed NSSAI is to be replaced with an Alternative S-NSSAI....the AMF includes the Mapping Of Alternative NSSAI within the UE Configuration Update Command to the UE”).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 2, 3, 6 and 7 are objected to as being dependent upon a rejected base claim, but would be allowable if rewritten in independent form including all of the limitations of the base claim and any intervening claims.
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/SWATI JAIN/Examiner, Art Unit 2649 /YUWEN PAN/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2649
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