DETAILED ACTION
The present application, filed on or after March 16, 2013, is being examined under the first inventor to file provisions of the America Invents Act (AIA ).
Response and Claim Status
The instant Office action is responsive to the interview conducted June 18, 2026 (the Interview) and the response received July 7, 2026 (the Response).
In response to the Interview and the Response, the previous (1) objection to the abstract under 37 C.F.R. § 1.72(b); (2) invoking of 35 U.S.C. § 112(f); (3) rejection of claims 1–10 and 21–28 under 35 U.S.C. § 112(b); (4) rejection of claims 15 and 16 under 35 U.S.C. § 102; and (5) rejection of claims 1, 4–10, 21, and 24–28 under 35 U.S.C. § 103
are WITHDRAWN.
Claims 1–10, 15, 16, and 21–28 are currently pending.
Drawings1
37 C.F.R. § 1.84(p)(3) recites “Numbers, letters, and reference characters must measure at least .32 cm. (1/8 inch) in height.” See MPEP § 608.02.
The drawings are objected to under 37 C.F.R. § 1.84(p)(3) for failing to include letters measuring at least .32 cm. (1/8 inch) in height. See Figs. 3–6.
37 C.F.R. § 1.84(t) recites “These [numbering of sheets of drawings], if present, must be placed in the middle of the top of the sheet, but not in the margin. . . . The drawing sheet numbering must be clear and larger than the numbers used as reference characters to avoid confusion.” See MPEP § 608.02.
The drawings are objected to under 37 C.F.R. § 1.84(t) for failing to include the numbering of sheets of drawings (1) in the middle of the top of the sheet, but not in the margin and (2) larger than the numbers used as reference characters to avoid confusion.
Corrected drawing sheets in compliance with 37 C.F.R. § 1.121(d) are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. Applicants are advised to employ the services of a competent patent draftsperson outside the Office, as the USPTO does not prepare new drawings. The corrected drawings are required in reply to the Office action to avoid abandonment of the application. The requirement for corrected drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Any amended replacement drawing sheet should include all of the figures appearing on the immediate prior version of the sheet, even if only one figure is being amended. The figure or figure number of an amended drawing should not be labeled as “amended.” If a drawing figure is to be canceled, the appropriate figure must be removed from the replacement sheet, and where necessary, the remaining figures must be renumbered and appropriate changes made to the brief description of the several views of the drawings for consistency. Additional replacement sheets may be necessary to show the renumbering of the remaining figures. Each drawing sheet submitted after the filing date of an application must be labeled in the top margin as either “Replacement Sheet” or “New Sheet” pursuant to 37 C.F.R. § 1.121(d). If the changes are not accepted by the Examiner, Applicants will be notified and informed of any required corrective action in the next Office action. The objection to the drawings will not be held in abeyance.
Claim Rejections – 35 U.S.C. § 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 15 and 16 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. § 103 as being obvious over Castellanos Zamora et al. (WO 2021/094109 A1; filed Oct. 30, 2020) in view of Zaus et al. (US 2020/0344606 A1; filed Apr. 24, 2020).
Regarding claim 15, while Castellanos Zamora teaches a network equipment (NE) (fig. 2, item 600) for wireless communication (intended use in italics; see MPEP § 2111.02), comprising:
at least one memory (fig. 6, item 605 of item 600; “Figure 6 is a block diagram illustrating an authentication server function (AUSF) node” at ¶ 18);
at least one processor (fig. 6, item 603) coupled with the at least one memory and configured to cause the NE to:
receive an authentication request (“Nudm_UEAuthentication_ReAuthentication Notification” at fig. 2; ¶ 46) from unified data management (UDM) (fig. 2, item 700) to initiate reauthentication (intended use in italics), the authentication request comprising one or more of a subscription permanent identifier (SUPI) or an indication (Nudm_UEAuthentication_ReAuthentication Notification at fig. 2 indicates reauthentication is required; ¶ 46) that reauthentication is required, wherein the authentication request is triggered based on detecting a need to initiate a signaling procedure (“In operation 200, the processing circuitry 703 may detect a trigger to initiate an authentication/re-authentication request for the communication device. For example, the processing circuitry 703 may detect the need to initiate a signalling procedure towards the AMF 500 or communication device 400.” at ¶ 44; fig. 2, item 200); and
transmit an acknowledgement (ACK) (fig. 2, item 206; ¶ 52) to the UDM in response to receiving the authentication response,
Castellanos Zamora does not teach the detecting the need to initiate the signaling procedure being at least one of a steering of roaming (SoR) counter wrap around, an indication that the SoR counter is about to wrap around, a user equipment (UE) parameter update (UPU) counter wrap around, or an indication that the UPU counter is about to wrap around.
Zaus teaches at least one of a steering of roaming (SoR) counter wrap around, an indication that the SoR counter is about to wrap around (“the CounterSoR associated with the KAUSF of the UE is about to wrap around” at ¶ 205), a user equipment (UE) parameter update (UPU) counter wrap around, or an indication that the UPU counter is about to wrap around.
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the filing date of the invention for Castellanos Zamora’s detecting the need to initiate the signaling procedure to be at least one of a steering of roaming (SoR) counter wrap around, an indication that the SoR counter is about to wrap around, a user equipment (UE) parameter update (UPU) counter wrap around, or an indication that the UPU counter is about to wrap around as taught by Zaus to provide “a process for a re-authentication of user equipment (UE).” Zaus ¶ 10.
Regarding claim 16, Castellanos Zamora discloses wherein the ACK indicates one of an authentication success or an authentication failure (“the result of the primary authentication procedure (successful or unsuccessful)” at ¶ 52).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 1–10 and 21–28 allowed.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to Applicants’ disclosure: GB-2365687-A.
Applicants’ amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicants are reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a).
A shortened statutory period for reply to this final action is set to expire THREE MONTHS from the mailing date of this action. In the event a first reply is filed within TWO MONTHS of the mailing date of this final action and the advisory action is not mailed until after the end of the THREE-MONTH shortened statutory period, then the shortened statutory period will expire on the date the advisory action is mailed, and any extension fee pursuant to 37 C.F.R. § 1.136(a) will be calculated from the mailing date of the advisory action. In no event, however, will the statutory period for reply expire later than SIX MONTHS from the mailing date of this final action.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the Examiner should be directed to DAVID P. ZARKA whose telephone number is (703) 756-5746. The Examiner can normally be reached Monday–Friday from 9:30AM–6PM ET.
If attempts to reach the Examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the Examiner’s supervisor, Vivek Srivastava, can be reached at (571) 272-7304. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is (571) 273-8300.
Information regarding the status of an application may be obtained from the Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR) system. Status information for published applications may be obtained from either Private PAIR or Public PAIR. Status information for unpublished applications is available through Private PAIR only. For more information about the PAIR system, see http://portal.uspto.gov/external/portal. Should you have questions about access to the Private PAIR system, contact the Electronic Business Center (EBC) at (866) 217-9197 (toll-free).
Examiner interviews are available via telephone, in-person, and video conferencing using a USPTO supplied web-based collaboration tool. To schedule an interview, Applicants are encouraged to use the USPTO Automated Interview Request (AIR) at http://www.uspto.gov/interviewpractice.
/DAVID P ZARKA/PATENT EXAMINER, Art Unit 2449
1 The Examiner notes although “Applicants submits herewith a complete set of drawing replacement sheets,” the Examiner is unable to find such replacement sheets in the response received July 7, 2026. Thus, the drawing objects are maintained.
Prosecution Insights