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 .
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 (i.e., changing from AIA to pre-AIA ) 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.
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.
This application currently names joint inventors. In considering patentability of the claims the examiner presumes that the subject matter of the various claims was commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the claimed invention(s) absent any evidence to the contrary. Applicant is advised of the obligation under 37 CFR 1.56 to point out the inventor and effective filing dates of each claim that was not commonly owned as of the effective filing date of the later invention in order for the examiner to consider the applicability of 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(2)(C) for any potential 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) prior art against the later invention.
Claims 17-23 and 26-31 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Silveris (WO 2020/139178)in view of Xu et al. (US 2018/0007591). For dependent claims herein, the motivation to combine is the same as the parent claim unless otherwise noted.
Regarding claim 17, Silveris discloses a method performed by a core network node (fig. 3a, MME) in a wireless communication network, the method comprising: receiving a message from a network node (fig. 3a, eNB) in the wireless communication network (fig. 3a, Initial UE Message; page 2, lines 7-10); and sending, to the network node, a message comprising masked International Mobile station Equipment Identity and Software Version Number (IMEISV) information for a user equipment (UE) (fig. 3a, Initial Context Setup Request; note: masked IMEIVS included; page 2, lines 7-10). However, Silveris fails to disclose the messages are transmitted via control plane (CP) signaling. Xu discloses this feature (para. 29 and 59; note: non-access stratum for transmitting signaling). Therefore, it would have been obvious to one skilled in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to transmit messages via control plane signaling in the invention of Silveris. The motivation to have the modification and/or well-known benefits of the modification include, but are not limited to, communicating wireless signaling as standardized as is well known in the art (Wu, paras. 29 and 59; MPEP 2143(I)(A)(B)(C)(D) - note: e.g., applying known techniques having predictable results).
Regarding claim 18, Silveris in view of Xu teaches and makes obvious the method according to claim 17, wherein the core network node is a Mobility Management Entity (MME) node (Silveris, fig. 3a)
Regarding claim 19, Silveris in view of Xu teaches and makes obvious the method according to claim 17, wherein the message comprising masked IMEISV information for the UE is one of the following: UE INFORMATION TRANSFER (Silveris, fig. 3a);
Regarding claims 20-22, these limitations are rejected on the same ground as claims 17-19, respectively, from the perspective of the network node. In addition, Silveris discloses
Regarding claim 23, Silveris in view of Xu teaches and makes obvious the method according to claim 20, wherein the determined characteristics of the UE comprise specific feature support status of the UE indicated by the masked IMEISV information (Silveris, fig. 3a and fig. 4; page 2, lines 7-30; note: various features for the UE such as WCDMA IRAT handover).
Regarding claims 26-28, these limitations are rejected on the same ground as claims 17-19, respectively. In addition, Silveris discloses a core network node (fig. 3a) configured for operation in a wireless communication network, the core network node comprising (page 25, lines 25-30 and page 26, lines 7-19): one or more processors; and memory operably coupled to the one or more processors and storing executable program code that, when executed by the one or more processors, configures the network node to perform the method of claims 17-19.
Regarding claims 29-31, these limitations are rejected on the same ground as claims 20 and 22-23, respectively. In addition, Silveris discloses a network node (fig. 3a) configured for operation in a wireless communication network, the network node comprising (page 25, lines 14-16 and page 26, lines 7-19): one or more processors; and memory operably coupled to the one or more processors and storing executable program code that, when executed by the one or more processors, configures the network node to perform the method of claims 20 and 22-23.
Claim 25 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Silveris in view of Xu as applied to claim 17 above, and further in view of Kolekar et al. (US 2021/0021994).
Regarding claim 25, Silveris in view of Xu teaches and makes obvious an IoT device (Silveris, page 32, lines 1-9) but fails to teach and make obvious the method according to claim 17, wherein one or more of the following applies: the UE does not support access stratum (AS) securitythe modification include, but are not limited to, providing imitated capability devices as is known in the art (Kolekar, paras. 4 and 20 MPEP 2143(I)(A)(B)(C)(D) - note: e.g., applying known techniques having predictable results).
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 24 and 32 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.
Conclusion
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/Kevin C. Harper/
Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2462
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