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 .
Priority
Acknowledgment is made of applicant’s claim for provisional based on application filed on 05/06/2022.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 11/07/2024 was filed. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Allowed
Claim 32 is allowed.
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 (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.
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) 1-21 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Dubesset et al (U.S. 2016/0165432) and further in view of Gupta (U.S. 2021/0273707).
As per claims 1,13 Dubesset disclosed a method for operating a user equipment operating in a visited cellular network for which no roaming agreement exists between a home cellular network of the user equipment and the visited cellular network [ LTERoaming4All module 102 may be deployed in VPMN 108 to enable inbound roaming of subscribers of HPMN 104 equipped with LTE device 106, which may be compatible with VPMN 108 LTE frequency bands, and where HPMN 104 and VPMN 108 have no LTE roaming agreement. This enables a subscriber associated with HPMN 104 to register with VPMN 108 and enables VPMN 108 to authenticate the subscriber associated with HPMN 104. It also enables the subscriber to utilize an IP connection in the LTE access network with its HPMN 104 GGSN 122] (Paragraph. 0029), the method comprising at the user equipment:
transmitting an access request to the visited cellular network requesting access to the visited cellular network, the access request comprising an identifier indicating to originate from a user equipment for which no roaming agreement exists with the home cellular network of the user equipment [In other words, LTERoaming4All module 102 may enable inbound roaming of subscribers equipped with LTE devices 106 compatible with VPMN 108 LTE frequency bands and coming from HPMN 104, wherein VPMN 108 and HPMN 104 have no LTE roaming agreement. This may enable the subscriber from HPMN 104 to register in VPMN 108 and may enable VPMN 108 to authenticate the subscriber and its associated LTE device 106. It also enables the subscriber to establish and utilize an IP connection in the LTE access network with its HPMN GGSN 122] (Paragraph. 0034);
transmitting a session establishment request to the visited network to establish a data packet session in the visited cellular network [As depicted in FIG. 9, the SGW 112 may initiate GTP tunnel creation by sending a Create Session Request GTPv2-c message to LTERoaming4All module 102. LTERoaming4All module 102 may change the Create Session Request GTPv2-c message into a Create PDP Context Request GTPv1-c message and may send the Create PDP Context Request GTPv1-c message to the GGSN 122. Thereafter, the GGSN 122 may accept the GTP tunnel creation and may send a Create PDP Context Response GTPv1-c message back to LTERoaming4All 102. LTERoaming4All module 102 may then change the Create PDP Context Response GTPv1-c message into a Create Session Response GTPv2-c message and may send the Create Session Response GTPv2-c message back to the SGW 112. By this process, the GTP tunnel may be established and may allow user plan traffic to flow between the SGW 112 and the GGSN 122] (Paragraph. 0041);
However, Dubesset did not explicitly disclose, determining an address of a gateway providing access to the home cellular network; and establishing a connection to the gateway based on the determined address via the visited cellular network.
In the same field of endeavor Gupta disclosed As well as communicating using a cellular radio interface 220, the UE may also be configured to communicate via a Wi-Fi interface comprising a Wi-Fi host 232 and a set of Wi-Fi communication circuitry 234 configured to communicate via Wi-Fi with a Trusted Wireless Access Gateway (TWAG) 250, which belongs to a Trusted Wireless Access Network (TWAN) 252. Both the eNodeB 240 and the TWAG 250 provide the UE with access to the 3GPP EPC 270 by setting up connections with one or more of the PDN gateways 262, 264, 266, 268. All connections between the eNodeB 240 and TWAG 250 and the PDN gateways 262, 264, 266, 268 are packet data communications based on Internet Protocol. The TWAG 250 also provides the UE with the ability to form an IP based communication link with the “Non-seamless Wireless Offload” Gateway (NSWO-GW) 205, which allows packet data traffic to be offloaded from the 3GPP network to an alternative non-3GPP communication system such as a Wi-Fi communication system. A “Seamless Wireless Offload” is an offload to WLAN that offloads data from the cellular wireless network by using the TWAG 250 (non-3GPP access) instead of the eNB 240 and passes it on to an a PDN gateway of the EPC. The term non-3GPP connection refers to a PDN connection over non-3GPP access, such as Wi-Fi, although note that the connection still goes through the EPC. An NSWO connection, although it goes through a non-3GPP access such as Wi-Fi, does not go through the EPC, so is generally not referred to as a PDN connection. A first communication channel 253 connects the TWAG 250 to a default IP address in the NSWO-GW 205 and a second communication channel 207 connects the NSWO-GW 205 to a default IP address on the Internet 280. Both of the communications 207 and 253 are non-3GPP communications, which do not use the EPC. (Paragraph. 0028).
It would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing was made to have incorporated As well as communicating using a cellular radio interface 220, the UE may also be configured to communicate via a Wi-Fi interface comprising a Wi-Fi host 232 and a set of Wi-Fi communication circuitry 234 configured to communicate via Wi-Fi with a Trusted Wireless Access Gateway (TWAG) 250, which belongs to a Trusted Wireless Access Network (TWAN) 252. Both the eNodeB 240 and the TWAG 250 provide the UE with access to the 3GPP EPC 270 by setting up connections with one or more of the PDN gateways 262, 264, 266, 268. All connections between the eNodeB 240 and TWAG 250 and the PDN gateways 262, 264, 266, 268 are packet data communications based on Internet Protocol. The TWAG 250 also provides the UE with the ability to form an IP based communication link with the “Non-seamless Wireless Offload” Gateway (NSWO-GW) 205, which allows packet data traffic to be offloaded from the 3GPP network to an alternative non-3GPP communication system such as a Wi-Fi communication system. A “Seamless Wireless Offload” is an offload to WLAN that offloads data from the cellular wireless network by using the TWAG 250 (non-3GPP access) instead of the eNB 240 and passes it on to an a PDN gateway of the EPC. The term non-3GPP connection refers to a PDN connection over non-3GPP access, such as Wi-Fi, although note that the connection still goes through the EPC. An NSWO connection, although it goes through a non-3GPP access such as Wi-Fi, does not go through the EPC, so is generally not referred to as a PDN connection. A first communication channel 253 connects the TWAG 250 to a default IP address in the NSWO-GW 205 and a second communication channel 207 connects the NSWO-GW 205 to a default IP address on the Internet 280. Both of the communications 207 and 253 are non-3GPP communications, which do not use the EPC as taught by Gupta in the method and system of Dubesset to improve the availability of the internet.
2. As per claims 2,14 Dubesset-Gupta disclosed wherein transmitting the access request comprises transmitting a first access request requesting access to a radio part of the visited cellular network and a second request requesting registration of the user equipment in the visited cellular network, each of the first and second access request comprising the identifier (Dubesset, Paragraph. 0033).
3. As per claims 3,15 Dubesset-Gupta disclosed wherein the second access request requests the visited network to inform the user equipment of an access point in the visited cellular network to be used by the user equipment for the connection to the gateway (Dubesset, Paragraph. 0028).
4. As per claims 4,16 Dubesset-Gupta disclosed wherein determining the address of the gateway comprises at least one of the following:
retrieving the address from a memory or SIM of the user equipment;
retrieving the address from a domain name server;
retrieving the address from a signaling message received from the visited cellular network (Dubesset, Paragraph. 0033-0035).
5. As per claims 5,17 Dubesset-Gupta disclosed further comprising:
determining a presence of a first condition that neither the home cellular network is available nor a further network for which the roaming agreement exists between the home cellular network and the further cellular network; and
determining a second condition that the visited cellular network is supporting access for a user equipment for which no roaming agreement exists, wherein the access request is transmitted to the visited cellular network when it is determined that at least one of the first and second condition is presently fulfilled (Dubesset, Paragraph. 0033-0035).
6. As per claims 6,18 Dubesset-Gupta disclosed wherein the second condition is determined based on a broadcast message received from the visited network, the broadcast message including a service identifier indicating that the visited cellular network is supporting a service providing access of not authenticated user equipment (Dubesset, Paragraph. 0039).
7. As per claims 7,19 Dubesset-Gupta disclosed further comprising selecting a radio cell of the visited cellular network for an access to the radio part of the visited cellular network based on a service identifier from the visited cellular network indicating that the visited cellular network is supporting access of mobile entities for which no roaming agreement is in place with the home cellular network of the user equipment (Dubesset, Paragraph. 0050).
8. As per claim 8 Dubesset-Gupta disclosed wherein the access request is a request for a 3GPP access to the visited cellular network (Dubesset, Paragraph. 0011).
9. As per claims 9,20 Dubesset-Gupta disclosed wherein establishing a connection to the gateway comprises establishing an authenticated and encrypted tunnel to the gateway (Gupta, Paragraph. 0028). Claims 9,20 have the same motivation as claim 1.
10. As per claims 10,21 Dubesset-Gupta disclosed wherein when the connection to the gateway has been set up, starting a register procedure with the home cellular network (Gupta, Paragraph. 0028).Claims 10,21 have the same motivation as claim 1.
Conclusion
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/ADNAN M MIRZA/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 3667
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