Detailed Action
1. This Office Action is responsive to the Amendment filed 08/10/2026. Claims 1-4, 10 and 11 have been amended. Claims 1-11 are presented for examination. 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
2. 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.
3. Claims 1-6 and 10-11 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bega et al. (US 2022/0046410 A1), in view of Pateromichelakis et al. (US 2024/0323798 A1), hereinafter “Bega” and “Pateromichelakis” correspondingly.
4. As to claim 1, Bega teaches a method for determining a repartition of a set of user equipments (UEs) handled by a 5th Generation (5G) wireless communication system, the wireless communication system comprising a 5G core network (5GC) that includes a server executing a network functional entity comprising a network data analytics function (NWDAF) (Fig. 2) and/or a network exposure function (NEF), the method comprising, upon executing of the network functional entity by the 5GC server:
obtaining a grouping criterion from a requesting party (Fig. 2, [0035] and [0038]: obtaining a partition criteria (setting a partition criteria to be equal to Type Allocation Code (TAC)) from the requesting NWDAF), and
providing to the requesting party a repartition of at least part of the set of UEs into groups of UEs formed according to said grouping criterion (Fig. 2, [0035] and [0038]: The AMF may group the targeted UEs based on the partition criteria, so in this example based on TAC (i.e., as UEs with the same TAC may have similar mobility behaviour) … and send the notification regarding the selected UEs to the NWDAF via the messaging framework).
Bega does not explicitly disclose “scheduling, by the requesting party which is an application function (AF), communications with the set of UEs, the provided repartition being usable by the AF for scheduling the communications with the set of UEs”.
In an analogous art, Pateromichelakis discloses “scheduling, by the requesting party which is an application function (AF), communications with the set of UEs, the provided repartition being usable by the AF for scheduling the communications with the set of UEs” ([0087-0088]: the middleware device 712, acting as TSN AF, sends to the NW-TT 708 a transmission schedule (per device and group), datagrams per device and per group… The middleware device 712 action as a TSN AF, may provide configuration information including group identifier, UE configuration parameters (e.g., transmission schedule, transmission mode, radio interface selection), which are used by the PCF to provide updated URSP rules for each field device UE indicating the interface priority for transmission of datagrams).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Pateromichelakis and Bega to achieve the claimed invention to enable the system to dividing the UEs into smaller, scheduled partitions to flatten the signaling peak/storm and distribute the load evenly over time.
5. As to claim 2, Bega-Pateromichelakis teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the requesting party is a Time Sensitive Network application function of a wireless bridge communication system (Bega, Fig. 2 and [0017]: the requesting party is any of NWDAF, AMF, SMF and DCCF, which are core 5G network functions that enable and support Time Sensitive Networking (TSN) and Pateromichelakis, [0087-0088]: TSN AF).
6. As to claim 3, Bega-Pateromichelakis teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the grouping criterion is associated to a list of UEs provided by the requesting party and the repartition provided to the requesting party relates to a filtered set of UEs obtained by filtering the set of UEs according to the list (Bega, [0035]: setting a partition criteria to be equal to Type Allocation Code (TAC), i.e., filtering the set of UEs with the same TAC may have similar mobility behavior).
7. As to claim 4, Bega-Pateromichelakis teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the grouping criterion relates to: a mobility behavior of the UEs (Bega, [0035]: setting a partition criteria to be equal to Type Allocation Code (TAC), as UEs with the same TAC may have similar mobility behavior).
8. As to claim 5, Bega-Pateromichelakis teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the wireless communication system further comprises a radio access network (Bega, [0062]: apparatus 10 may be a RAN node, such as a base station, access point, Node B, eNB, GNB, WLAN access point, or the like, representing service consumer and/or NWDAF), the grouping criterion relates to a data flow performance through the radio access network ([0065]: a partition criteria value may be set to service or network information [such as data flow performance] related to the UEs), and the method further comprises, at the network functional entity: interrogating the radio access network upon clustering information related to the grouping criterion ([0033]: the DCCF may send a data subscription/request to the data source (e.g., NFs as AMF or SMF) adding the partition criteria parameter to inform the data source how to group the UEs), and obtaining the repartition determined based on the clustering information ([0034]: grouping the targeted UEs to create sub-populations of EU(s) based on the partition criteria).
9. As to claim 6, Bega-Pateromichelakis teaches the method of claim 5, wherein the radio access network comprises a plurality of base stations (Bega, [0062]: apparatus 10 may be a RAN node, such as a base station, access point, Node B, eNB, GNB, WLAN access point, or the like, representing service consumer and/or NWDAF), the method further comprising: per base station, determining the clustering information for said base station, and gathering, at the radio access network or at the core network component, the clustering information from each base station ([0064]: determine the data source or NFs (e.g., AMF or SMF) managing the UEs for which the analytics information is requested), and wherein the repartition is determined based on the gathered clustering information ([0033]: the DCCF may send a data subscription/request to the data source (e.g., NFs as AMF or SMF) adding the partition criteria parameter to inform the data source how to group the UEs; and [0034]: grouping the targeted UEs to create sub-populations of EU(s) based on the partition criteria).
10. As to claims 10-11, claims 10-11 are corresponding system and non-transitory computer readable medium claims that recite similar limitations as of method claim 1 and do not contain any additional limitations with respect to novelty and/or inventive steps; therefore, they are rejected under the same rationale.
11. Claims 7 and 9 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bega-Pateromichelakis, in view of Garcia Martin et al. (US 2022/0345925 A1), hereinafter “Garcia”.
12. As to claim 7, Bega-Pateromichelakis teaches the method of claim 1, wherein: the grouping criterion relates to a data flow performance through the wireless communication system (Bega, [0065]: a partition criteria value may be set to service or network information [such as data flow performance] related to the UEs), but does not explicitly disclose “upon obtaining the grouping criterion, the network functional entity triggers measurements related to said data flow performance in order to determine the repartition”.
In analogous art, Garcia discloses “upon obtaining the grouping criterion, the network functional entity triggers measurements related to said data flow performance in order to determine the repartition” (Garcia, FIG. 7 and [0070]: The receiving unit 310 is configured to receive a request for analytics reports for the plurality of UEs. The compiling unit 320 is configured to send measurement reports according to compile data for the analytics reports. The clustering unit 330 is configured to perform cluster analysis based on the compiled data, to identify a reporting group (i.e., to determine the repartition) comprising two or more UEs 100 among the plurality of UEs 100 for which data is to be consolidated).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Bega-Pateromichelakis and Garcia to achieve the claimed invention to allow the system to perform cluster analysis to identify groups of UEs that share the same analytics report and to generate consolidated analytics report for each group to reduce the number of analytics reports sent to the requesting network functions (Garcia, [0007]).
13. As to claim 9, Bega-Pateromichelakis-Garcia teaches the method of claim 1, wherein the core network component triggers measurements related to the grouping criterion in order to determine the repartition (Garcia, FIG. 7 and [0070]: The receiving unit 310 is configured to receive a request for analytics reports for the plurality of UEs. The compiling unit 320 is configured to send measurement reports according to compile data for the analytics reports. The clustering unit 330 is configured to perform cluster analysis based on the compiled data, to identify a reporting group (i.e., to determine the repartition) comprising two or more UEs 100 among the plurality of UEs 100 for which data is to be consolidated).
14. Claim 8 is rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Bega-Pateromichelakis-Garcia and further in view of Salkintzis et al. (US 2025/0056270 A1), hereinafter “Salkintzis”.
15. As to claim 8, Bega-Pateromichelakis-Garcia teaches the method of claim 7, wherein: the core network comprises a user plane function (Garcia, [0027]: the core network 30 comprises a plurality of network functions (NFs), such as User Plane Function (UPF) 35, AMF 40, SMF 45, PCF 50, etc.), but does not explicitly disclose “triggering measurements related to said data flow performance comprises requesting the user plane function to monitor a quality-of-service performance either on an existing traffic or by initiating a traffic injection”.
In an analogous art, Salkintzis discloses “triggering measurements related to said data flow performance comprises requesting the user plane function to monitor a quality-of-service performance either on an existing traffic or by initiating a traffic injection” ([0088-0091]: The SMF should be able to configure the UPF with the appropriate QoS monitoring information so that the UPF initiates the appropriate measurement procedures over all accesses of the MA PDU session and the UPF transmits reports to SMF when certain measurement conditions are met).
It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to combine the teachings of Bega-Pateromichelakis-Garcia and Salkintzis to achieve the claimed invention to provide a method for measuring the RTT without the need to use the PMF protocol and without the need to transmit additional information on the radio interface to improve the efficiency of the RTT measurement (Salkintzis, [0050]).
Response to Arguments
16. Applicant’s arguments filed 08/10/2026 have been considered but are moot because the new ground of rejection does not rely on any reference applied in the prior rejection of record for any teaching or matter specifically challenged in the argument.
17. Applicant's amendment necessitated the new ground(s) of rejection presented in this Office action. Accordingly, THIS ACTION IS MADE FINAL. See MPEP § 706.07(a). Applicant is reminded of the extension of time policy as set forth in 37 CFR 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 nonprovisional extension fee (37 CFR 1.17(a)) pursuant to 37 CFR 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.
18. The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
KIM (US 2020/0267679 A1) discloses a method performed by an access and mobility management function (AMF), comprising: receiving, from a UE, a first message including capability information related to a periodic registration timer, setting a periodic registration timer indication based on the capability information, and transmitting, to the UE, a second message including periodic registration timer indication (Abstract).
19. Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to QUANG N NGUYEN whose telephone number is (571) 272-3886.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, KAMAL B. DIVECHA, can be reached at (571) 272-5863. The fax phone number for the organization is (571) 273-8300.
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/QUANG N NGUYEN/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2453
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