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 .
DETAILED ACTION
This office action is responsive to election of the restriction received on 3/5/2026. The applicant elected with traverse Group I (claims 1-5 and 11-14) for examination. Applicant is requested to cancel the non-elected claims in the next communication. This restriction is made final.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 101
35 U.S.C. 101 reads as follows:
Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof, may obtain a patent therefor, subject to the conditions and requirements of this title.
Claims 1-5 and 11-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 101 because the claimed invention is directed to a judicial exception (i.e., a law of nature, a natural phenomenon, or an abstract idea) without significantly more.
Prong 2A-Prong One. The claims are directed to an abstract idea. The independent claims 1, and 11 recite the limitations including: determining at least one policy and charging control; associating the rule with a plurality or protocol data unit (PDU) sessions via identifiers; providing the rule and (in claim 11) identifying policy fragments via identifiers. These limitations describe determining, organizing and associating rules with multiple entities based on identifiers, and proving those rules. These limitations are similar to mental process of (evaluation and assignment rules) and/or certain methods of organizing human activity management of policies across multiple sessions). The claimed steps involve, collecting information (session identifiers, policy data), analyzing or organizing that information (determining applicable rules), and outputting results (providing rules or identifiers). These activities can be performed conceptually or with pen and paper and therefore fall within recognized categories of abstract ideas. Accordingly, the claims are directed to an abstract idea.
Step 2A- Prong Two. The additional elements recited in the claims such as a processor, memory, generic networking session management of protocol data unit sessions, user equipment, policy control sessions and identifiers (session ID, slice ID). These elements are recited at a high value of generality and perform well understood, routine and conventional functions. The claims do not improve the functioning of a computer or of a network, the claims do not recite a specific technical solution to a technical problem, or define a particular mechanism for implementing or distributing the policy rules. Instead, they apply the abstract idea in a generic telecommunications environment using conventional components. Therefore, the claims do not integrate the abstract idea into a practical application.
Step 2B. The claims do not include additional elements that amounts to significantly more than the abstract idea. The additional elements are generic processors and memory, standard network constructs and conventional identifiers do not represent an unconventional arrangement, a non-routine technological implementation or an improvement to computer or network functionality. The claims functions such as determining, associating, providing rules or identifiers are well understood, routine and conventional activities in network policy management. There is no indication in the claims that the policy rules or fragments are generating using new technique, or the identifiers are processed in a novel manner or the rules are distributed or applied using technically improved method. The claims simply implement the abstract idea using generic computing components performing their ordinary functions. Therefore, the claims do not amount to significantly more than the abstract idea.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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 the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-5 and 11-14 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by 5G; Policy and charging control framework for the 5G System (5GS); Stage 2 (3GPP TS 23.503 version 16.5.0 Release 16) (referred to as 3GPP and published 2020).
As to claim 1, 3GPP teaches an apparatus comprising at least one processor; and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the apparatus (see section 6.2 and 6.3.1 5G Core network architecture) at least to perform:
determining at least one policy and charging control rule, wherein the at least one policy and charging control rule applies to a plurality of protocol data unit sessions, wherein the at least one policy and charging control rule is associated with at least one indication of at least one of the plurality of protocol data unit sessions to which the at least one policy and charging control rule applies (see section 6.3.1 defines a PCC rule as “a set of information enabling the detection of a service data flow and providing parameters for policy control and /or charging control and /or other control or support, which explicitly states that the operator defines the PCC rules” and confirming the PCF apparatus performs the determining function for the plurality of PDU sessions; PCC rules may share common parameters across sessions and may share same service identifier value); and
providing the at least one policy and charging control rule (see section 6.3.1 Monitoring Key and section 6.4, PDU session related policy information).
As to claim 2, 3GPP teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the at least one indication of the at least one of the plurality of protocol data unit sessions to which the at least one policy and charging control rule applies comprises at least one of:
a protocol data unit session identifier, an identifier of a user equipment using the at least one protocol data unit session, an identifier of a policy control session, wherein the policy control session is associated with the at least one protocol data unit session, a correlation identifier assigned to at least one policy control session, wherein respective ones of the at least one policy control session are associated with the at least one protocol data unit session, an identifier of a data network name used for the at least one protocol data unit session, or an identifier of a slice used for the at least one protocol data unit session (see at least section 6.2.1.2 discloses a list SUPI (subscription Permanent Identifier), PEI (permanent Equipment identifier) of the UE, GPSI (General Public Subscription identifier) among the information provided by the SMF to the PCF as input for PCC decision-making.
As to claim 3, 3GPP discloses the apparatus of claim 2, wherein the apparatus is further caused to perform:
receiving a request to establish the policy control session associated with the at least one protocol data unit session; assigning the correlation identifier to the at least one policy control session; and providing a response to the request to establish the policy control session, wherein the response comprises, at least, the correlation identifier (see section 6.2.1.3 and 6.2.1.7, discloses that the PCF may request subscription information at PDU session establishment, PDU session modification and during the UE policy association establishment procedure, therefore establishing that the PCF receives a request to establish policy control session (The SM policy association), furthermore, at the point session establishment, the PCF assigns and provides a monitoring key to the SMF” the PCF shall request the usage report trigger and provide the necessary usage threshold(s).. The PCF shall decide if and when to activate usage monitoring to the SMF- table 6.2.2 confirms the monitoring key is the assigned correlation identifier delivered in the response to the policy control session establishment request).
As to claim 4, 3GPP discloses the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the apparatus is further caused to perform: providing the at least one policy and charging control rule within a policy control session associated with one of the at least one protocol data unit session (see section 6.4 states the PCF may provide PDU session related policy information to the SMF together with PCC rules or separately. This together with the PCC rules option reads on the scope of the claim as currently claimed).
As to 5, 3GPP discloses the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the apparatus is further caused to perform: providing the at least one policy and charging control rule within a policy control session that is not associated with the at least one protocol data unit session (see section 6.4 which states, the PCF provide PDU session related policy information tot eh SMF’ together with PCC rules or separately, the separately option reads on the claims are currently presented).
As to claim11, 3GPP discloses an apparatus comprising at least one processor; and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the apparatus at least to perform:
determining at least one policy and charging control rule, wherein the at least one policy and charging control rule comprises at least one policy fragment identifier (see section 3.1, definitions, and policy section, monitoring key, section 6.3.1 PCC rule table, defines the monitoring key as information used by the SMF and PCF for usage monitoring control purposes as a reference to a given set of service data flows or applications that are all share a common allowed usage on a per UE and DNN basis ),
wherein the at least one policy fragment identifier identifies a fragment of policy or charging information that is applicable to a plurality of protocol data unit sessions; and providing the at least one policy and charging control rule (see 6.3.1 confirms the monitoring key is a filed directly embedded within the PCC rule itself which is described as The PCF uses monitoring key to a group services that share a common allowed usage, the PCC rule comprises the monitoring key as an identifier pointing to shared policy information.
As to claim12, 3GPP discloses the apparatus of claim 11, wherein the apparatus is further caused to perform: receiving a request to establish a policy control session not associated with the plurality of protocol data unit sessions; and providing the at least one policy fragment identifier, and the fragment of policy or charging information identified with the at least one policy fragment identifier, within the policy control session not associated with the plurality of protocol data unit sessions (see section 6.1.1.2.2, which describes the BSF as storing and providing binding information whether to provide the address of a PCF for a PDU session or a PCF for UE according to the information provided by the consumer NF, which is establishing the existence of policy control sessions at eh UE level that explicitly not associated with any specific PDU session, furthermore , it discloses non-session management related functionality of the PCF, which includes access and mobility related policy control and US policy information control establishing policy control sessions with the AMF at the UE level rather than with the SMF at the PDU session level making policy control sessions not associated with specific PDU sessions).
As to claim13, the apparatus of claim 11, wherein the apparatus is further caused to perform: providing, to a database, the at least one policy fragment identifier, and the fragment of policy or charging information identified with the at least one policy fragment identifier (see section 6.2.1.3 discloses that the monitoring key and its associated usage monitoring information including volume limit, time limit, and reset period are stored in the UDR (unified data repository) as part of the policy data, data set and PDU session policy control data d, data subset, as shown in table 6.2-2The UDR s a database, the monitoring key is the policy fragment identifier, and the usage monitoring information is the fragment policy/charging information).
As to claim14, 3GPP discloses the apparatus of claim 11, wherein the fragment of policy or charging information identified with the at least one policy fragment identifier is comprised within a packet flow description extended with at least one additional content (see section 3.1 defines a packet flow description (PFD) as a set of information enabling the detection of application traffic provided by a 3rd party service provider and an application identifier as an identifier referring to a specific application detection filter, thereby establishing the PFD as a data structure that carries both detection information and an identifier referencing associated policy.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. (see attached PTO 892).
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to SARGON N NANO whose telephone number is (571)272-4007. The examiner can normally be reached 7:30 AM-3:30 PM. M.S.T..
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/SARGON N NANO/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2443
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