DETAILED ACTION
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 .
Application # 18/928,696 was filed on 10/28/2024.
Claims 1-20 are subject to examination.
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.
Claim(s) 1-2, 6-17 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Yao et al. U.S. Patent Publication # 2021/0289393 (hereinafter Yao) in view of Yao et al. U.S. Patent Publication # 2021/0345160 (hereinafter Yao2)
With respect to claim 1, Yao teaches an apparatus for a User Plane Function (UPF), the apparatus comprising processing circuitry to:
-decode a Quality of Service (QoS) monitoring request from a session management function (SMF) (i.e. the SMF requests the PSA UPF to perform the QoS monitoring per QoS flow per UE based on the attributes of the instance ) (Paragraph 54, 51)
-initiate per QoS flow per user equipment (UE) QoS monitoring based on the QoS monitoring request (i.e. if the QoS monitoring per QoS flow per UE is enabled, the SMF requests the PSA UPF to perform the QoS monitoring per QoS flow per UE based on the attributes of the instance )(Paragraph 54)
-generate UE measurements (Paragraph 77, 124, 133) obtained from the per QoS flow per UE QoS monitoring103 (abstract) (Paragraph 71, all the attributes particularly “qFMminimumWaitTime”, “qFMeasurementPeriod”, qFPacketDelayThreshold” etc.)(Paragraphs 72-77, 83-85, 91-101)
-provide, to a management system, a UE level measurement based on the UE measurements (claim 21 limitation “in response to at least one delay threshold…a report containing results from the QoS monitoring per QoS flow per UE)
Although Yao implicitly teaches decoding a QoS monitoring request, Yao does not explicitly state “decode” a request.
Yao2 specifically states decoding a request (i.e. decode a request from a service consumer to manage one or more 5G QOS indicators)(Paragraph 139, 190). Examiner would like to point out that decode a request from a service consumer to manage one or more 5G QOS indicators which is functionally equivalent to decoding a QoS monitoring request because in Yao2 the request is for managing hence monitoring or checking one or more 5G QoS indicators. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement Yao2’s teaching in Yao’s teaching to come up with decoding a request for QoS monitoring. The motivation for doing so would be to measure packet delays at least one of uplink and downlink communication based on QoS monitoring policy and to determine here in the memory to store the packet delay distribution.
With respect to claim 2, Yao and Yao2 teaches the apparatus of claim 1, but Yao further teaches wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to decode the QoS monitoring request during a packet data unit (PDU) Session Establishment (Paragraph 51, 76, 114) or PDU Session Modification procedure.
With respect to claim 6, Yao and Yao2 teaches the apparatus of claim 1, but Yao further teaches wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to create and encode, for transmission to a Radio Access Network (RAN) (Paragraph 18), monitoring packets in response to reception of the QoS monitoring request (claim 28, 29)
With respect to claim 7, Yao and Yao2 teaches the apparatus of claim 1, but Yao further teaches wherein the per QoS Flow per UE QoS monitoring is initiated based on a QoS monitoring policy included in Policy and Charging Control (PCC) rule provisioning from a Policy Control Function (PCF) (Paragraph 28)
With respect to claim 8, Yao and Yao2 teaches the apparatus of claim 1, but Yao2 further teaches, wherein the per QoS Flow per UE QoS monitoring is initiated based on a QFQoSMonitoringControl Managed Object Instance (MOI) from a management service producer (MnS-P) (Paragraph 69, 52, 53-54)
With respect to claim 9, Yao and Yao2 teaches the apparatus of claim 1, but Yao further teaches wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to decode a measurement collection request from a management function or the SMF (Paragraph 54, 51)
With respect to claim 10, Yao2 teaches the apparatus of claim 9, wherein the management function is co-located with the SMF or a user plane function (UPF) or is located outside both the SMF and the UPF and includes a management service producer (MnS-P) (Paragraph 133).
With respect to claim 11, Yao teaches the apparatus of claim 1, wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to record a parameter selected from a group of parameters that includes: Single Network Slice Selection Assistance Information (S-NSSAI) (Paragraph 303), 5th generation (5G) Quality of Service (QoS) Identifier (5QI) (Paragraph 48), N4 Session Identifier, and QoS Flow Identifier (QFI) (Paragraph 303)
With respect to claim 12, Yao teaches an apparatus of a session management function (SMF), the apparatus comprising processing circuitry configured to: decode a Quality of Service (QoS) request for QoS monitoring by a User Plane Function (UPF) (Paragraph 51); and in response to the QoS request, encode a QoS monitoring request for transmission to the UPF (claim 22) the QoS monitoring request indicating per QoS Flow per user equipment (UE) QoS monitoring (i.e. if the QoS monitoring per QoS flow per UE is enabled, the SMF requests the PSA UPF to perform the QoS monitoring per QoS flow per UE based on the attributes of the instance )(Paragraph 54)
Yao does not explicitly teach encode a QoS monitoring request for transmission to the UPF
Although Yao implicitly teaches decoding a QoS monitoring request, Yao does not explicitly state “decode” a request.
Yao2 specifically states decoding a request (i.e. decode a request from a service consumer to manage one or more 5G QOS indicators)(Paragraph 139, 190). Examiner would like to point out that decode a request from a service consumer to manage one or more 5G QOS indicators which is functionally equivalent to decoding a QoS monitoring request because in Yao2 the request is for managing hence monitoring or checking one or more 5G QoS indicators. It would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to implement Yao2’s teaching in Yao’s teaching to come up with decoding a request for QoS monitoring. The motivation for doing so would be to measure packet delays at least one of uplink and downlink communication based on QoS monitoring policy and to determine here in the memory to store the packet delay distribution.
With respect to claim 13, Yao and Yao2 teaches the apparatus of claim 12, but Yao2 further teaches wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to encode the QoS monitoring request for transmission to the UPF during a packet data unit (PDU) Session Establishment or PDU Session Modification procedure (Paragraph 244, 246)
With respect to claim 14, Yao and Yao2 teaches the apparatus of claim 12, but Yao2 further teaches wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to encode the QoS monitoring request for transmission to the UPF based on a QoS monitoring policy included in Policy and Charging Control (PCC) rule provisioning from a Policy Control Function (PCF) (Paragraph 37-38)
With respect to claim 15, Yao and Yao2 teaches the apparatus of claim 12, but Yao2 further teaches wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to encode the QoS monitoring request for transmission to the UPF based on a QFQoSMonitoringControl Managed Object Instance (MOI) from a management service producer (MnS-P), and the MnS-P is in a management function located inside the SMF (Paragraph 42-43, 48, 50, 172, 184)
With respect to claim 16, Yao and Yao2 teaches the apparatus of claim 12, but Yao2 further teaches wherein the processing circuitry is further configured to encode the QoS monitoring request for transmission to the UPF based on a QFQoSMonitoringControl Managed Object Instance (MOI) from a management service producer (MnS-P), and the MnS-P is in a management function located outside the SMF (Paragraph 42-43, 48, 50, 172, 184)
With respect to claim 17, it teaches same limitation as claim 1, therefore rejected under same basis.
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 3-5, 18-20 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
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure.
A). Cakulev et al. U.S. Patent Publication # 2024/0007880 which teaches about QoS monitoring activated by PCF.
B). Yao et al. U.S. Patent Publication # 2020/0359244 which teaches about QoS monitoring policy used to measure packet delays.
C). Zhu et al. U.S. Patent Publication # 2020/0293397
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DHAIRYA A. PATEL
Primary Examiner
Art Unit 2453
/DHAIRYA A PATEL/Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2453