1-9DETAILED 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 .
This action is in response to the application filed on 14 November 2024.
Claims 1-20 are under examination.
Information Disclosure Statement
The information disclosure statement (IDS) submitted on 14 November 2024 and 05 June 2025. The submission is in compliance with the provisions of 37 CFR 1.97. Accordingly, the information disclosure statement is being considered by the examiner.
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
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)(2) the claimed invention was described in a patent issued under section 151, or in an application for patent published or deemed published under section 122(b), in which the patent or application, as the case may be, names another inventor and was effectively filed before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claims 1-5 and 12-15 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(2) as being anticipated by Li et al. (CN 115696408 A).
With respect to claims 1 and 12, Li teaches A RAN System comprising: a User Plane Function (UPF) module; (the service processing module of the UPF1, page 17) a Session Management Function (SMF) module; (the SMF sends the updated context information of the PDU session of the UE1 to the UPF2, page 17)
connecting a User Plane Function (UPF) to a Session Management Function (SMF) via a PFCP-UPF router (PFCP-UPF) N4 interface; (a Session Management Function (SMF) controls the UPF through the N4 interface, Page 5 background. the route instruction information is sent to a router (not shown in the figure) in the bearer network, and the route instruction information may include its N3 address, N6 address, N9 address, N4 address, etc.; and after receiving the message from the RAN, the router in the bearer network sends the message to the main UPF according to the IP address in the message, Page 14)
connecting a UPF Geographic Redundancy (GR) module (UPF-GR) to a Session Management Function (SMF) via a Packet Forwarding Control Protocol (PFCP) PFCP-UPF-GR router (PFCP-UPF-GR) N4 interface; (the disaster tolerance UPF may also use the same IP address as the main UPF, for example, the disaster tolerance UPF and the main UPF use the same N4 interface IP address, so that the disaster tolerance UPF can receive the control information that is sent by the SMF and originally should be received by the main UPF., Page 16)
connecting the UPF to a Radio via a General Packet Radio Service Tunneling Protocol (GTPv1) router (GTPv1-UPF) GTPv1 interface; (the disaster tolerance UPF may also use the same IP address as the main UPF, for example, the disaster tolerance UPF and the main UPF use the same N4 interface IP address, so that the disaster tolerance UPF can receive the control information that is sent by the SMF and originally should be received by the main UPF., Page 16)
connecting the UPF-GB to the Radio via a GTPv1 router-UPF-GR (GTPv1-UPF-GR) GTPv1 interface; (an N3 interface represents an interface between a Radio Access Network (RAN) and a User Plane Function (UPF), Page 5 description)
connecting the Radio to the GTPv1-UPF router and the GTPv1-UPF-GB router via a GTPv1-Radio Router (GTPv1-Radio); (an N3 interface represents an interface between a Radio Access Network (RAN) and a User Plane Function (UPF), Page 5 description)
connecting the SMF to the PFCP-UPF-GR router and the PFCP-UPF router via a PFCP-SMF router (PFCP-SMF); (the router obtains the routing priority information corresponding to the master UPF and the disaster recovery UPF, so that when the master UPF is normal, the router preferentially sends the message with the target IP address as the IP address to the master UPF, and when the router determines that the forwarding plane of the master UPF fails, the router can send the message with the target IP address as the IP address to the disaster recovery UPF. Optionally, the router may also determine whether the forwarding plane failure occurs in the main UPF through heartbeat detection. For example, the router may periodically generate a heartbeat detection request to the master UPF, and if a heartbeat detection response returned by the master UPF can be received, the master UPF is considered to be normal on the forwarding plane, page 15)
connecting the UPF and the UPF GR via a dedicated connection for session and state replication; (the database DB in the disaster tolerance UPF receives first indication information sent by the DB in the master UPF of the PDU conversation. In this implementation, the master UPF may send the first indication information to the disaster tolerance UPF in a DB data synchronization manner, page 6) and
maintaining the UPF-GR in a hot-standby mode so that sessions at the UPF are also replicated at the UPF-GR. (The primary UPF may be the I-UPF in the PDU session or the UPF that communicates directly with the DN in the PDU session; correspondingly, if the primary UPF is the I-UPF in the PDU session, the disaster recovery UPF is used as the standby I-UPF in the PDU session, and if the primary UPF is the UPF directly communicating with the DN in the PDU session, the disaster recovery UPF is used as the standby UPF directly communicating with the DN in the PDU session., page 11)
With respect to claims 2 and 13, Li teaches configuring the UPF and the UPF-GR to handle a same GTPv1 Interface IP Address. (forwarding plane IP addresses sent by the main UPF and the disaster tolerance UPF are the same, Page 7)
With respect to claim 3, Li teaches comprising: configuring the UPF and the UPF-GR to handle the same IP Pool from which a UE IP is allocated. (forwarding plane IP addresses sent by the main UPF and the disaster tolerance UPF are the same, Page 7)
With respect to claims 4 and 14, Li teaches further comprising: configuring the UPF so that the BGP MED values that are installed on the UPF have higher priority than the BGP MED values at the UPF-GR so that that packets routed via the GTPv1 interface and N4 interface are routed to the UPF when both the UPF and the UPF-GR are up. (where the second routing indication information includes the IP address and the priority indication information of the forwarding plane of the primary UPF. Wherein, the priority indication information is used for indicating the route priority of the disaster tolerance UPF for the IP address of the forwarding plane; and the routing priority of the IP address disaster tolerance UPF of the forwarding plane is lower than that of the main UPF. Correspondingly, when the main UPF sends the routing indication information to the router, the main UPF needs to carry priority indication information in addition to its own forwarding plane IP address, Page 15)
With respect to claims 5 and 15, Li teaches wherein UPF is configured to use anycast. (In the 1+1 master/slave mode, the master UPF and the disaster recovery UPF share one IP resource group, Page 15)
Allowable Subject Matter
Claims 6-11 and 16-20 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
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Tomici et al. (US Publication 2021/0076265 A1) discloses User equipment (UE) by means of the ISW GW is able to access the capabilities of a packet data network (PDN) through either the LTE network or TWAN. Further, the ISW GW provides for an existing communication connection between a UE and a PDN to be handed over from one of the LTE network or TWAN to the other. Still further, the ISW GW supports simultaneously maintaining two communication paths, one via the LTE network and one via the TWAN, between a UE and a packet network.
Jain et al. (US publication 2018/0206275) discloses allocating a set of Fully Qualified Tunnel Endpoint Identifiers (FQTEIDs) associated with a user equipment (UE) session during the establishment of a call for the UE at a control-plane serving gateway. A bit sequence is generating using the FQTEIDS. An access token for the UE session is generated at the control-plane serving gateway based on the access key and the FQTEIDs and by masking or encrypting the bit sequence to generate the access token. The access token for the UE session is communicated from the control-plane serving gateway to a radio node to which the UE is connected. The access token is appended at the radio node to user-plane packets for the UE session.
Any inquiry concerning this communication from the examiner should be directed to ABDULLAHI AHMED whose telephone number is (571) 270-3652. The examiner can normally be reached on M-F 8:00AM-4:30PM.
If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Khalid Kassim can be reached on 571-270-3370. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/ABDULLAHI AHMED/Examiner, Art Unit 2475
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