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 .
Response to Amendment
The Amendment filed 04/02/2026 has been entered. Claims 1, 3-6, 10 and 29 have been amended. Claims 1-10 and 12 remain pending in the application.
Response to Arguments
Applicant’s arguments with respect to claims 1-10 and 29 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.
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.
Claims 1-10 and 29 are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Lei et al. (US 20250234402 A1) in view of Shen et al. (US 20260059426 A1).
Regarding claim 1, Lei teaches a remote terminal device (communication device 1600 of Fig. 16 executing method of Fig. 10) comprising:
at least one processor (processing module 1602); and at least one memory storing instructions that, when executed by the at least one processor, cause the remote terminal device at least to (the communication device 1600 may further include a storage module (not shown in FIG. 16 ), which stores a program or instruction (When the processing module 1602 executes the program or instruction, the communication device 1600 may perform the functions of the remote UE, [0490]):
select, based on a policy a relay selection code (RSC) from a plurality of RSCs (remote UE obtains a ProSe parameter from the PCF. The ProSe parameter may include a ProSe communication-related parameter, for example, a ProSe communication-related RSD, in a URSP. The ProSe parameter further includes a ProSe policy, [0193]-[0194]),
an RSC of the plurality of RSCs being associated with an indicator for indicating whether the RSC supports a control plane (CP) security procedure or a user plane (UP) security procedure (The ProSe policy may indicate a mechanism (denoted as a PC5 connection mechanism) for establishing the PC5 connection and the foregoing access mechanism. For example, the ProSe policy may include a relay service code (RSC), and the RSC may indicate the PC5 connection mechanism and the access mechanism, [0149], RSC 1 or RSC 2 of Fig. 7),
wherein the source CP-based or UP-based security is determined based on whether a CP security indicator is associated with the source RSC (The remote UE may select the three RSCs-UP in the six received RSCs based on the priority of the RSC-UP higher than the priority of the RSC-CP, and further select a first received RSC-UP, for example, the RSC-UP of the relay UE 1, in the three RSCs-UP to use, or may select any one of the three RSCs-UP to use, [0243]),
wherein the target CP-based or UP-based security is determined based on whether a CP security indicator is associated with the plurality of RSCs target RSC (when the relay connection needs to be switched, the remote UE may establish the relay connection by preferentially using, by default, the PC5 connection mechanism used before the relay connection switching, [0199]); and
select, for the path switching, a target relay terminal device based on the target RSC (The remote UE determines, based on the priority information of the relay service identifier, that the relay connection needs to be established to the second relay UE by using the first PC5 connection mechanism, [0237]).
However, Lei does not teach select, based on determining that path switching from a source RSC associated with source CP-based or UP-based security is triggered, a target RSC from the plurality of RSCs that is associated with target CP-based or UP-based security matching the source CP-based or UP-based security.
In an analogous art, Shen teaches select, based on determining that path switching from a source RSC (receiving a notification message indicating a change in the area of interest where the UE is located, transmitted by a second network device, [0077]), associated with source CP-based or UP-based security is triggered a target RSC from the plurality of RSCs (UE receives the information of the recommended U2N relay and locally saves the information of the recommended U2N relay, such that the UE may refer to the information of the recommended U2N relay to select the target U2N relay when needing to use the relay service, [0158]; 5G ProSe UE-to-network relay discovery parameters may, for example, include user information ID, relay service codes, a UE-to-network relay indicator, and/or a control plane security indicator, [0183]) that is associated with target CP-based or UP-based security matching the source CP-based or UP-based security (If the discovery parameters include the control plane security indicator and are provided for the particular RSC, it indicates that a security mode configured for discovery between the remote UE and the U2N relay is a security mode based on a control plane (CP), [0183]).
Therefore, it would have been obvious to one of ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to have modified the RSC selection of Lei with the relay selection of Shen to provide remote terminal to select a target U2N relay with higher communication quality and higher stability to provide a relay service as suggested, Shen [0057].
Regarding claim 2, Lei as modified by Shen teaches the remote terminal device of claim 1, wherein the remote terminal device is caused to select a target relay terminal device based on the target RSC by: selecting the target relay terminal device with the target RSC that is the same as the source RSC (when the relay connection needs to be switched, the remote UE may establish the relay connection by preferentially using, by default, the PC5 connection mechanism used before the relay connection switching, [0199]).
Regarding claim 3, Lei as modified by Shen teaches the remote terminal device of claim 2, wherein the remote terminal device is further caused to:
determine the plurality of RSCs (The remote UE may select the three RSCs-UP in the six received RSCs based on the priority of the RSC-UP higher than the priority of the RSC-CP, and further select a first received RSC-UP, for example, the RSC-UP of the relay UE 1, in the three RSCs-UP to use, or may select any one of the three RSCs-UP to use, [0243]);
obtain the plurality of indicators whether a control plane security indicator is associated with that RSC (remote UE obtains third indication information from the PCF, [0261]); and
determine, based on the source RSC and whether a control plane security indicator is associated with that RSC the plurality of indicators, whether the source RSC and the plurality of RSCs support the CP security procedure or the UP security procedure (remote UE may determine, according to the ProSe policy, the at least one PC5 connection mechanism supported by the remote UE, and determine, based on the ProSe communication-related parameter, for example, the ProSe communication-related RSD, that is in the URSP, the at least one access mechanism supported by the remote UE. The remote UE may allocate one relay service identifier to each combination of the at least one access mechanism and the at least one PC5 connection mechanism, to obtain the at least one relay service identifier, [0279]).
Regarding claim 4, Lei as modified by Shen teaches the remote terminal device of claim 1, wherein the remote terminal device is caused to select the target RSC based on the policy by: selecting one of the plurality of RSCs for which the remote terminal device has a valid root key as the target RSC (S1010: The remote UE determines, based on the priority information of the relay service identifier, that the relay connection needs to be established to the second relay UE by using the first PC5 connection mechanism, [0237]).
Regarding claim 5, Lei as modified by Shen teaches the remote terminal device of claim 4, wherein the remote terminal device is further caused to select the target RSC based on the policy by: based on determining that the source RSC supports the CP security procedure, select, as the target RSC, one of the plurality of RSCs for which the remote terminal device has the valid root key and supporting the CP security procedure (The remote UE may determine, based on the RSC-UP and the RSC-CP included in the at least one relay service identifier, that the six received RSCs all belong to the at least one relay service identifier, [0237]).
Regarding claim 6, Lei as modified by Shen teaches the remote terminal device of claim 4, wherein the remote terminal device is further caused to select the target RSC based on the policy by: based on determining that the source RSC supports the UP security procedure, select, as the target RSC, one of the plurality of RSCs for which the remote terminal device has the valid root key and supporting the UP security procedure (The remote UE may determine, based on the RSC-UP and the RSC-CP included in the at least one relay service identifier, that the six received RSCs all belong to the at least one relay service identifier, [0237]).
Regarding claim 7, Lei as modified by Shen teaches the remote terminal device of claim 1,wherein the remote terminal device is further caused to: generate a direct communication request (DCR) including an identity (ID) of the valid root key (The remote UE may further send a direct communication request message to the relay UE again. In this case, in the CP-based mechanism, the direct communication request message may further include the CP-PRUK ID, [0152]), the valid root key being used to generate at least one security key for establishing a security link for a direct communication between the remote terminal device and the target relay terminal device (The AUSF may directly obtain the corresponding CP-PRUK from the PAnF based on the CP-PRUK ID and the RSC of the remote UE without performing a ProSe authentication procedure again, [0152]).
Regarding claim 8, Lei as modified by Shen teaches the remote terminal device of claim 3, wherein the remote terminal device is further caused to at least one of: based on determining that the source RSC supports the CP security procedure, select, as the target RSC, one of the at least one candidate RSC supporting the CP security procedure; based on determining that the source RSC supports the UP security procedure, select, as the target RSC, one of the plurality of RSCs supporting the UP security procedure; or randomly select one of the plurality of RSCs as the target RSC (the remote UE may select any one of the plurality of relay service identifiers to use, or may select a first received relay service identifier in the plurality of relay service identifiers to use, [0241]).
Regarding claim 9, Lei as modified by Shen teaches the remote terminal device of claim 8, wherein the remote terminal device is further caused to: generate a DCR including a subscription concealed identifier (SUCI) used for triggering a proximity based services (ProSe) authentication procedure of the remote terminal device (The remote UE may send a direct communication request message to the relay UE, to initiate establishment of the PC5 connection. In the UP-based mechanism, the direct communication request message may include: a subscription concealed identifier (SUCI) of the remote UE and an RSC of the remote UE, [0151]).
Regarding claim 10, Lei as modified by Shen teaches the remote terminal device of claim 1, wherein the policy comprises at least one of: a selection order based on the CP security procedure or the UP security procedure that the source RSC and the target RSC supported; or an authentication policy to be used by the remote terminal device to determine whether to trigger a ProSe authentication procedure (the mapping relationship may indicate that the priority 1 corresponds to the RSC-UP, and the priority 2 corresponds to the RSC-CP, to be specific, indicate to establish the relay connection by preferentially using the UP-based mechanism, and establish the relay connection by using the CP-based mechanism when the UP-based mechanism cannot be used, [0222]).
Regarding claim 29, Lei as modified by Shen teaches the remote terminal device of claim 1, wherein the selection of the target RSC is further based on whether the remote terminal device has a valid proximity based services (ProSe) remote user key (PRUK) for CP or UP security modes (The UP-based mechanism is a mechanism for obtaining a relay connection key through a user plane of the network... the PKMF of the relay UE may determine the PKMF of the remote UE based on the HPLMN ID of the remote UE and the SUCI of the remote UE (where the SUCI of the remote UE may alternatively be replaced with the UP-PRUK ID), and obtain KNRP (new radio PC5, NRP) and a KNRP freshness parameter from the PKMF of the remote UE, [0154]).
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. Fu et al. (US 20240098628 A1): Various embodiments of the present disclosure provide a method for relay service code management. The method which may be performed by a user equipment comprises transmitting a message to a first network to request a relay service code. In accordance with an exemplary embodiment, the method further comprises receiving a response to the message from the first network. The response to the message may include the RSC.
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.
Any inquiry concerning this communication or earlier communications from the examiner should be directed to NICOLE M LOUIS-FILS whose telephone number is (571)270-0671. The examiner can normally be reached Monday-Friday.
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If attempts to reach the examiner by telephone are unsuccessful, the examiner’s supervisor, Charles Appiah can be reached at 571-272-7904. The fax phone number for the organization where this application or proceeding is assigned is 571-273-8300.
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/NICOLE M LOUIS-FILS/ Examiner, Art Unit 2641
/CHARLES N APPIAH/Supervisory Patent Examiner, Art Unit 2641
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